I don’t know how to reply or contact Brad Barrish, so I figured I’d answer his inquiry about moving away from Google on my own blog.
Docs and Sheets might well be impossible, or at least the trade-offs might be too great. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do there yet.
I’ve been experimenting with Proton Drive, which has its own version of Docs and Sheets. I’m using it for my own projects at the moment, and I like how it’s worked so far. The sharing and normal collaboration seems to work just fine. Sure, not everything feels as familiar as the tools we’ve been using for the last 10+ years, but I’m giving it a chance.
Then there’s infomaniak, which is a wild name, but I’ve been talking to someone who moved their whole operation away from Google Workspace and it’s working out nicely for them. They seem to have a Docs / Sheets / PowerPoint offering of their own (kDrive), but I haven’t played around with it yet.
Also… being as I extracted 20 years of photos from Apple’s “Photos”, I’ve been looking for an organizational solution, and ente has been recommended as well, and it looks pretty solid.
As I tell most folks (I’ve hosted a few Break Up With Google Zoom calls in recent months with my Social Media Escape Club folks), just sign up for some of these sorts of things and feel ’em out.
The biggest tech guru YouTuber (or I) could tell you which one is the “best,” but if you log in and hate it, it won’t matter. All of these platforms and services are something you really need to get into and test drive for yourself.