Tuba I think you have a good point here. GOS is very user friendly with the web installer and when Sandboxed Play Services with Play Store are running. I can leave inexperienced people with it and it works just fine for them. The website doesn't give this away though, and upon researching for a privacy friendly phone OS I ended up using Calyx OS for a year before trying GOS out of curiosity. The public message usually is "GOS is the absolute best in security, but maybe overkill for your needs and alternatives like Calyx OS or DivestOS will suffice for the vast majority". With the benefit of hindsight, I totally disagree now as GOS is easier to install and more functional and user friendly by default, on top of being much more secure and up to date. The website doesn't give that away at all. I like the simple design, but the text is rather descriptive of the OS and some technical terms instead of user benefits and unique abilities (like what is storage/contact scopes and what it does for you should be on the first page from the marketing perspective).
[deleted] A truly good product doesn't need advertisement, it just sells. Those who can not look past its packaging, can not really appreciate its value.
That's a big fallacy in my opinion, as nobody has the money, time and expertise to buy, try and evaluate every product before deciding upon it. Recommendations alone are very trust based (trust that the person knows what you need and has good intentions) and online reviews are often bought. The product quality is important, but for a good business model it is the least important thing of the ones that are important. The best running businesses have products that are serviceable at best, but they have amazing marketing, systems, legal foundations and financing (best examples are Apple and McDonalds). Unfortunately in today's world marketing is more important for a successful product (or product adoption) than the quality and many amazing products are not known to us because their marketing sucks.
That all being said, what matters most is what the devs of GOS intend to do here. Do they want their product to be known and used only by an informed audience and their inner circles? Maybe mass adoption is not the goal, because the responsible people are not driven by a global mission to change the world, but rather to give maximum control and security back to themselves and to all people who ask for it. In this case I see the website doing a perfect job, and that's a good thing, even if it takes a detour over Calyx for people like me.
I'd still add a donation button on the first page, I know some people who use GOS and were not aware that you actually can donate to the project, and they went through the web installer so they would have seen a more present (but not intrusive) donation link.
That's all of my very long 2 cents.