Using Google services is not a strict requirement to run Android. There are whole online communities around unGoogled Android.
I’ve long considered making this switch from iPhone to an ungoogled Android device. What always bothered me is still basically having to install proprietary apps from a Play Store adjacent source. Like the Aurora store is basically just the Play Store logged under someone else’s account. I know you can side load but that’d be a pain to maintain updates. Wish there was like a Flathub-like store on Android I could use instead.
There’s no proprietary apps on F-Droid. It doesn’t even have Signal which is open source.
I am not sure why you think this is so bad. You have a way to upload the apps you can’t get on F-Droid (default or by adding repositories (I have microG, DivestOS, Molly, Cheogram repos)). Many apps work fine enough without Play services with microG—except the stupid banking ones that don’t want you to root, run custom OS, unGoogle, or literally do anything with the device you own.
Personally I hope this is all a stop-gap to Linux phones. I tried Ubuntu Phone last year & while parts of it looked great, the rough edges were apparent—especially the chroot environments for applications not in the Ubuntu store.
