Thanks to them, I managed to get rid of Google Apps in my day-to-day life almost[0] entirely and drastically improve privacy for me: Instead of Google Play Services I use MicroG[1] and instead of Play Store, I use Aurora Store[2] and F-Droid. For syncing files there is Syncthing[3] and for backups there is Seedvault[4]. To isolate apps I don't trust I use NetGuard[8] and Shelter[9] and practically no internet-facing app has access to my internal "SD card" on which my photos and documents reside. As a bonus, getting rid of GApps and using LineageOS has increased my phones' battery life and their overall lifetime tremendously. (I've only owned three smartphones in my entire life, the original T-Mobile G1, the HTC One M8 and the BQ Aquaris Pro.) I couldn't be happier.
That being said, I've closely been following GrapheneOS[5] because I find its additional security guarantees very attractive. In fact, just a few hours ago my new Pixel 5 arrived and I'm looking forward to giving it a try. Though I already know I will miss MicroG… Maybe I'll end up building my own custom Android ROM, using Hashbang or RattlesnakeOS[6, 7]?
Overall, I don't really understand people who criticize Android for not being open while loudly claiming a "pure" Linux phone would be so much better. (There was yet another discussion here on HN just a few days ago.) Yes, Android is a not your typical open-source project and clearly in the hands of Google. Yes, most phone and chip manufacturers still haven't open-sourced their hardware binary blobs. We definitely have to fight these fights. But with a Linux phone I'd probably be struggling with window-manager-related bugs in the worst possible moments (say, an emergency call) and risk all my data getting stolen whenever I install a new app.
As much as I like Linux – I dabbled with it the first time almost two decades ago and have been using it as a daily driver for more than a decade – but its stability and security guarantees are orders of magnitude worse than Android's.
I secretly hope that Fuchsia will find its way to the desktop at some point and be able to replace my Linux system.
[0]: I still use Google Maps every now and then
[1]: https://microg.org . See https://lineage.microg.org/ for LineageOS images that come with MicroG pre-installed.
[4]: https://github.com/seedvault-app/seedvault
[6]: https://github.com/hashbang/aosp-build
[7]: https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack/
[8]: https://netguard.me/