Mobile phones are like 3D printers: the technology isn't new, but within the last decade the price of 3D printer components dropped, and the availability of open source software to drive them rose, and an equilibrium was found where they entered the domain of non-professional tinker types, at which point we saw an explosion of creativity in that space. The only difference is that that equilibrium hasn't happened for mobile phones yet.
But people are working on it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103809433/wiphone-a-ph...
It's gonna take a while, but once the DIY approach is a viable alternative, even for just the tech savviest 1% of the population, Apple and Google will have something else to be compared against, and that will effect their choices in a nice way. Or at least I hope so.
Isn't the answer to that just buy an easily rootable phone and flash an OS without spyware? There's a few manufacturers out there with official unlock tools and presumably supporting that practice would only lead to more adoption. (although, admittedly, this does require the hardware to not have spyware or backdoors built into it)
Who ever owns the phone owns the person and their speech, this is why the complaint over who actually owns the phone and what that means is so important.
> Or just buy a different phone.
The complaint goes beyond Apple and iPhone, Android does a better job of pretending you own the phone but all that really means is Google owns you instead of Apple. The problem is political not technological, all the common person can do is bitch and moan about it.