I value a technically inferior alternative insofar as it provides an "out" from a corporate entity. Sadly, using Firefox doesn't really mitigate Google's grip on my data since I'm still searching via the big G. I don't see the point of Atom as it's also Microsoft-bound, identical to vscode in ethos, and as you point out, gets far fewer man-hours of development. I am an emacs user.
And so it is that I have partially reduced my dependence on google... I hope to finish some day.