I'm not sure why the author counts microG as "appeasing google". microG is a full, open source reimplementation and won't send any data to google (or anyone els

I'm not sure why the author counts microG as "appeasing google". microG is a full, open source reimplementation and won't send any data to google (or anyone else) unless you specifically enable the parts of the API that do that (notably, push notifications) - and even then, the amount is reduced. Furthermore, microG can be installed on LineageOS, as can the official play services. Either of these choices gives you compatibility with anything that doesn't require play integrity - just like with GrapheneOS.