You could have had this years ago on Android with Firefox for Android, or run AdGuard or the other thousands of adblocking apps.

No, this is for in-apps tracking, not the web.

You can still run a system wide ad and tracking blocker on android.

You can on iOS too. They're implemented as a VPN running at localhost.

Can you elaborate on your practice how you do it?

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/ https://blokada.org/

If you wanted to, although it is more effort, and more niche, you can install a pi-hole on your network blocking all sorts tracking, ads etc across all devices.

Although, for Android, there do exist apps that will do system-level ad/tracker blocking.

How do you install pi-hole for the cellular modem on a smartphone?

You do not unfortunately.

However, what you can do is utilize a VPN into your home network where you already have a pi-hole set up. Doing so will route all your phone's traffic through your home network (and pi-hole) first. You'll have the same "ad protection" on the go as you would at home. I recommend checking out WireGuard.

That's not a reason to pay more for an iPhone. Android allows you to install any browser you want (as opposed to Apple still not allowing real third party browsers), including Firefox with uBlock, which is much much better at privacy than Safari on Apple and as a bonus makes the internet 3x faster by blocking ads.

Yes, we should all flock to an operating system developed by an advertising company in an effort to escape advertisements.

I mean you 1000% shouldn't go to any store, buy an Android phone and just use it if you want to avoid Google. But Android in isolation is fine as long as you consider it a hobbyist smartphone platform.

If that operating system does a better job of escaping ads, why not?

Eh, I use Wipr. Exact same thing. PiHole if you want system-wide.

An ad blocker that intercepts all of your traffic is better for privacy than one that doesn’t?

If it's open source and people can check that it doesn't anything hidden, yes

Are you compiling it and putting it on your phone yourself or are you trusting that the same version that they posted on GitHub is the same version on Google Play.

You can always opt out ad tracking in iPhone, even today, by using Limit Ad Tracking option in Settings.

Yes you can do that in iOS 13 but very few people are tech savvy to know that. With iOS 14, the dialog would be in front of you as you the app. High chance everyone would opt out

Do you watch youtube? thanks for supporting the creators with ads?

Please iPhone may be private but if you use Google search you lost already.

It is a double-whammy. You pay lot to apple and then lost privacy to google/netflix/cnn/<app> here or whomever.