I am always diverged in my personal opinion about open source and the problems that come with it.
LineageOS has improved a lot over the years, and Android 12 (10+ with GSI images) finally has a working OTA update workflow.
But honestly, the "Android is not Android" problem is hard to communicate and endusers have so many pitfalls.
If you tell them "oh yeah I actually use RethinkDNS as an adblocker, combined with Fennec via F-Droid and its uBlock Origin extension that only somewhat works on mobile due to their messy UI" then you lost already 99% of users that will never figure out how to flash their device with the custom ROM, let alone understand what you just said.
It's so sad that you also have to tell them "but use only one of maybe 10 devices, all other Android devices are either totally outdated with their kernel or cannot be supported anymore"... and when I read your comment I kind of have to agree with your point.
iPhones have zero maintenance. It's a golden cage but it's a well built one, and most users just don't want to spend days and weeks learning how to maintain their smartphone.
LineageOS has improved a lot over the years, and Android 12 (10+ with GSI images) finally has a working OTA update workflow.
But honestly, the "Android is not Android" problem is hard to communicate and endusers have so many pitfalls.
If you tell them "oh yeah I actually use RethinkDNS as an adblocker, combined with Fennec via F-Droid and its uBlock Origin extension that only somewhat works on mobile due to their messy UI" then you lost already 99% of users that will never figure out how to flash their device with the custom ROM, let alone understand what you just said.
It's so sad that you also have to tell them "but use only one of maybe 10 devices, all other Android devices are either totally outdated with their kernel or cannot be supported anymore"... and when I read your comment I kind of have to agree with your point.
iPhones have zero maintenance. It's a golden cage but it's a well built one, and most users just don't want to spend days and weeks learning how to maintain their smartphone.