Trouble is that means using an iPhone. I just came from there. Apple suck in their own unique ways and are no better really.
iPhone is far from the only alternative out there. There are plenty of de-Googled solutions for Android like LineageOs. If you are more technically inclined, Graphene is superior to iphone in security also. These solutions can make use of the playstore or proxy it through Aurora depending on your personal preferences.
At least one of them requires buying a Google phone to install it on :)
In fact probably all decent compatible phones still involve licensing fees to Google in the purchase price, all of the “alternative” OSes still rely on Google to develop the code base that they copy and strip down, etc. The only other one I can think of is Ubuntu phone, which would be so incomplete you might as well carry a dumbphone at that point.
Yes, the Pixel is a very good piece of hardware once you remove the crap software. If not the Pixel, there are plenty of other phone manufacturers around the world. Purism is another interesting option. Android is an open source project and Google cannot shut it down. There will always be ways. The majority are actually pretty smart and capable, just afraid of change. They wake up at some point though.
