As long as people play along, yes it is indeed.
If more people were installing a free mobile OS, and thus take back ownership of their hardware and digital lives, the story would be much different.
It's the same story with PCs. If you actually want to control the hardware you own, install Linux. It's not as if the alternatives to corporate control didn't exist.
The fact is most of the stuff that makes phones what they are, is hidden behind closed hardware and firmware. Even Android, which as you know is Linux, has closed binary blobs in its kernel tree.
You can get away with that somewhat for devices like the SoC on the Raspberry Pi. But things get a lot more complex when half the stuff that makes your phone usable is closed hardware and firmware blobs. What you ultimately end up with is still a device you don’t fully control but with the added inconvenience of a less mature software ecosystem too.
I don’t see this problem being solved any time soon. In fact quite the opposite, I think it’s getting increasingly difficult with each passing year.
The problem with binary blobs is entirely a corporate one. And frankly I don’t blame them for wanting to keep their products closed. I makes complete sense for them to do so. Really this is no different to nvidia keeping their GPU drivers closed. Except you can still have a functional laptop without Cuda, whereas you cannot have a functional phone without the ability to connect to cell networks and make phone calls.
They exist, but break my touchpad upgrading to kernel 5.19 from 5.15. I'd rather pay for something locked down than something that breaks.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/2002356
I think people would if there were a viable free option.
Also it isn't easy to find good mid-range hardware. I bought HMD(Nokia) for years but then I spent 250 on one of their new models and the phone was absolutely unusable (laggy UI).
Having to research models and software versions of CyanogenMod every few years just wastes my time. And then run into issues.
Plus security matters to me.
Microsoft failed to enter the market with billions spent - it isn't an easy problem.