I discovered after doing a clean flash recently that the ability to have Google Play Services on the phone but disabled, became unavailable. I used to use it exclusively for Signal - it meant no push notifications, but I could still foreground the app for it to check for messages.
I was disappointed that I could not install Signal again, even though my phone number was registered, without Google Play.
I was preparing to walk the microG services (or similar) path, but now I don't have to.
I discovered after doing a clean flash recently that the ability to have Google Play Services on the phone but disabled, became unavailable. I used to use it exclusively for Signal - it meant no push notifications, but I could still foreground the app for it to check for messages.
I was disappointed that I could not install Signal again, even though my phone number was registered, without Google Play.
I was preparing to walk the microG services (or similar) path, but now I don't have to.