That's just my perception, therefore "imo". I tried GOS, I've read the forum (about microG, F-Droid) and that's what I've felt: something shady. It is most likely just me, so I stay away from the project. I just wanted to say that people should take a more critical stance on these issues, and not follow GrapheneOS point of view unconditionally.

GrapheneOS have discussed and explored replacing Google Play/Google Mobile Services functionality with equivalent or open source replacements. See: eSIM management, location services, push notifications et cetera. What they have refused is bundling a privileged component (for full Google Services functionality/compatibility) and enabling signature spoofing support.

GrapheneOS also heavily promote the use of open source Android apps. What they refuse is having app stores that reuse app package names, centralise the signing of app packages, perform reproducible builds on outdated infrastructure, significantly delay app updates et cetera.

I cannot deny your opinion, but just want to suggest that from my understanding GrapheneOS are not against microG and F-Droid as concepts, just against their current implementations.

Maybe there is nothing shady about them at all. They're security maximalists, even more so than Google and Apple, and they're very open about that.

From which follows that, just like Google and Apple, they must protect your device from yourself, and therefore they too won't let you own your device.

For me, it's not shady in any way - it's just the same stuff as the Big Two, just with different branding and different organization behind it.