I've had a lot of weird out there smartphones, webOS, BB10 and Windows Phone 7/8. GNU/Linux phones just don't even seem close to being ready with basic phone features not working well from what I've read. If I could get one that worked reliably, lasted at least a day on battery and had some sort of NFC payment method I would.

> worked reliably

Probably depends on your usage pattern. Pinephone works quite reliably for me.

> lasted at least a day on battery

Pinephone fits here

> and had some sort of NFC payment method

Not available yet, but in the works (you will just replace the back cover): https://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/linux-based-pinephone-to-come...

The phone market is lost. May be better to focus on keeping desktop/laptop Linux hardware available.

But the way things are going, the open source community might soon have to start designing their own CPUs, as you may not even be able to buy a high-performance CPU within a couple of decades, they'll be proprietary tech that only exists as part of a locked-down platform, like Apple are now doing.

> The phone market is lost.

Anything to back this claim up? I disagree here. Librem 5 and Pinephone are getting more and more popular now. The first one is even recommended by the FSF: https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/

> the open source community might soon have to start designing their own CPUs

Like RISC-V?

This is my greatest fear but you have to wonder if the reverse will happen, where tech companies get so large, they they can afford to develop and support their own distro (or even operating system).