Comment by jajuuka

The thing is making a smart phone is hard. You need experienced and knowledgable embedded engineers to design every aspect of the phone. You need people who are knowledgable about RF and know how to go about regulations in various countries. You need software engineers to build up a whole operating system from scratch and probably do that multiple times as the available technology changes. Not to mention create an entire production line to fabricate the parts and assemble them.

And while efforts like Pinephone are good, they don't have the VC or talent to really make that a reality anytime soon on a massive scale. Most efforts in this space are open source which is great but doesn't really pay anything. People with these skills can easily work at any phone OEM and make good money. So I think it will take a massive company to do it. Maybe Microsoft wants to give it another go haha. Amazon has tried multiple times to make this a reality but it's just cost so much money and time that they keep shutting it down.

I don't have any answers, for something to become viable is has to appeal to the average consumer and getting to that point is like crossing a mountain.