[neodymiumphish]

I was a hardcore proponent for custom ROMs and unlocked bootloaders for the first ~10 years of my mobile phone experience, mostly Nexus and Pixel devices. With OneUI that came with the S10, I've changed my opinion. It's a much better UI and UX than AOSP or Google's default Android experience. I still support the devices that include unlockable bootloaders for long term updates and customization, but OneUI is hard to beat, and Google and Samsung have been working much more closely lately than ever before.

[netbioserror]

I use my phone as little as I can bear. Barebones GrapheneOS, Fdroid for most things, browser for bank/maps, and four days of battery life. Every proprietary Android ROM is a downsell for me.

[neodymiumphish]

That's fair, but your use case is far from any average users out there, and probably would scare most users away from Android entirely.

[netbioserror]

It can do emails and VPN just fine, so I'm wondering what the "average user" is missing. Grubhub? Crappy mobile games? Social networks that are making their lives worse? Definitely not YouTube because NewPipe is full-stop better. I'm just surprised that "Maybe I don't need all this toxic crap" is such a niche, extreme position that draws me funny looks and scorn.

[pixelated_music]

Probably not the right place for a suggestion, but since you mentioned NewPipe, I would also suggest checking out LibreTube[0], been my choice of Youtube app after their redesign.

[0] https://github.com/libre-tube/LibreTube

[neodymiumphish]

I'm not arguing that it's better or that ant of those things are good, but there will never be mainstream support or even k owledge about them.