And yes, they're not obligated to provide those binary blobs, but since they've been doing it for such a long while, not announcing it well in advance, like they do with the so many services they choose to discontinue, just adds to that list of things I dislike about them.
Yeah, yeah, it's a bit more work to publish those binaries and make sure they work. But they still kind of have to do that, for themselves. So I think it's fair to assume why they did it. Because they made a choice to take a small loss on the devices they would sell for the few GrapheneOS users, and cash in on the walled garden, data mining, ads serving, yada yada, whatever brings the extra money after the initial phone sale.
The only judgement is a positive one. I thought this is what one does now that we all understand just how broad and deep the tracking is at nearly every level. Buying a Pixel and immediately flashing GrapheneOS has been my default mode of operation for years now on all cellphones in my home (wife and myself). No Play Services, Google apps or uninstallable Facebook...no problem!
I'd rather my life not be turned into an open book for targeted advertisements and whatever other purposes every detail of my existence is used for now or in the future. It's mind boggling to me how many seem to simply not care.
I applaud your ability to do this (seriously, genuinely, I do), but if you truly believe what you do is normal, just "what one does now", I must inform you that you live in a very small bubble.
I would like to run GrapheneOS on my phone, but I like being able to use Google Wallet, among other things. If I look at what I use my phone for, way too much of it relies on Play Services, and (critically) the SafetyNet (or whatever Google is calling it now) checks passing.
This situation blows. I really don't like these trade offs, and iOS's trade offs are different but no better.