> Until those ecosystem issues are fixed

Again, that is my point. No company has any incentive, or has made any moves to, fix the ecosystem. They're happy how there are no standards or documented APIs, how everything is a closed binary blob that changes from one insignificant version to the next. They don't demand any kind of support or openness from hardware suppliers, they don't form any standards or demand adherence to them, despite their massive market power (if Samsung wanted open or standards-compliant hardware, they'd get it), because they directly financially benefit from the broken status quo they created.

> concessions that a $800-1000 phone doesn't have to make

You can spend 2x that on an Android phone, and the software situation won't be any better. This is deliberate.