I have completely stopped using google services and software on my personal devices (even have lineageos + microg on my phone. The problem is that I can’t just explain to the technically uneducated people that I changed mail providers. How should I go about doing this?
No. You don’t own that. Plus you need direct control over DNS records since you need to set up MX and TXT records and I think some other records as well.
Oh, ok