I don't have any issue with Play Protect on LineageOS without Google services.

Just saying, I guess. It's cool to be reminded what increasingly crazy bullshit it saves you to not be too tightly inside some walled garden.

That's Play Protect's sole purpose. It isn't actually a useful piece of software in any meaningful capacity (and remains, several years in, the industry worst in independent testing[1]). Play Protect is there to provide the "green checkmark" people expect to see on their PCs that tell them they are safe, even if it's kinda a joke because they're running Norton or something that doesn't do jack to protect them. Speaking of, Norton's mobile antivirus rates better than Play Protect.

Play Protect is a scare tactic for installing software that doesn't pay Google a 30% cut. Probably the only functional thing it actually does.

[1] https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/mobile-devices/