Using a degoogled LineageOS was great. It’s just that the world around it has changed so much that doing certain things wasn’t really viable any more. Having a phone like that in 2010 would have been awesome, but nowadays it’s really inconvenient. Nowadays, there are some highly unfortunate software needs that don’t quite fit with this philosophy any more.
I didn’t come up with the idea that my bank requires an app, and that the app absolutely requires an OEM phone with a normal Android and GAPPS. They started requiring that nonsense, which put me in a tight spot. Do I decide to live without money or will I switch to an inferior OS.
There are also some nice to have apps that came up with similar stupid decisions. Living without them means living in the past, and I would be ok with that too. Getting a minor inconvenience in return of having more privacy is ok with me. Suffering significant inconveniences is not OK. I had to draw the line somewhere, which unfortunately meant switching away from LineageOS.
I went with iOS, because IMO it’s the least bad option out there. I made some horrible compromises, but at least I can live in 2023 like everyone else. I’m not at all happy with this decision, but at least iOS isn’t half as infuriating as it used to be 10 years ago.