I have wiped the Fairphone OS (a standard Android) of my 4 year old Fairphone 2 and replaced it with the Lineage OS 18 without any google play and google play services. The problem with this solution is that you have to search your apps by hand and many of the apps still depend on google play services even if you find their binary (APK) to sideload. It is a pity that our world is so much linked to the privacy-neglecting services of Google and Apple these days.
The upside of choosing an open source variant of Android like Lineage OS. totally ignoring Google: my battery life went up from 3-4 days to 5-6 days again, like in the old times.
What does this mean to me: the constant data exchange of my old Fairphone through Google Play and Apps that sent usage data to Google permanently sucked 10-30% of my smart phone battery! I cannot explain it otherwise.
