What about any or all among of their contacts, messages, docs, notes, schedules, photos, apps, app contents...?
> How screwed are they if everything was in iCloud, vs they were using 1Password/{own,next}Cloud/Evernote/Meta/Dropbox/web apps...?
That would be a more appropriate picture.
> How screwed are they
Not much. Annoyed maybe but as long as they have access to their email and phone number they can reset their passwords.
What about the other way around? If a person broke their Android phone and a friend convinces them to move to Apple? You could argue that then they may have everything in Google and that they could log in on an Apple device with their Google account and use Chrome and Gmail and whatnot, but then they'd be storing everything in Google.
What if Google sunsets a product? Or Google unilaterally decides to close their account overnight with no human in reach for support?
I'm all for interoperability. I do get the risks at hand. But the hodgepodge of separate solutions forming a duct-tape held system is hardly usable for the "mere mortal", let alone integrating the together in reliable ways.
People want technology to disappear so they can go on with their lives and do stuff that matters to them (which integrating platform-independent third party solutions is not). So "all eggs in same basket" is an extremely valuable feature for most.
> as long as they have access to their email and phone number they can reset their passwords.
At best they spend hours and hours up to days resetting the passwords for all the account they ever had. Looking at my password list, there's 700 or them, it would take me a week of my life, if I ever get to do it at all.
At worst they actually can't access their email and it's the end (or a week or two of back and forth sending official documents to get it back ?)
> Google
As a first point: they don't have to go all Google. They can have a Google account solely for their phone, and have everything elsewhere. That's a nobrainer as long as they have a solid password manager. You call it hodgepodge, but that's just what we've doing for the last centuries.
The issue of a service unilaterally killing an account isn't limited to Google. Apple will also kill your account if they assume you misbehave, and you might get someone on the phone, while not getting any resolution.
Do we hear it more about Google ? sure. But Google is also in the biggest service provider on earth at this point.
Someone use their phone as their only computing device (e.g. only other device is their school or work computer).
Their phone dies and the shop convinces them to go for a Pixel 9.
How screwed are they if everything was in iCloud, vs they were using 1Password ?