> The time is right, but I still don’t think this project can accomplish much because people are generally happy with their phones.
Is there survey data available on this? Anecdotally, everybody I know hates their phones. In fact, I think if you asked, "what's the biggest pain point in your life right now?" I think most people will point to their phones.
You might need to expand your social circle a bit.
If you asked normal average people "what's the biggest pain point in your life right now?" they would point to financial, societal, or health issues.
The vast majority of people when asked specifically about their phones probably wish that they were a newer model or had a longer battery life. As long as it communicates with people, lets them access banking and social media, and has a few of their niche hobby/entertainment apps nobody actually cares about the licensing of the modem firmware or the fact you can't install TempleOS on it.
Maybe, but that pain point isn't something free software is going to fix. Obviously not everyone has the same problems with their phone, but largely I think they fall into a few categories: notification overload, apps designed to keep you scrolling for every last minute of the day, and dark patterns or other design choices aimed at separating users from as much of their money as possible.
Every single one of these is fixable on any modern phone. Stop using social media, take a hatchet to what apps can send you notifications and when, and be more mindful of what tricks are commonly deployed to steal your attention, time, and money.
But people can't even manage that. They don't even have to do anything, they just have to stop doing certain things, but they can't or won't. Those same people aren't going to go through the effort to switch, and even if they did they would end up re-creating the same thing that makes them miserable currently.
Is there survey data available on this? Anecdotally, everybody I know hates their phones. In fact, I think if you asked, "what's the biggest pain point in your life right now?" I think most people will point to their phones.