Comment by fluoridation
21 days ago
Fewer people use custom ROMs not necessarily because they don't want to, but because manufacturers began putting hardware on the phones that only they have the firmware for. I have a Samsung phone that I replaced as my daily driver because the phone speaker broke from sweat. Other than the speaker it works literally perfectly. I'd love to use it to try different alternative OSs, but AFAIK, even though it's only from 2021, not a single project supports it.
Phones with unlock able boot loaders still exist. Samsung phones outside the US that use Exynos, Pixel, OnePlus, Motorola, etc. The features people made custom rom's for have just become part of Google Android or part of other OEM versions. Even though these popular phones do have unlock able boot loaders there just isn't a large interest in custom rom's. The interest in custom roms and more locked boatloaders happened in parallel.