Pfft... We're the ones who are just going to find the exploit in the new walled garden anyway. #GreenJailbreak

It kinda depends on what you define as "functional" though. Because depending on that it is definitely feasible to vote with your wallet.

In my case for example, I use a fairphone with lineageos and microg. This means I have to live with some minor inconveniences around banking and such. But, for me, this is a functional device and I can do everything I want to do with it.

off topic me using android 2015

I remember when I was younger is rooted phone and installed freedom apk. This app was awesome and allowed you to buy stuff from Google Play for free. Does anyone remember this app? I always thought that logo was really weird.

You did get the fairphone model right? The one brand that’s repairable?

Then you're basically making a ROM and there are many small detections for this. Many apps rely on proprietary closed source code like google play services

You will be able to do some things, but it will be a massive pain. Android is big, really big. Emulating will just mean you're running Android all over again (and it's often detected). Making a fork is a lot of work

given drivers are not an issue

All the Linux phones run on outdated hardware because that's the main problem.

Well, time for zoomers to experience our childhood (with phones that could call, send SMS, and play Snake).

Jolla looks awesome, have to look into that.

Never forget the possibility of very powerful NFC tags which could automate your day!

That's a nightmare

Ahem. My HTC 7 came with malware in the keyboard, baked in as an unremovable system app!

Google Bans TouchPal Keyboard Dev CooTek From Play Store, Ad Platform - SlashGear

If you just want to give smoking your ribs a test flight without gearing up first, you may be wondering if it is, in fact, possible to use your oven instead.

SlashGear (www.slashgear.com)

Yeah I’m eyeing that one too. Price is good OS looks good. I need to do my homework

The time to support Android was 15 years ago when you could install any OS on any device, side load anything you wanted, root, mod, replace your battery, have full control over your file system, expand your storage, etc.
Or 10 years ago, when Google was selling completely unlocked developer oriented phones, offering most of its services for free, opening sources, and actually innovating in fields like computational photography while also researching interesting concepts like modular phones.

If you feel like you can't vote with your wallet today it's because the market as a whole has abundantly shown that it really doesn't give a fuck about any of those things, and it will always give the dominant position to whoever markets more aggressively or more effectively, even if the business models of those companies go against the consumers' interests.

People in 2007 jumped at the chance to buy a ridiculously overpriced phone with no physical keyboard, a VGA camera without flash, no MMS or 3G support, no apps or customization whatsoever, no expandable storage, no battery replacement, terrible repairability, locked in to proprietary accessories and software, and so on. This, while the competition at the time was putting out cheaper phones with things like OLED screens, professional optics with xenon flashes, dual SIMs, microSD support, the latest connectivity standards, etc.

And when Apple patent trolled, took away things like the headphone jack, or normalized imposing ridiculous costs and taking huge cuts from developers, did people stop buying their products? No, they bought more.

I'm not defending Google at all. Their decline is abhorrent, but it's a corporation, and corporations will always choose profit over everything else. It's really naive to think they'll offer their customers the more ethical option just out of the goodness of their hearts, especially when the market has been taking for granted or even actively discouraging the things that positively differentiated them from the competition.

The 3GS was fine for me and much more response and useful than my previous phone, which happened to ba a Nokia N75.

I developed early web apps (and frontends for native apps) for iPhone and Android around the time the Nexus One launched. If you spent any time using both, the iPhone was a better phone even though the hardware specs didn’t suggest it, I used the 3GS until upgrading to the iPhone 5S. My wife was on an earlier schedule and went 3G, 4, 5C, and we still play old games on her 5C around Halloween with our kid now 12 years later.

AOKP gang rise

I never heard of freedom APK, but Lucky Patcher worked like a charm!

Which is buying a new/used Google Pixel which is still supporting Google. Even if we got it second-hand, the development for GrapheneOS still depends on Pixel phone device and making it support the newer model which is still in a way, support Google as you still getting their product to then jailbreak it.

You can still use AOSP to make your own phone, but you'll just have to built your own apps too, since eventually, all of google play apps aren't gonna work on degoogled Android.

to be fair they havent been making cool tech for a while anymore either.