Yes. Even though not using all this crap may sometimes feel like you're missing out on certain stuff, it is still the right thing to do. I don't support abusive behavior, bloatware and spyware, so companies doing that will not receive any money from me if I can help it.

We're basically just one step ahead of the general population, who basically (still) eats up anything that's being served by big tech corporations, without any second thoughts or hesitations. The general population IMHO is currently at the stage that nerds were like 25 years ago, in that they tend to be naively enthusiastic about every new piece of tech. But nowadays, tech can be abusive towards their users, and so it's important to choose the right tech. The general population hasn't made that realization yet (or they don't care, which also must change).

The media is also partly to blame for this, for example almost every new review of any Samsung or Apple phone is usually very positive, usually just reporting about the advancements in hardware and UI, without even mentioning any of the downsides these have on the software side. And so when reviews don't even mention downsides anymore, there's a lack of information available.

And it's not even that regular users don't like the alternatives. For example I convinced a friend to move from a regular spyware-infested Samsung Galaxy phone (which he was using all the time, and he even wanted to buy a new one) to a Pixel with GrapheneOS. He's not missing anything, even though his transition wasn't super smooth, overall he's happier now, and he mentioned that he likes the OS being so clean and unencumbered. He doesn't particularly care about the privacy and security improvements which he now also enjoys, which is a bit sad, but at least he's happy with the lean and unmodified Android (open source) experience.

So, as usual, information/knowledge is power. People need to know that alternatives exist and that some alternatives are actually really, really good. And they need to know what the problems are with the "default stuff everyone uses", so that they can make better informed decisions in the future. They also need to become less dependent on big tech companies. The alternatives have little to no PR and thus little public visibility in comparison, except via word of mouth, so we need to make the most out of that.

what phone did you switch to if you mind me asking?

Based

My work forgot to remove game mode and a bunch of the built-in advertisement stuff from the workstation images they were using a while back, and I work for state government.

If they uninstalled the xbox app they’d have no way of coordinating their sea of thieves matches with the employees that work on a console

It might as well be. It's a Windows app made by Microsoft specifically for Windows and comes preinstalled. IIRC, you can't even fully uninstall the xbox bits without powershell or regedit.

Or any linux distro for that matter ? I been using ubuntu and then moved to mint , customised them a bit and they are perfect now

Im sure people do see these ads, and its definitely starting to go a bit far, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how. Ive never seen anything like this using multiple personal and work windows machines for ~10+ hours a day, every day.

Work makes sense, I believe its a couple of GPOs, but even at home when I boot a fresh image I tick like 3 boxes and just never see any ads.

The only situation I can think of is prebuilt machines and laptops with preloaded configurations that people dont bother to change, but even then im pretty sure 5 minutes in settings will sort it out.

Break the

Beautiful words. I shed a tear.

You shouldn't have to do all of that.

May be related to location (Europe/Germany). I haven't gotten any ads in Microsoft beyond what I am already subscribed to (office365) anyway.

Chances are OP's IT department wouldn't be too keen on that.