Yeah, this is the opposite of being your device. This is pretending to own a device as a service.

I'm building a portable pbx on a raspberry pi with some power banks I stick in a backpack and a dual sim 5g unlimited internet hotspot, and switch over to starlink 5g when that happens. I'll throw a media server in there (pirate everything), and use a small portable wireless streaming touchscreen. There are all sorts of useful UI and linux tools that can make it a far better experience than android or phones. If I need a camera, I'll buy a camera. I've got earbuds and bluetooth for peripherals.

2026 is the year I leave "phones" behind - not playing the subscription device game anymore. I left Windows last year. I'll get better service, real control, and no enshittification treadmill.

It's too bad it takes an inordinate amount of tech savvy to break out - Linux is well beyond good enough for grandma or the average user at this point. There's no reason beyond exploitation for profit for the kafkaesque intrusion into people's lives and data. If you've got the capability, break out.

This product is not breaking free. Same walls, different garden.

Re: media server. Yeah. I wish there was an alternative but the modern media landscape is so broken there is no other way to maintain digital copies of your shows and movies, while maintaining your own ability to curate your ow content on a plane that isn’t just another surface for those companies to drive engagement metrics. If you try to escape, you are forced into drm locked down Blu rays or even just shit out of luck in the case of a lot of direct to streaming tv. In which case you have two options, stay on the enshittification treadmill, taking more and more shit from bigass corporations who are actively poisoning the culture, or sail the seas. Or I guess just don’t watch tv. But I like tv.