I quit Facebook along with most Google services, I feel much happier and more well adjusted than when I was using them. Meeting with family and friends is also much more interesting because I don't have a constant stream detailing their life.
Good luck petitioning the government to act on it... this goes double for US businesses and people who live outside the US.
Quality of life is not a binary, where you either 'have' it or not, so I don't think it makes sense to say "your quality of life DEPENDS on google or Facebook"
Many things make your quality of life a bit better, and some things make it a bit worse, but no one says they can't have a quality life without Facebook or google.
The person is saying that stopping using Facebook and google will slightly decrease their overall quality of life, but will have zero impact on Facebook and google.
I still maintain it's sad that removing Facebook/Google can have any significant drop in your quality of life. And by significant, I mean one where you're willing to debate about it.
I like to keep my happiness as far as possible from the services that some soulless multinational provides.
Do you see a doctor, or use any healthcare services? Or use any pharmaceutical products or cosmetics that are mass produced? Shampoo? Soap? Hand sanitizer?
Do you wear clothing that you didn't make yourself from raw cotton you made? Or shop at a store like Gap, Cotton On, Target, Zara etc?
Do you drive a car? Or take Uber? Or use something like a bus or car, or other vehicle made by a large multinational engineering company?
Do you eat any fast foods? Or eat at restaurants that use any produce or mass produced raw ingredients? Or use any kitchen utensils or kitchenware? Do you shop at say IKEA?
Or do you use electronics like a laptop, phone or desktop computer?
Or do you keep any of your money at a bank? Or use things like car insurance?
It slightly irks me when people claim they want to stick it to the man, and don't like "those corporations".
We have a Green party politician in Australia who lives off the grid, and grows his own produce. Whilst I don't agree with all his policies - I respect that he lives consistently with his beliefs.
If you're on HN - I'd posit that your life (like mine, and billions of others) is dependent on multinational corporations for our current quality of life.
If you don't agree with one of them, that fine, but often it's less to do with principles and more "their customer service is terrible" or "they didn't fix this one issue that is very important to me", or "I read on Reddit/FB/Techcrunch this terrible fact about them"
Offhand the parent post would require me to give up Google Search (including via DDG), Gmail, Google Cloud, AWS, Amazon, Zappos, Audible, Comixology and Woot Shirts. I barely use Facebook or Twitter but the rest would lower my quality of life (and not just due to the large drop in employment opportunities I could take).
DuckDuckGo doesn't use Google Search, so you'd be okay there.
