Exactly. Moreover, Pidgin is not only extremely useful already, but could also solve some further issues such as usability, customizability, and security in everyday communication.
I don't understand what exactly is the reason people don't like Eclipse. The features and the overall feeling of using the IDE is great, that's why I am still using Eclipse (mostly Java and Scala development), so are many of my colleagues. I guess there are some downsides, like slower leading times and a bit clunky compilation process, but other than that, it's a solid IDE.
Everyone complains that it is bloated and slow, but I think a lot of people run it with too little memory. I always change the default settings to give it 2g of memory and it always runs fast. Some people think that's ridiculous, but given I spend 70% of my time in that environment, I'm more than happy to have it use that much memory.
"I don't feel spied" -- good for you! The point is, it's great that you're in love with Google and you don't mind being spied upon, however, there are a lot of other people who cannot wait for something like this and indeed care about privacy of their information.
Even though I like RSS and use it daily, I think it cannot act as a replacement, since Facebook, as a platform, allows two-way communication between parties (e.g. when someone or some group shares a post, people can give feedback on it).
I have to say that this is almost completely the opposite of what I want from Facebook, given that "cringe memes and clickbait" is an orthogonal issue. To me, great value lies in the opportunity for people to organize into smaller communities and post various things about those communities, be they political or not, and at the same time being able to receive feedback (in the form of comments). Unfortunately, the sad truth is that this is the only platform for such an activity for most of those communities.
I'd say those two are compatible. For me what matters is getting updates from friends, family, and groups I care about. If my feed was limited to that, the new articles would instantly be less clickbaitey or cringey.
I recommend you talking to your average Joe (or Pablo, or Petr) living (or that lived) in places like Venezuela, Cuba, the hole Eastern Bloc, Albania, Cambodia, Mao's China, or any sub Sahara African state (except Botswana and RSA) that actively pursued the Marxist dream.
These have a thing in common. They were poor when communist and still poor when capitalist. (Except China, but there the problem was mismanagement and embargoes.)
I was just researching this for my own use.