You can buy a PinePhone now (well, when they are back in stock). It's a decent phone with a completely open Linux stack. The UI might be a bit sluggish, but it is a fully functioning smartphone.

If you want to see more apps targeting a third platform, then you should buy one of these phones.

That's the way the market works.

I have one already.

But there is a network effect in play here, that pretty much disallows a new platform to emerge without compatibility. If I were to create the very best hardware with top notch OS on top, that is superior in every way to every android and ios phone out there, noone would buy it because phones are integral part of our lives with many areas of it requiring applications that are only available on these two platforms. Windows phone pretty much lost due to it — it was not worth the effort of companies to create a third port (even with the big funding Microsoft tried), and without a critical mass, it died off.

Congrats -- do you like it? I wasn’t able to snag one before they all sold out. Hopefully, I'll be able to get one after the CNY break.

The progress it’s made is remarkable, but unfortunately it is not ready for daily use. I’m not sure what you want it for, if s hobby device to develop/check out the state of it, go for it. For more frequent use, maybe wait for the pinephone 2, as I think the hardware is a big bottleneck.. I think it has trouble scheduling processes due to the not too strong GPU and few RAM. The GPU unit is also not particularly strong, and I’m not as optimistic thar everything can be solved in software.

But if you can allow supporting the project do buy one! (Though I believe they work basically without a profit margin)

Usually whenever I hear someone in business complaining about the free market economy being harsh on startups in a niche it’s because they absolutely suck at marketing and they blame the system for not praising them for existing

You honestly believe someone can just pop up, get some deal with a hardware manufacturer/create their own hardware, create their own OS, and stay afloat as long as people start developing for it? Aaand even after a minimum feature set is achieved it will still be nowhere usable as a mobile phone, because bank N will not make an app for it, you can use facebook on it in the web browser, etc. Goddamn Microsoft failed at it. And as I said there is a reason behind it, the more platform there is, the more every company on Earth has to pay for development of their apps. And that magic number seems to be stuck at 2.

Unless there is a newcomer with crazy good compatibility, nothing will change.

> And frankly, there will not be more mobile platforms because even the current two is already much for companies to develop for. Free market doesn’t work that way.

How do you imagine free market works? No companies magically capture the midshare of most users? No companies have anough money/resources to corner the market?

Literally nothing prevents any of the current players in the "non-free market" to develop their own phone. Heck, Microsoft even tried to do it.

Please see my reply on your sibling post.

Once again: how do you imagine the imaginary free market works?

How do you imagine the real world works? Even in the very text written by Adam Smith he says that free market only works in a regulated environment. Because once a few gets big enough, they can control the whole market.

Why do you think Microsoft failed even with the tremendous amount of money they poured into and even with having an arguibly great UX?

> How do you imagine the real world works?

The way it works. It's not me complaining about "Free market doesn’t work that way."

> Because once a few gets big enough, they can control the whole market.

Yes, yes they will.

So what is, exactly, the nature of your complaint?

> Literally nothing prevents any of the current players in the "non-free market" to develop their own phone. Heck, Microsoft even tried to do it.

Literally, the already existing 2 platforms prevent a new one from emerging —- thus it is incorrect to say that the free market will solve the issue.

Anyone can launch a new phone with its own hardware and OS and a marketplace. It just takes a lot of money that most people don’t have. I think what you are really complaining about is not enough people have the money to launch a new phone

Anyone can launch a new phone, but even one of the richest company failed, even when they paid for app developers to create apps?

> thus it is incorrect to say that the free market will solve the issue.

Are you arguing with yourself now?

This is your text (emphasis mine): "And frankly, there will not be more mobile platforms because even the current two is already much for companies to develop for. Free market doesn’t work that way."