Interesting article. You say that different 'spheres' of the Internet controlled by different geographic elites is a problem...but one unified internet controlled by one elite/group of people would be even worse. At least the way I is, we can compare different opinions and seek out alternative truths - however untrustworthy and unreliable they each may be.
And...this is why E2E encryption isn't enough to protect your data. E2E encryption + self-hosting + user-controlled keys is the way. For docs & stuff switched to Anytype a while ago, I think there are others that at least offer encryption + self-hosting: Affine, Joplin, Obsidian.
Hard to make a blanket statement about analytics being 'good' or 'bad'. They are there as one of many tools to provide a compass and let you know whether you're headed in the right direction.
I think there's a bit of nuance here between an artist's approach versus that of a product designer, for instance. Artists seek to express an idea, feeling, or concept. Analytics, which (in the case of Youtube) optimise for a certain outcome, can easily befuddle. Designers seek to solve a problem. Analytics can help shed light on whether the problem has been solved.