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>AOSP has been a dead dream for a while now due to carriers locking down phones

That's only in the US.

Let's be honest here, AOSP is a dead dream because porting and maintaining AOSP for a device is kinda complicated. Many people do it for free, but you can't rely on that.

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No, AOSP is a dead dream because Google moved essential code into Google Play Services, which isn't open source.

Essential code such as what? Can't you boot AOSP without installing the Google apps?

Essential code for apps written against the platform's official APIs.

You can but a huge number of apps use Google Play Services and you can't use those. I suppose technically you couldn't get them anyway since you don't have Google Play, but anyway.

GPS includes stuff like location services, Firebase, Chromecast, analytics, Google account authentication, Google Drive APIs, all the game stuff, Android Pay, etc.

You can write plenty of good apps without google play services. Thats hyperbole.

You can. But since almost nobody does, there's no viable use for a phone without it. Bear in mind, even Microsoft, who was part of starting this investigation against Google... Even Microsoft's apps like Outlook and Skype won't run without Play Services installed and enabled.

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