To answer that, you have to understand what cell phones came from. Prior to the major smartphone push starting with Apple, cell phones were horrific devices th

To answer that, you have to understand what cell phones came from. Prior to the major smartphone push starting with Apple, cell phones were horrific devices that charged $5 per ringtone, apps were $30 or more and only per provider, no tethering, and basically were nasty little expensive locked down bricks. Apple did change that, with the initial strong-arming AT&T. And Iphone compared to prior was amazingly open. Had no app store yet, but had a real full-featured web browser and lots of useful tools. But, this was still very locked down to what the iPhone really is - a general purpose computer. The company still has say-so on everything on these devices. I'd argue that these are rentals, instead of a purchase. Android is a different beast. Google never created Android. They *BOUGHT* android, as a back-way in to the smartphone ecosystem. And they marketed it as "free", to get all the i-clones to use it. Of course, as Google does, it starts free, but you slowly pay more (with your data) and the noose slowly tightens. Now, we have locked bootloaders and PlayProtect and other invasive "root detection" garbage. And the platform becomes less and less hospitable. Forward? Im no fortune teller, but it seems that separating the actual physical interface from the compute would be a great start. And these *general purpose* computers need to be enforced as such. Tie-ins and cloudshit need to be unbundled or FTC enforced as rentals. The platforms we currently have are locked down. The first big steps are actual device ownership.