"It's surrender or die, and the stakes are high!"

~ If I was to summarize state of Android by quoting Sabaton lyrics

I've never been real fan of Android, but there was a point in time it was bearable enough. That is, not getting that much in way, to some extent configurable, and no vendor lock-in, the last thing being the most valuable to me recently. And well, the only alternative was (and still is, eh...) iOS, which for me for a long time was nothing but a walled garden for overpriced and underpowered iPhones.

But that's just history. Compare 8.1 to current 16. Or 4.4 to it. Android became completely different OS. It has changed, and sadly not for the better...

As time went by, Android became just bloated[1] and as much unituitive mess. It wasn't ever king of UX, but in recent times it went really too far.
You remember when you could activate network by just tapping Wi-Fi icon from pull-down menu? Same for Bluetooth? You remember when you could clear recent applications without having to swipe thru all of them to reach the button? Or that you could pick a photo without that retarded "Photo Picker" crap that only checks hard-coded folders, with no sorting, no search? That's just few exaples!
In turn we got what? Ability to disable camera / microphone access, cool it has it's usecase. In fact I use it meself. But did Google really need to destroy the remains of Android intuitiveness for it?

...But at least Android is open ecosystem! ...Erh, right?

So I find Android awful, but I kept using it. And well, that seemingly illogical move was reasoned by just that: I'm not beholden to Google. I don't have to install everything from GPlay. That I can disable it or even [on some devices] install a 3rd party ROM without it at all. For someone "privacy-concious" [gosh it sounds weird] like me it was big deal. I think no explanation is needed on how intrusive Google Play is and what makes Google the most monies

Well, it still is a thing. But it's on serious decline and, according to recent news and trends, bound for oblivion...

• Google deprecates important components from AOSP, notably Dialer and SMS

...Because it wants developers to either adopt Google suite (and so the GPlay) or suffer the burden of additional software to develop + maintain

• Google progressively puts more development behind a wall

There's no insight into work-in-progess changes anymore. There might be a risk they want to completely close the source, but it's hard to be sure right now. We only get releases- Oh wait...

• Updates, incl. security-related ones, get awfully postponed

As of writing this article, Android 16 QPR1 was yet released. It's been in hands of Google for some time already. It was supposed to be publicly available by September. As of the writing, it's already November...
Same for security patches. Even critical patches are kept in secret from the public; They are released only "when a vulnerability is known to be exploited". Generally NOT a healthy stance to take in security!

• OEMs are locking themselves down

There used to be a lot of devices that were easily unlockable, whether by exploits or OEM deliberately leaving the door open. Nowadays it's really hard to find a device that supports ordinary "fastboot flashing unlock" without additional unlocking codes, account verifications, timeouts, etc. And yeah, a device that got any ROM available. Usually your choice boils down to overpriced Pixel line or older OnePlus
In fact, it's already hard to find a device that allows unlocking at all - Oppo phones have fastboot-related code removed completely, Samsung phones since recent OneUI release are not unlockable anymore. Xiaomi backed off complete lockdown recently (returning to account-based unlocking with awful timeout), but hell knows if they won't return to it once again

• From 2026 (In selected countries; 2027 globally) Google will enforce "Developer verification" on "Google-certified" devices (that means *all* stock ROMs)

...Which basically gonna be a per-application whitelist.
I run aftermarket ROMs, so that doesn't apply to me... Right? Well no, but actually yes. Vast majority of users, even those of Android libre software, run stock Android, with no option for installing custom ROM (see above again). Not all developers want to confess to Google and give their government ID. Yes, fucking ID, for real.
And what that means? Their applications won't ever get approved by Google, and so they become non-installable on stock ROMs. They lose basically entire userbase. Whether they will to continue that burden of Android SDK and maintenance for like 5% of their former userbase is up to them, but we can be sure to lose significant part of already narrowed selection of FOSS applications

The last thing was a final straw for me. It's already clear where Google is leading. Since it becomes no really different from iOS devices, I "swallowed ze pill" and bought a SE 2020 for testing, then switched to iOS as main And honestly... I don't regret it. It's irritating at some places but in general I find it, yeah controversial opinion it is, actually usable. Now I got iPhone 13 mini and I'm loving it... Well, as for something that's a mobile. Presumably my view is biased by my hatred of Google because yes, I really hate what have they done to something that once was fairly good mobile OS

I still have OnePlus 7T Pro running LineageOS and I'm looking forward to retain it in it's secondary phone role[2]. But I think that would be the end of my adventure with fat green robot.

[1] I mean basically everything gets bloaty nowadays, but Android took it to another level. For example, Android 4.4.* used to take just about 2 GB of disk space - Currently Android 16 can consume twice as much just in RAM usage. And ~13GB of space, for AOSP spin-offs (GrapheneOS, LineageOS etc).

[2] A Pixel 8 was my main beforehand.