> There should be a "good Android" option that costs less than an iPhone for people that would pay a little more money for less garbage.
There is, actually: Android One. E.g. Nokia makes phones that have minimal crapware preinstalled.
You will still have to deal with Google's own crap... like the retarded Assistant that just won't fucking die. Even with absolutely every setting in every google settings page in every google app explicitly disabling the Assistant, if you dare speak words resembling "ok google" it will still "helpfully" pop up asking if you'd like to enable it. And sometimes spontaneously. While you're typing, hoping you'll fat-finger "yes please".