No that just ends up redirecting your browser to google.com with the search query, it's equivalent to going there and typing it in yourself.

Which if you were to give up Google Search, is something you wouldn't be doing (or would have blocked).

It's really not. Google.com is still there. You can use the alternatives 99% of the time and get what you're looking for. Google itself is not a perfect algorithm. It's exploitable, censorable, etc. It doesn't always find what you're looking for. You shouldn't ever limit yourself to a single search engine, honestly.

I think YouTube is a far stickier service than Google Search, just because it's acted as an informal video archive of the past 15 years of internet video history. But I fully recognize the risks with this monopoly structure in place and have started to embrace alternatives like https://odysee.com/ and https://rumble.com/. It's time to disentangle from monopolies. Take your digital sovereignty back.

To me they are close enough to not mind.

Especially when considering the unethical nature of these businesses and how they abuse their power.

That ties into the quality of the platform and it is alarming that some people will tolerate it for some comfort.