But wouldn't the people who have the Google phone then be precisely those who could benefit from the privacy focused OS?
Sure maybe the people with Google phone X but over time we should expect that Google will find a way to Y, because that's where its interests lie. (And actually, we've seen it do exactly this many times. Chrome being the most obvious example).
Here's yet another example. If voters can be bought by promising them money, then we should expect that politicians will start promising money to voters in order to be elected.
Etc etc, do you see the pattern? My point wasn't actually about privacy, or Google, or Monero.