[mcsb1]

Because phones have in my opinion become a privacy nightmare. I think we all got used to it as the new normal because it happend in lots of tiny steps. However, 30 years ago people would have screamed at being constantly and at every step under surveillance, all their contacts recorded at every moment. I simply don't think that modern life with smartphones and internet must be like this. I'd like to have my private life back.

Edit: I recently signed up for LinkedIn and it was outright scary which contacts I got suggested. There were people that don't have my email address nor have I ever been in electronic contact with - I just met them plenty of times in real life. Best explanation is that smartphones correlate location and/or bluetooth MAC addresses. In other words, my phone is spying on me. I don't see any reason to give this information to unknown 3rd parties without my consent.

[bluGill]

You didn't answer the question though. There are a few dozen linux smartphone projects. Why not join one of them and make it better. By making his own phone OS he is duplicating the work that all those other projects are doing instead of moving a head.

I'm not saying he is wrong for doing this - I know of many competing projects, but nothing more. Maybe there is a good reason not to join them. However my guess is not invented here which holds us back.

[mcsb1]

The mission statement of the project is "privacy with ease of use but without zealotry" and the project is 99% based on existing projects. That looks to me what Ubuntu is to Debian.

Just by chance I looked the other week into installing LineageOS on a slightly older LG but then decided it was too much hassle - although I have experience with Cyanogen, i.e. it would not be the first time for me to install a custom ROM.

All I use on my phone are maps, email, messaging and a browser. I can easily do without Google Play Services and I am sure there are many others.

He is french and in France there are many people thinking like him. It is easy to get press coverage and therefore should be possible to create a user base of a few 10.000 people with little investment.

[nkkollaw]

Why are there many restaurants often one next to each other? Why can't people get their money together and hire the absolute best chef in the world and build 1 huge restaurant?

That's just how it is.

Also, he's not duplicating anything, he's using LineageOS plus new stuff that will be open source.