It's your phone, and you voluntarily allowed Google to control it.

I didn't want Google to control my phone, so I installed LineageOS.

I'm also a happy LineageOS user, but it's not like they don't have a track record of this kind of thing either: https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/04/05/dont-freak-lineageo...

1. Wasn't remotely initiated.

2. Was announced beforehand, not snuck in.

3. Is open-source.

That wasn't initiated remotely, so I don't understand how it's "this kind of thing".

But you are one of the few tech-savvy enough to have alternatives. What about everyone else?

Without GApps?

Without gapps the phone is faster, and drains less battery.

If you mainly use a browser (Firefox, hopefully) and some messaging & mapping apps, works great.

If you want to use other apps, you'll have to do more testing.

Right. I know, and I run my device this way. But my point was just installing Lineage by itself doesn't free you from Google's clutches if you install GApps anyway.

microG is indeed very cool. (though some apps stopped working with it in the past couple of months).

Without GApps.

Same here. No issues, works great.