4realzGoogle Makes Over $92 Billion per Year By Owning Android (their 'open source' operating system)
SanctusWould Androids be “useless” without google apps? I really don’t think so. Sure, less convenient, but GrapheneOS exists and is doing stellar. We have also known for a while this stuff is heavily subsidized by carriers. Thats why you have locked versions of phones and the like.
It is scummy. But this isn’t even close to the worst of what Google does. We can also take Android for ourselves and already have (GrapheneOS, as mentioned). I love Android, but I am unsure how beneficial these big tech giants are becoming.
My biggest hurdle is honestly that GrapheneOS only supports Pixel phones... I had one once and hated it and honestly don't know how much of that was because of google's android or the phone itself and am reluctant to buy a new pixel phone to try GrapheneOS and find out I still hate the hardware. I've had a much better "out of the box" experience with Samsung phones (and love that my current one has an sd card slot and headphone jack - but I know that's pretty much non-existent on new phones) but am finding they are so locked down and closed off by Samsung you can't really put anything else on it and have it work properly as far as I can tell.
It's time for a new phone, and I'm honestly not sure what to do... The easy route seems like getting a pixel and putting GrapheneOS on it before doing anything else, but I just don't super trust that the hardware isn't going to drive me nuts...