I think you are absolutely right.

Qobuz,

They are French,

You have all Deezer and Spotify perks,

They pay artists,

Music is often in High Resolution, they have partnerships with Hi-Fi audio brands,

You can reach them if your favorite artist or album is missing.

Deezer is the way if one wants to continue streaming.

Spotify is still registered in Luxembourg with its operational HQ in Stockholm.

Call me out of touch all you want. I have big sd cards, and mp3 files. No ads. No subscriptions. No bullshit.

have a look at Qobuz. I've heard they have some of the highest payouts to artists. I don't have sources unfortunately :/

Source? I would like to learn more

Moving to something that's still at significant risk of being enshittified is an objectively worse move than going to something that's not, though. I'm not saying to keep US tech, I'm saying to build your own now so you don't have to move again in a couple years.

Yeah, why wouldn't it be? Lol

Yes, GrapheneOS is Android (it's AOSP without Google Play Services and GApps, with open source replacements). It's like what CyanogenMod was back in the day. I haven't used Graphene; I've never owned a Pixel. And Graphene is only on Pixels.

I've used a ton of Android custom firmware... from around Ice Cream Sandwich through Lollipop — back when Android was named for desserts. My favourite CFW was LiquidSmooth based on Jellybean, based on AOKP, which was an AOSP fork that tried to be "cool." It wasn't quite as cool as Paranoid Android (which was fucking awesome), but it was way more stable. And CyanogenMod was the most stable but "boring" by comparison. I mean it wasn't flashy. But LiquidSmooth was rock solid. So no, I haven't used Graphene, but I've used forks/ROMs like it.

If Google Play Services is running on it, and you're not blocking it with a firewall (not sure if you even can, but I suppose it isn't impossible), then yes, it's spying on you. (I do not think GrapheneOS runs Google Play Services.)

The label "Android" explicitly includes the ability to spy on you. GrapheneOS is not Android certified.

i remember learning to degoogle with adb. it wasn't easy and i had to reset more than a couple of times

then i installed LineageOS, after adb it was easier. For somebody else it may be "difficult" indeed

then i installed GrapheneOS for a friend. It can't get any easier. Their web installer makes degoogling accessible to everyone.

I mean, the best way is to throw iPhone money at Google, and get iPhone 11 level performance out of a Pixel 10, then wipe the firmware and replace it with GrapheneOS. This is problematic for a couple reasons. One, if you're gonna pay iPhone money, maybe just get an iPhone? Solves a big chunk of the privacy issue, but doesn't get you away from American tech companies, which was your original point. So we set that option aside. Two, you have to give Google money, so they win either way. Sure, they lose out on that targeted ad money, but they sold you years-old tech at a premium price — so they win. Of course, you can buy a used Pixel, but it's gonna be even less powerful (assuming it's an older model).

I think the best option is to take the open-source AOSP (Android Open Source Project) that the closed-source Android is based on, and make a fork that doesn't use Google, like Amazon did with Fire OS. Then you'd just need a hardware partner.

Apparently, Graphene OS is looking into this, but I don't like the idea of a stripped-down Android phone. If I'm paying iPhone price on years-old hardware, the OS better kick some ass. The alternatives to iPhone just offer too many compromises in the name of virtues that I don't really think matter enough. If we can't get an alternative that can match iPhone on performance, it should have an awesome user experience.

There's also Jolla with Sailfish OS, but don't know if they are any good

The iPad also wasn't Apple's first tablet. The Newton basically sucked and no one liked it. But now there's really no point in buying anything but an iPad if you want a tablet, even if you use an Android phone.

There were a ton of bad MP3 players before the iPod and a bunch of smartphones before the iPhone, except in both cases, some of them were good. You just had to be real savvy to find those diamonds in the rough, because it sure was a rough market.

The problem is, Google is a data services (advertising and marketing) company. The only reason Android even exists is because Google bought it from a hobbyist (Andy Rubin) because they knew they could use it to scrape more data than Gmail alone. Android exists to harvest your data so that Google can collect and sell it.

Meanwhile, Apple is still kind of trying to sell phones like computers. They're pushing performance harder than their rivals, and they want to be a privacy-first company, but they're based in the US, and are licking fascist boots, so it's not a good look. And now Apple is pushing services as well, subscriptions and whatnot. Is it really better than Android? Especially given the shortcomings in app choice (e.g. sideloading) and the broken ass keyboard? I dunno. I'm a Mac guy, I like Apple tech, warts and all. And I still think they protect your privacy. I think, like Mozilla, they collect telemetry so they know how their products are used, but I don't believe they are tracking your activity across apps/the web, building a profile on you, and selling this to advertisers. And they've gone after companies that try to do so on their platform — when CEO Tim Cook came out and said "starting today, we're still going to let Facebook track you across apps and the web, but we're going to make them get your permission first" or something like that. And from then, you had to agree to the tracking. If you said no, the app was stopped from doing it. Apparently it was effective, Facebook ran a huge ad campaign claiming to be a small business and saying Apple was hurting small businesses like them. (They've since found ways around it. Apple has tried to block them. It's a cat-and-mouse game.) Anyway, point is, I don't know how long Apple can keep selling phones like computers. Arguably, they stopped a while ago. And that's a shame. And it's why, as an Apple guy, I'm rooting for Linux phones. Because if Apple won't sell a phone like a computer, well... that's the kind of phone I want. A pocket computer that can call.