And Graphene OS is also anti-user by being tremendously rude about NOT providing root and using the same tired "suck-u-rity" crap Google and Apple also use.

If you're smart enough to buy a phone that supports GrapheneOS, AND install it, yeah you should have root.

And tools like XPrivacy and plugins allow control of subsystems like GPS spoofing and lying to apps.

It's pretty trivial to get your own almost-GOS with root. The official GOS release simply doesn't support it in the production images.

Why not root has been explained many times and you actually either want the official image with no root exactly because of the benefits, or you want custom image because you don't need these benefits.

For location faking Mock location works on GOS,l.

I see much bigger problem with not having a reliable backup than not having root.

Software freedom is about freedom of choice, not philosophically mandated security holes. You are free to take the GrapheneOS code and introduce a huge vulnerability in the form of a privilege escalation path from sandboxed apps if you wish, it is open source and you can easily compile and flash your own build.

Mobile phones store incredibly intimate data and are incredibly vulnerable to seizure. It stores my message history, pictures I've taken, so many other records that together would provide an incredibly detailed view into my private life. And it is on my person at all times, even through checkpoints where I have minimal protections against search and seizure like borders! This is not a device that I want a broad surface for modification of system software on.

If you are technical and want root its very easy to patch a build of GrapheneOS to include whatever mechanism you want. You can even automate this to continue to receive updates.

I think the decision of GrapheneOS to maintain the attestation features and not providing user root is what gives it a fighting chance of being accepted as legitimate 3rd choice. See: Revolut and others adding GrapheneOS keys and trusting their attestation

Like or not, for most users, having root access is a liability, especially with more and more important things being held on phones . Someone downloading a photo editing app and then having a rootkit installed in the background that waits to empty their bank account is not a workable situation.

GrapheneOS's goals are privacy which must start from a secure baseline. If you want to make it less secure yourself, you can, but it's not the goal of the project.

It's not anti-user if it doesn't add the features you want that would destroy the security of the OS.

It has many features that give the user more control. Like disabling emergency alerts, protecting your data from attackers, contact and storage scopes (lying to apps for more privacy while retaining functionality), sensors permission, network permission.