Aren't the backdoors gonna be in the baseband firmware that no phone allows you to modify?

I always felt that we basically "lost" with open source: Intel did the Management Engine and phones stuck everything in the baseband.

There's no real possibility of having fully software-hackable hardware. Someone else ultimately has control of all hardware, if they want to exercise that control.

Running all sort of apps that wouldn't exist native on Linux (banking, whatsapp, ...) or whose equivalents although better and safer on Linux aren't compatible with what the mass uses. I finally settled with a phone (Nokia 8110 4G) that does just the phone, the hotspot and the occasional low quality photo, then a Thinkpad for serious stuff, and don't miss at all a smartphone. But I have no use for social media etc. most people mileage will vary. Actually I would be interested in Graphene OS, but it only supports devices that are either too old or too costly for a mere curiosity, therefore I will wait.

As someone writing this on a pinephone the primary issue with the statement is the lack of context. You 'put linux on it' and get OSS, and control of your own device. But most of the time lose 90% access to the abilities of ios/android installs... I can sudo pacman -S dub & ldc2 + fav editor of the week. But had to spend hours getting an android emulator working to sign up to use the telegram install that came with most/all of the distros I've tried!

TLDR: you get a pocket laptop instead of a phone, despite owning a "phone"