I think certain "Apps" that you need to do "X" keep this from happening. You can have a super lean, private and secure linux phone using super clean, fast OSS software to do what you need to do, but what happens if you need one of the mainstream apps (Uber, etc..) to function in society with the rest of the normies. Maybe a linux phone that can dual-boot into android? I doubt we will ever see companies pulling out of the app stores and offering browser-based solutions that will work on any device or OS.

You can run Android apps with Waydroid. If the app doesn't want to run in a non-approved environment, then you can have a problem with Android forks, too.

See also: https://puri.sm/posts/closing-the-app-gap-momentum-and-time/