All that tells me is that there is little to no market for these wide open devices and the existing user base is not sweating the use of manufacturer app stores.
No one outside of a tiny group of techy tinkerer types really cares.
No one outside of a tiny group of techy tinkerer types really cares.
Other manufacturers offer it as well — these options continues to exist, and while it's certainly not a high percentage of the market, some of these phones sell because of openness.
Niche manufacturers usually focus on "stronger" openness (Librem, PinePhone, Fairphone...) — but they provide subpar hardware compared to mainstream top-end. Eg. most recent release in Volla Quintus (https://volla.online/en/volla-phone-quintus/) uses SoC that is half the speed of Google's Tensor G4 in both single- and multi-threading benchmarks: https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-mediatek_dimensity...
So I generally go with phones which can get their bootloader unlocked and which can be rooted, to ensure I have full control of them. I did, in the past, use Ubuntu Phones (Meizu MX4, Nexus 4), HP/Palm Pre Plus and 3 (webOS with full root access), Nokia N9, Motorola A1200 etc — all as my daily drivers. I did get PinePhone, but that thing is sloooow. Since, I've switched to plain Android phones which allow you full control.
There are plenty of devices you have full control over but they're not called phones for that reason.