Hate that the overwhelming majority of phones don't have the ability to just install an alternative OS. I know it's because of hardware, but holy hell, the amount of hardware on PCs Linux supports is massive, and only a fraction of it is hardware that has released any real specifications to create a Free version of its driver. I don't think we've really concentrated on creating such things for phones in the same way or we'd be able to throw a phone UI version of Linux on nearly any phone out there. As it is, each alternative is limited to half a dozen or a little more of generally the same phones, and they're generally expensive as hell.
Where's my btw I use Arch phone? Because I want my btw I use Arch phone.
Linux phones might already be good, that's not the issue.
The issue is apps like my bank app, I need to be able to access and manage my bank accounts from my phone. How is that going to work on a non android phone?
If there is a solution for things like that, I'll drop Google in a heartbeat
Ive had a pixel before with grapheneos but that comes with its own problems, it still uses google services just in a sandbox.
Its cool but I just ended up switching back to normal android because Id rather deal with google entirely or not at all. Not some half and half bs which is unfortunately what android is. Even at the most basic form AOSP is basically unusable without some random google service running in the background.
You don't have to use Google services. They are fully optional, and not installed by default. AOSP/GrapheneOS without Google services is very usable, there are only very few things you can't do without proprietary services. You still have the option to create a separate user profile (which are also improved by GrapheneOS btw) to install Google Play services, and keep it isolated from the rest of your apps and data.