You obviously know that it's not just the phone, it's the apps we can use on them. There are only two companies and they both control the market.
If you want to use your phone like normal people do in 2025, and not relegate yourself to being a second-class citizen when it comes to simple things like paying for stuff, riding the subway, etc, your phone is either an iPhone or something that plays nicely with Play Services.
And that's just the remote attestation side. Many apps rely on Play Services themselves, and without access to them, will not work. Google gates access to Play Services through contracts, it is not open source or part of Android.