Comment by grapheneos

No, that's a widespread misconception. Google Play services is nearly entirely APIs for using Google services. It hasn't replaced AOSP functionality and the AOSP APIs are still there. If you want to avoid Google services then there isn't much that's useful in Play services. Getting developers to not depend as much on Google services such as supporting UnifiedPush in addition to Firebase Cloud Messaging leads to those apps no longer requiring Play services for that functionality.