I am confident that plenty of competitors dislike Google. Plenty of my friends dislike that company as well. They are rumored to copy my data and sell it! Somewhat like my heart stopping, it hasn't happened yet (I think!!) As I read that Woody Allen or somebody quipped: "I plan to live forever. So far, so good."
When I retired, I wanted to get an email address that didn't cost anything and was reliable. I imagine if I use that leading search engine called Google or some other, like Duckduckgo, I would find there are lots of ways to get an email address. I realize that in some circles, email is past its prime and a sign of decrepitude. It was more fashionable when I started retirement but it is quite good in my opinion. For browsers, I don't use Microsoft's Edge or the leader Google's Chrome but Mozilla's Firefox instead. I compose these posts using Google's Docs and store them on Google Drive. The Google Docs spell checker is the best I have used and I have used several. These posts would have at least twice as many flubs without that feature.
As I have repeatedly urged, get a Gmail email address and use it. Begin exploring the nearly 300 tools Gmail permits the user. I guess that some may not appeal or fit into what you like to do but some will be great.
