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Ask Slashdot: Are Custom Android ROMs Still a Thing?
Thelasko writes: Reading Kashmir Hill's series Goodby Big Five on Gizmodo made me consider switching to a custom Android ROM like LineageOS again. The Gizmodo articles make it seem that most phones are so locked down it is almost impossible to do. My last experience with custom ROMs confirmed that to be true for me. Is anyone having success? Why is LineageOS making builds for 185 devices if no one can use them?
"Why is LineageOS making builds for 185 devices if no one can use them" = you have yet to prove that nobody can use them, only that you cannot.
Android, as well as the rest of the mobile space, is not meant to serve the user: it's meant to serve handset manufacturers, carriers, and app developers, and content providers, everyone except the user.
I'll get another mobile device when it actually feels like mine, not something that seeks to abuse and exploit me at every opportunity.
It's about privacy. If you're fine with Google knowing everything there is to know about you, then you're right, there's probably no chance. Call me nuts, but I don't want to give Google (or Apple) all of the details of my life.
I don't respond to AC's.
Glad you noticed paid shilling on all privacy-related articles.
Also, if you don't look what you buy beforehand, you are out of luck. Don't buy any phone that cannot run Lineage OS. That means buying 1 year old phones from eBay, maybe even import some from other markets, if the US market doesn't cater to that. And accept worse quality from the camera. Then carry a good little compact camera on your vacation.
If these convenience trade-offs are not worth considering for improving your privacy, pushing back Google and valuing your freedom of choice / freedom to own your devices, then you have made a choice and declared that convenience is your primary motivator. This validates the various manufacturers who make you trade convenience for safety / privacy / ownership to do more.
Unless you start sacrificing convenience for privacy and safety, you will NEVER make any inroads in being dominated by your gadgets and you absolutely deserve everything you get from that. It is your choice and you're getting it.
In Europe, there is a regulation to protect users against such practices as it forbids the phone vendor to "lock" a phone.
As buyer, you have the right to use the hardware in whatever way you like. (Obviously, you can not use it to break other laws, this does have other implications, such as warranty, liability etc...)
In America, you seems to be very much against any form of government regulation, and I understand the fear of potential future misuse.
Unfortunately you seem to fail to realize you are being misused by a lot of companies ate this very moment.