I've never run, willing or knowlingly, an android phone that has not been de-googlified as my main phone (since my n900 died in 2012 ... I miss it ).

For my purposes, that works out well, there are, within reason, replacements for all the basics. And now that I have done it for so long, I don't really know how having an android phone with google works. The niche is big enough that something like https://microg.org/ exists that implements some of the core libraries for using google, without using google code. This enable installing some things from the playstore if neccessary ( I have not had the need - but I understand I am in a tiny minority ) - and it made it possible to install some corona contact tracing apps without having to rely on the google implementation.

I am sure though, and I see it around me, that things won't continue exactly as before just without google, because of how deeply ingrained tracking everyone and everything all the time is.

I don't know how hardcore you wanna get, but you might also want to take a look here https://e.foundation/ , here https://lineageos.org and here https://f-droid.org

There's like - dozens of us

...and thank you for reminding me of ParanoidAndroid. I've not tried them in a while.