Stomata

My innocent brain wants to know what will actually happen

You are getting blocked

Backups are always good idea

I do own a Samsung devices and I removed them. By removing play services only thing you will find not working is push notification. But now unified push works on some apps.

The other thing is you will find some apps won't work(I say just don't use those ~~spywares~~ apps). Some apps will show notification that "enable play services or I won't work blah blah" But still working fine

Removing gemini is recommended. Do it. You can even remove play store and play services without bricking your phone. Sorry but didn't understand what you said about windows. Insular or island is kinda buggy but they work totally offline so you don't have to worry about it. Have you tried shelter? Though you should not keep any Google app

Yep pretty lightweight and simple with no extra bloat

Cancer speedrun.

Never seen them come back after update

Canta+shizuku no need for extra pain

Go for it. It's really good in terms of privacy

Yeah thats the reason.

I had no issue with signal (except phone number verification) but according to my family members signal uses a lot of ram and battery. Non of them have Google play services. XMPP doesn't use that much resources and it's simple, no unnecessary bloat.