I'm using this strategy too. I have bladders of water around and my water consumption has increased, but that's more an addition to the soda consumption.

The salt content of fizzy waters makes me gag. You might as well drink sea water. I perhaps should have specified it's coke, but when money's an issue it's whatever's cheapest: pepsi or whatever clones can be found. All sugar free though. I don't like sweet drinks and that includes flavoured water. I either drink water or a no-sugar cola. Anything else is in the 'omg this tastes absolutely aweful why do people drink this' territory, but that includes water and colas.

There's been points in my life where I'd drink in excess and the 'normal' flavour of the cola is gone, replaced with a heavy grass taste. It's actively unpleasant.

Pepsi's caffeine content must be higher than coke's, because I absolutely feel dehydrated consuming that. It's too sweet too. It's my least favorite cola to consume. Coke would be my favourite.

My family uses a water softening filter on our tap water and it makes it go from awful tasting to pretty good. We just store water in a jug after filtering and it really helps and is far cheaper than bottled water.

Salt always seems to be added to fizzy water. There's probably a reason. It's very noticeable and unpleasant. In other carbonated drinks the saltiness is masked. (All carbonated drinks seem to have salt.)

I'm not convinced drinking seltzer is any better than a no-sugar cola. One still has the concerns of carbon dioxide making bones more brittle. Issues about artificial sweeteners and over consumption of caffeine are removed, but at that point just drink water.

Water isn't addictive, neither is seltzer, but caffeinated drinks are. This advice to just drink seltzer/water is just as helpful as telling a life-time cigarette smoker, "just suck on a stick and pretend you're smoking".