Google isn’t what it used to be, but the free alternatives like DuckDuckGo aren’t really that great. Given how vital a good search engine has been to make any use of the internet since the late 90s, I think it’s not unreasonable to offer quality search at a reasonable price.
I’m not aware of any paid-for search engines, and I’m not sure what they could charge for without seeming greedy. Perhaps have a free tier that limits you to so many searches per day and a paid tier with unlimited searches and another with API access or something. The key would be to have a good-better-best system that makes everyone feel they’re getting a reasonable product for what they’re paying while keeping the experience serviceable for free riders.
Email is similar. While it’s not too hard to set up a bare SMTP server, a bare SMTP server will get you absolutely nowhere because every reputable email service will flag it as spam. The hard part is making the server pass all the sniff tests that other services use. You also cannot self-host because residential ISPs block port 25, again as a spam prevention mechanism.
I pay for Proton, not because I trust them per se, indeed the more a company trumpets about how secure and anonymous they are the more suspicious I get. But I trust them more than I trust Google and that’s what matters.
You’re telling this to someone who has been on 30 years online, that little regurgitated and redundant statement of yours, was only relevant for the past 15 of those years. Services that were offered for free made it by just fine, the problem is greed, in that which you don’t care to see.
Let me spin that little statement of yours around since you want to try and sound smart, you go to buildings of grocery stores, banks .etc for free. Guess what? YOU’RE ALWAYS THE PRODUCT! So don’t just think it’s an internet-only thing. Now go touch some grass.
But you pay at grocery stores LOL. That sentiment is valid. You don’t have to be the product.
30 years and you haven’t figured out that hosting anything online costs money?
That cost is getting recovered, one way or another. I’d prefer to just pay for it, personally, rather than have my entire identity be commoditized.