When you buy an Android phone, the Stock OS you get is AOSP (the open source Android base) + Google stuff + Manufacturer stuff.

Now it sounds like you don't know about it, but if you take only AOSP and run it on your phone, you will not immediately notice that it is not "a normal Android you expect".

There are alternatives based on AOSP, e.g. GrapheneOS, LineageOS, /e/OS. To 99.99% of the people, those would count as Android. The difference between e.g. a FairPhone Android and a Samsung Android is not smaller than the difference between FairPhone Android and /e/OS.

What I am saying is that we should fight for those alternatives to run properly. Right now you may have heard that "it is not a full replacement because some things don't work". First, few things "don't work" (fewer than you may expect). Second (and more importantly), those few things that "don't work" are not the responsibility of those alternative OSes. It's precisely because Google + Android manufacturers prevent them from working that they don't.

I don't think it is such a ridiculous take. Rather, I feel like you just have no idea about how it works, and therefore you cannot imagine how there are alternatives to the situation you know.