Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now'". Android users are screwed

I'm pretty sure Google locks us out and Google Pay is impossible, despite the operating system being more secure, having hardware attestation and not even being rooted.

Ticket and banking apps sometimes work, sometimes they don't. They're doing their best and a lot of things are fine. There's a community maintained list for banking apps here: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/