In answer to your question, if I’m understanding it correctly, you are still being tracked as long as you use the web. Meta has profiles for people that have never logged into facebook, used their site in a browser or used an app they control.

The profile might not have a name attached but Facebook provides a ton of websites with FB-related statistics, social widgets and more. Each of those services place FB code on the page that phones home with unique visitor information. That gets compiled into profiles that they can eventually tie to an identity when more information is compiled (as an example, your highschool friend from 15 years ago installs a Meta app like instagram and clicks ok on allowing it to dig through their contacts).

Apps and extensions like Privacy Badger, uBlockO and Ghostery help with the tracking code but I’ve no doubt that Meta spends a lot of time finding workarounds for the blocks.

The issue with that in his situation is 911 does not take kindly to “Hey, can you call my dad and tell him I ran out of gas?”

If it’s not a true emergency that they are expected to handle, emergency services frown on calling them.

His father’s argument is legitimate regarding needing a cellular carrier unless the poster would never unexpectedly need to contact family for help.

Is carrying a second phone logged into a junk account an option for you?

You could get a Punkt dumb phone that shouldn’t spy on you

From Punkt FAQ: Verizon: not supported/not supported

Sadly, that keeps a ton of people from using the phone. In many rural areas, VZW is the only coverage that they can get.

"developers see sales increases on both the Epic Games Store and on Steam, Valve’s competing PC game store. Sweeney also points out that the free games can be a good deal for players in developing countries where gaming may be more expensive, meaning that they help expand the global reach of some titles. And since developers get a flat fee from Epic so that Epic can offer their game for free, they make some money no matter what.

Epic isn’t being entirely altruistic, of course. The company spends a lot of money to be able to give games away for free, and it certainly wants to offer good ones that keep people playing on its platform instead of others like Steam. And if Epic can attract players with free games from notable developers, those same players might also try out some of Epic’s big free-to-play multiplayer games like Fortnite or Rocket League, keeping them in Epic’s universe — and, again, off Steam. "

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/9/23630846/epic-games-store-free-weekly-giveaways-2023

Freetube is patched often and remains usable 99% of the time for an ad(and sponsor, if wanted) free experience.

As Youtube makes changes solely to break these players, they are quick to jump through the new hoops.