Who on earth wants an android phone but is waiting for a fork from some random company before they make the switch? Your argument applies to approximately nobody. If someone wants an android phone right now they can pick from literally thousands of devices.

On the other hand, I'm already a KaiOS customer because they power the phone I want: the one that makes calls and handles text messages, and then gives me a high-speed network for my computer. I spend about a quarter of my time in India; while there I got a Jio phone and liked it so much I found a KaiOS device that works in the US as well.

>Instead, they could have gotten all the Android apps and the popularity of Android essentially for free.

No they wouldn't have. They would not get Google Play Services and your MicroG "solution" is ridiculous from a commercial perspective and a violation from a TOS perspective that would be shut down by Google.

>It's even possible they could have overtaken Google and became the effective steward of the Android platform

I don't think you understand the army of developers it takes to maintain and enhance Android on an annual basis nor the millions of dollars it costs Google. To even suggest that they would have overtaken Google and become the steward of the Android platform is ridiculous.