just to get it out of the way: yes, i know i can use a spam email/phone number. yes, i know i can opt out of promotional emails/texts. that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. i don’t need a growing list of empty accounts for websites i only spend an hour (or less) browsing through. don’t even get me started on restaurants that ask for your phone number when you scan their QR code…
this is the exact reason I switched the default on my phone to ddg
it’s usually slightly worse (which is shocking with how bad Google itself has gotten) but good enough. “don’t annoy me” is my lowest baseline