I doubt even the article writer knew of the existence if libre phones.

You need to know that iode even exists in the first place.

Most people don’t even know libre phones exist.

You underestimate how many people have no idea how to/own a phone that doesn’t even let you disable gapps.

Because the most popular choices for Android phones don’t even let you unlock the bootloader, let alone install a different OS (also custom rom support can be a tad spotty at times).