Apples pretty decent about putting toggle switches on stuff, for instance you don't have to enable iCloud or even associate it with an Apple account if you don't care for FindMy and remote erase etc
But I'm with you, since Apple signaled going all-in on "an assistant that has access to everything" I switched to an android with the intention of never enabling Google services and certainly not the voice assistant. Unfortunately I've found it too annoying to go completely without Google, I've read that RCS messaging won't work with an unlocked bootloader, nor will precise location, so I'm stuck with some evil in the name of features parity.
But I'm with you, since Apple signaled going all-in on "an assistant that has access to everything" I switched to an android with the intention of never enabling Google services and certainly not the voice assistant. Unfortunately I've found it too annoying to go completely without Google, I've read that RCS messaging won't work with an unlocked bootloader, nor will precise location, so I'm stuck with some evil in the name of features parity.