Unfortunately a lot of the "freedom" crowd think that unless you want to be an 80s sysadmin you don't deserve security or privacy. Or computers.
a maxim that seems to hold true at every level of computing is that users will not care about security unless forced into caring
with privacy they may care more, but they are easily conditioned to assume it's there or that nothing can be realistically be done about losing it
There are a couple caveats:
1. It is still a bit tricky for a non-technical person to install. Should not be a problem if they know somebody who can help, though. There's been some progress making the process more user friendly recently (e.g. WebUSB-based GrapheneOS installer).
2. There are some papercuts if you don't install Google services on your phone. microG [2] helps with most but some still remain. My main concern with this setup is that I can't use Google Pay this way, but having to bring my card with me every time seems like an acceptable trade off to me.
[2]: https://microg.org/
Normal users will not do this. Just because many of the people here can build and sign a custom Android build doesn't mean that is a viable commercial alternative. It is great that is an option for those of us who can do it, but don't present it as a viable alternative to the iOS/Google ecosystems. The fraction of people who can and will be willing to do this is really small. And even if you can do it, how many people will want to maintain their custom built OSes?