Once again this shows that we're at the mercy of the giant AI machine. For fear of having my data locked into Google, I migrated to my own domain and e-mail hosting elsewhere. I'm still at the mercy of the hosting and domain registrar at that point, but at least they have phone numbers I can call to get support and talk to a human.
> at least they have phone numbers I can call to get support and talk to a human.
This is important. I've decided to move all of the services I care about to a paid platform with properly paid support staff. This whole 'get it for free!' crap with the tech companies is just too much risk. I make more than enough money, I can afford a few bucks for the things that matter. Gmail is an awful choice for something so critical as your primary email account.
Offline backups is a must at this point.