From internal leaks within the company as well as external analysis, the tip of the iceberg behind Facebook's spyware empire is exposed. Take a look to better protect yourself when you're not even on the platform: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/facebooks-corrupt-off-platform-surveillance/
Leaving Facebook has likely never made anyone’s life harder.
It can and has. There's no way I could keep in touch with old army mates. They won't all move to other platforms. I don't even know of an alternative for group chats and finding people.
Unfortunately I have to go along with it. I keep it locked down as much as possible, use it only on Linux desktop etc. But there you go.
Telegram, discord, mastadon, signal, session, etc there are too many to list
Discord is a giant data hog. It's not a good argument.
The thing that Facebook has is momentum and a passive feed.