De-Googling was what got me started as well. Wanted to be able to have my own Google Drive clone with Nextcloud. From there it was just one little improvement / additional service at a time as I learned to use Linux and docker. Now I run a Linux laptop and am considering an android phone.
Engineering background for reference.
Here’s the stats for mastodon.world and Lemmy.world
(And a few other fediverse sites)
https://blog.mastodon.world/blog-post-for-august-2024-and-july