Google will capture your data whether you're a paying customer of not. They will tell you they capture "some data" to personalise their service and make your life more convenient. In reality, they capture everything they can and it's all grist to their advertising mill.
But Google is not the only company doing this. Facebook and Amazon will track you across the internet, and even Microsoft is now adopting similar strategies.
Your best defence is to minimise the attack surface. Own your own data by paying for cloud storage and email. Use a browser like Brave, or Firefox with the new privacy control turned on. Don't post anything to social media you wouldn't be happy for the whole world to know.
My hardware is all apple. My OS's are all apple. But I use GSuite for email/calendar. Email because I use my own domain and Calendar because we use it at my workplace for scheduling shared resources (conference rooms etc).
I suppose I could easily switch to another email provider (e.g. Fastmail).
I also suppose I could stop using Google Calendar for my own calendar and only use it for scheduling conference rooms at my workplace. Or get someone else to schedule rooms for me using their google account.
I still use google for search but I suppose I could switch.
But Google is not the only company doing this. Facebook and Amazon will track you across the internet, and even Microsoft is now adopting similar strategies.
Your best defence is to minimise the attack surface. Own your own data by paying for cloud storage and email. Use a browser like Brave, or Firefox with the new privacy control turned on. Don't post anything to social media you wouldn't be happy for the whole world to know.