AOSP even without the GrapheneOS improvements has drastically better privacy and security than a traditional desktop distribution. A mobile Linux distribution with a much better privacy and security model than traditional desktop Linux is still Linux. A similar approach can also be used on a laptop or desktop too.
We provided a much more detailed reply at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49364220.
Cheers, thanks for all the work you do on the project.
There is still a philosophical reason for supporting a version of Linux for mobile devices that is not dependent on Google, but is community-driven, for users with different priorities.
That is not really relevant to the GOS project though, and the fact that GOS is probably the easiest way to get a Play Services-free mobile device kind of drags it into discussions that it doesn't necessarily belong in.
Again, thanks for your work, and I appreciate your team's focus on your goal of the best security possible.