"I'm am just an outlier here?"

No. The "banking app doesn't work" argument against non-corporate mobile OS, raised incessantly is HN comments, is bogus

I want a "phone", i.e., small form factor computer, that can run something like NetBSD, or Linux. But I have no intention of using it for commercial transactions. Mobile banking is not why I want to run a non-corporate OS

I want to use it for recreation, research and experimentation

NB. I have more than one "phone". The choice is not corporate mobile OS versus non-corporate mobile OS, i.e., "either-or". I can use both, each for specific purposes

> I want a "phone", i.e., small form factor computer, that can run something like NetBSD, or Linux. But I have no intention of using it for commercial transactions. Mobile banking is not why I want to run a non-corporate OS

> I want to use it for recreation, research and experimentation

I am a firm believer that phones are personal computers and should have all the end user freedom we have come to expect from personal computers. I am totally behind what your saying. (The amount of irrational anger that wells up in me when I hear someone make the argument that phones are somehow not general purpose personal computers and shouldn't provider their owners software freedom would astound you.)

Personally, I opt out of services that require the use of phone "apps" and any potential attestation they provide. Unfortunately, I just offload those needs onto my wife and her iPhone.

Want to go to a concert in a TicketMaster venue? You have to have a phone. Pay to park in some places requires a phone. Mobile ordering for some restaurants requires a phone.

I don't think it should be this way, but it is. I think we need consumer regulation to insure software freedom on phones and curtail awful user hostile "features" like remote attestation.

Until that happens (if it ever does) there is a realpolitik with needing corporate phones for some activities that can't be denied.