"took control"?

Brother, you didn't take anything here, you still depend on Google good will allowing the pixel devices to be just open enough so that Graphene can be installed on them, but that can always change in the future devices on a whim or even now via e-fuses on the Tensor SoC.

Google is the one in control here giving you the temporary illusion of control. Kinda like the people plugged into the Matrix. But they can afford to play the long game over years or decades till they monopolize the market and kill any small competitors from becoming threats, and then rug-pull you.

For you to be in control you need a (almost)fully FOSS phone, from HW, to modem, to EFI-boot stack, not just the OS and the temporary permission from the manufacturer of a closed source HW stack to replace their OS.

What you are describing is not Google’s alturism but keeping competition in check. If Google didn’t “allow” GrapheneOS it opens up a new market segment for other smartphone manufacturers. Apple really cashed in on privacy for a few years so it’s not unfathomable that Xiaomi or someone else goes all in on “privacy focused android” in absence of pixel+graphene combo.

Edit: Apparently Motorola is doing just that.

Years ago I looked into GrapheneOS, and I ultimately didn't go with it because, at least at the time, they only supported pixel phones (specifically pixel phones that Google actively had security updates for). I realized that if I got that OS, I would be at the mercy of Google supporting the device in order to continue using GrapheneOS.

In the end I just opted out of the android ecosystem altogether and went with a flip phone that I used as a hotspot for an iPod touch (we only used over VPN with locked down DNS and nothing google related).

My privacy lasted about two weeks, because unfortunately Spotify was able to fingerprint that device to Facebook.

TBF if Google locked down the devices like that it would be a GPL violation. Not their first or whatever but still, there's a reason for them not to do that beside "being nice"

And how many options are there exactly? How many of them are capable of at least making and receiving a phone call without any issues 99% of the time?

While I agree with your general sentiment, I feel necessary to acknowledge that it's just not there (yet?). GrapheneOS is a great option if you want to have a fully working and secure device.

You're not wrong, but we gotta do what we can and take every advantage we can get.

Your point is valid and yeah, it's a never-ending fight just to keep the control we have. Things like the Play Protect API and loads of Android apps being coupled to Play Services is it's own big challenge we're stuck with just to stay within the Android ecosystem

There is no FOSS modem. The baseband is a separate computer operating on a lower level than the OS.

Your provider can run arbitrary code there.

Let them eat steak!