You don't want Google? No problem, blow the ROM away and install Lineage without GApps, you can even mess with MicroG if you're reliant on some app that needs Play Services.
Corporations and governments combine to basically make privacy a niche thing for tinkerers only, you simply cannot mass-market the development attitudes nor technical and opsec skills needed to achieve a real degree of privacy on the user side.
The solution to this problem does not lie in a technical plane, nor does it in digital escapism.
Grandma does just fine on Android and would be utterly confused by iOS.
It's all about what you're used to.
I want an option that is "grandma" compatible. In other words, it isn't really viable if you can't just buy it off the shelf, or have to dig into settings to opt out. Right now if I go to Best Buy (or insert your favorite retailer here), I can't buy hardware off the shelf that won't send my data to a remote server by default.
A UI, sure, I could understand that, but a kernel?
I'm not too keen on contributing to linux monoculturization of IT anyway.