There are other privacy-respecting trackers that could be used for app improvement. At the end of the day, Google profits from the data collected here, and Lemmy has a big community of users looking to avoid this. Tangentially, Google also has massive contracts with the Israeli military that have recently come under fire in the news…just another reason to use different app-improvement trackers if the goal is to truly boycott/divest, etc.
I just wiped Windows from my drive yesterday and committed to Fedora after dualbooting for 15 years…I’ve been maining Fedora for a while and always kept Windows around “just in case”, but never actually seemed to need it. This recall/AI spyware was it for me though. Gaming has been a breeze for a while on Fedora/Linux due to Steam/Proton…such a great feeling to finally be completely rid of Windows!