I started de-googling a long time ago, part of it was an iPhone (12 mini), 5 years later I really felt like de-Appling as well. The Appstore is a cesspool, privacy concerns are about the same as Google now (or perhaps always were?).

I went with GrapheneOS. Very good experience, but not without Google Play (store and services). It's all sandboxed, so presumably I'm only leaking consciously chosen data. It's really aimed at security, not so much de-googling. Something like Murena's /e/OS is much more aimed at de-Googling, but as GrapheneOS devs will usually be quick to point out here, they are "quite poor" with their security.

A de-Googled functional appstore on a FairPhone (+ with all the GrapheneOS required security bells and wistles) would be ideal for me. But it's still either optimal security focussed OR de-Googling/de-big-teching focused. Yes there is f-droid, but there are too many apps that require the Google services (like banking).

Atm 1 app does not work, one of my banking apps required the highest tier of Google control. I will happily install on devices that have been years without security updates though :s

Overall the GrapheneOS experience (base launcher etc) is very clean, fast, minimal, ad free.