Wait for Google to ban their account. Then, ask them if having no email is normal.

gmail is objectively worse compared to smaller services in many ways.

“everyone” is computer illiterate, that’s why they use gmail.

also

using gmail during a fascist takeover of your country.

Totally

If it makes you feel any better, when someone calls on you being normal, they are, by definition, the asshole that can’t adjust. Doesn’t mean they’re an unlovable person, but it’s a personal flaw of them, not you. It’s not like you are changing their way of life. You are changing your way of interacting with them. Respect and understanding should go both ways, not just one.

I’ll expand this question to my entire social circle.

I haven’t found that anybody cares about my email provider. It doesn’t affect them because email is federated. Nobody has ever asked me why I’m mailing them from a domain I own rather than a service provider they’ve heard of.

Where I do run into a lot of resistance is trying to get people to use Signal. Some people seem to find the concept of having multiple messaging apps objectionable, which has never made any sense to me as long as they have basic computer skills. On occasion, I’m on the other side of that conversation when I’m unwilling to use Facebook Messenger for reasons that should be obvious to anyone in this community.

If by family you mean biological family, I never really cared much what they think about anything (or about anyone). Also, I was still a little boy when I had to learn how to protect my privacy from my intrusive mom. So, yeah what anyone else may think about my choice and priorities was never that important.

If you’re referring to my real family, aka the person I decided to share my life with almost 30 years ago, we’re both adults and we both are fine with the other not doing things exactly like we would do them (it happens we also both care about preserving as much of our privacy), like we’re fine with the other having activities we’re not involved in ;)

Tell her; “no mom, if some 30 year old man was tracking me, reading my mail, texts and tracked my location you’d be getting ready to murder him. Why should I let gmail get away with the same shit?”

No, they respect my goals and seem to have accepted that I’m sometimes just unreachable. The only thing they might be annoyed about is my GrapheneOS and Signal proselytism. If anything, it’s more apathy than antagonism. They’ll agree with me on privacy issues but rarely ever give up the conveniences of Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. in practice.

Ask her if all her friends jumped down a cliff would she also jump down a cliff?

Parry and hit back. Ask her why it matters what you use if you can function with them as if you use google. Then return fire with your favorite reason not to use google. For me, I like to open the dev tools in Firefox, and show the head of any website. Let them choose. Find the line with google analytics, google tag service, or google ad sense. “Wow this website has nothing to do with google. Why is this here? To track you. Did you know that google can track your mouse? Even if you don’t click on anything? Or they can track you by installing fonts?” Etc. Etc. Scare the shit out of them and they’ll leave you alone. Hopefully you can slowly begin to convert them.

Don’t frame it as practical. It’s moral.

It was, and in a number of places still is, ‘normal’ to say she’s a woman and therefor has no business having a private email address at all, that all communication with her should be through her father or husband, and that if she were to talk to a man herself she’d have to be beaten to make her behave more ‘normally.’ Normal just means common, not good. If she wants to keep talking to people through Daddy Google, that’s her choice, very ‘normal,’ but you would rather be good.

Never defend. Always go on the offensive, Art of War. Never say privacy. Never get dragged tech yapping. Always, ‘control’, ‘power’, ‘scam’ and ‘abuse’, stay on target. Never start with what is won. Human care much more about loss. Focus on what they are losing.

Something like:

Watching 100 pedos from big tech gape out your inbox has never been normal but I’m not judging you.

The title sounds weird because it’s word gore, not because of the implied meaning. Try reading what you’ve written.

• it you would have WhatsApp, we could keep in contact
• oh, come one, we have a Facebook Family group
• can’t you just share a Google calendar with me
• …

Huh? What difference does it make to them…?

Wait, thinking about it, is it because name at gmail is easier to remember for them? Because gmail is the “standard” in their minds?