This is the correct answer. Do not allow a subtly different technical design distract you from the largest switcheroo here: this is a single-vendor enterprise OS delivered under the guise of open source, it comes with all the trappings of a single-vendor enterprise OS.

Let's not be too quick to forget when Android first started out, all the idealism about the wonders of a free software mobile OS. A decade later, it's almost impossible to buy an Android phone that hasn't been strongarmed (no pun intended) into including Play Services, Chrome and Gmail, often including through threats to the manufacturer's unrelated businesses.

We're older and wiser, avoid this garbage like the plague, and don't fall for all the same old tricks.