> my next phone will be a Librem 5.

Better go with a Pinephone if everything that's been written about Librem as a company is even half-true.

I'm in the same boat. If it moves things in the right direction, then it doesn't suck.

Indeed! I usually get “but it’s still a closed source modem” as a counterpoint ... sigh

The closed source modem, or network firmware for that matter, isn't much of a problem if it can't see clear data and/or access to system memory or execute instructions. I'd see it more of a black box not unlike old RS232 connected modems: they could see all data going back and forth, but encrypting that data would be enough since they could never access the system memory to see the data before encryption or after decryption. Librem 5 and Pinephone should work along these lines. Having everything 100% open would be better, but in this case being closed doesn't create security concerns since all personal data is unavailable to these subsystems; only the main system, which is entirely open and where the user is king, can access them.