I have a Moto, possibly my 10th.

With each new phone, the first thing I do is initiate an ADB session to begin (a futile attempt at) removing all unnecessary bloat. If I thought it wouldn't be flagged, I'd print a list of the unbelievably superfluous slop on a stock Moto (or any Android), and Moto is better than average -- but my comments have been getting flagged a lot lately and it's not worth the work.

Each year, the process becomes more and more restrictive, and what was nuke-able last year, is immutable the following. Because it's much easier and not much less relevant, I will print a list just of the Play Services festering in the background, viewable through 'developer options'. See:

    CrisisAlertsPersistentServices; LifeCycleService; SndDetectionService; GmcService; OfflineBeaconService_Persistent; ContextManagerService; PersonalSafetyService; AuthenticatorService; SuggestionsProvider; ReceiveSurfaceService; SendSurfaceSrvice; IntegrityApiPersistentService; GmsCoreStatsService; LifeCycleService; EmergencyPersistentService; SemanticLocation-Service; LockScreenService; SchedulerService; GoogleLocation-Service; GoogleLocationManagerService; LocationsPersistentService; DiscoveryService; Google Play Services

Disabling as many of those as I can, the phone runs fine, with the obvious exceptions, such as google disabling certain apps that depend on the background festival.

The last I commented on this, I was attacked for being anti-Google, or something. But when I acquired this phone, if I remember correctly, I bought it, not leased it. My first smartphone was from 2017, and was a Pixel. I was never satisfied with the liberties it offered, but compared to each proceeding year, it could reasonably be considered utopic. With covid, contact-tracing, or the components thereof, were hard baked into the services suite. And then everything in general just got a lot worse.

My point here is not to rant, even if I am a bit. It's more so me sitting here in a mixture of awe, and cynical awareness, beholding how obtrusive, anti-user, brazen, opportunistic, self-serving, and ridiculous Android has become, and how little can be done about it, and how over time, the user's ability to do something about it, has been progressively chipped away, and is now essentially nothing, and this is all, by general consensus, just fine.

And we keeping getting stronger and faster phones. Imagine how strong and fast these phones would be without the festering festival in the background. And maybe, think of the landfills, and lithium mines. Or, just freedom and dignity, an endangered duo near extinction.