It’s good to want, and I say that as someone who would dance for joy if an open source phone became viable. If you think starting a new ecosystem and expecting it to be “good, next gen, priced competitively” is feasible via volunteer work anytime soon, I want whatever you’re smoking :)

Who is we? what group of people has the dev funding and time to produce FOSS hardware and software to compete with the average android phone?

It does not, but I don’t sign into any Samsung/Google things and replace every system app with one from F-Droid including the launcher. The experience is fairly similar to my old pixel with grapheneos like this. I am sure it is far cry from as secure, but I am realistic about my threat model and am willing to make trades to be more sustainable and convenient. The only other difference is the system ui skin, which does its job just fine IMO

Typing this on an samsung xcover 6 pro right now. Costs less than 200 used, has a removable battery, up to 1tb micro SD card support, and a headphone jack.