The latter ain't necessarily true. Android without the Google Apps suite is possible (and relatively commonplace; see also: Fire tablets, Fire TV, and the rest of Amazon's Android-based devices). I ran CopperheadOS without GApps for a couple years with few issues. I currently run GApps on my new phone with LineageOS, but I'm strongly considering doing a backup and reflashing with microG's LineageOS build (which ships microG as a drop-in replacement for GApps, thus cutting Google out of the equation even for apps that would normally require it).

Oh okay I'll just call up my 70 year old dad and tell him this, since it's such an accessible option for 70% of the population.

Fact of the matter is, while nearly every single obnoxious facet of the tech world can be worked around, half the people in my family can't figure out how to turn their phone's wifi on and off, let alone something as complex as replacing the entire OS and figuring out solutions to the various bugs this might introduce.

For an absolutely enormous majority of the population, your choices are something that doesn't care about UX anymore and comes in three flavors of "really expensive" or something that harvests your personal data all day long.

Your 70-year-old grandpa would probably enjoy using a Kindle Fire. My 70+ year old grandma uses hers regularly to play Scrabble. Granted, Amazon's probably doing just as much data collection, but my point stands: Android without Google is possible, by no means obscure, and still reasonably accessible. You just have to know where to look (and come to terms with not having access to Google's ecosystem).

I think Android is very frustrating as well.

Actually, I pick old Palm. I'll buy a new Palm Treo like I did 10 years ago and it was glorious old tech. Maybe no whatsapp is a plus and I'll just use from the laptop, tell people to call/sms me during the day.