We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

Start with buying the right hardware. Fairphone offers more control over the hardware:

https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/104924762388...

https://www.fairphone.com/

I feel like such initiatives miss one obvious target - the well heeled tech savvy user (who quite often is also privacy minded) and wants the latest. At the price point they are selling a Snapdragon 7 device, I can get a Snapdragon 8 Elite phone from the market quite easily. Now I am happy to pay more because of what they stand for but I don't see them selling a model that features the latest and greatest + the privacy focus. Surely the latest hardware and privacy/environmental responsibility are not mutually exclusive. I change my phone every 4-5 years on average so I try to not contribute to the landfills but I do want the latest when I buy.

The OS they ship has Google services on it. They've previously chosen not to give you root access by default because Google wouldn't allow it: https://forum.fairphone.com/t/fairphone-s-approach-to-root-o...

They'll make the same choice again because it's not really a choice. Nobody would buy the device, or could make much use of it, without Google services on it. They'd be out of business

Edit, to be clear: that is not to say I disagree with what they do. They allow you to unlock the bootloader and they even supply an open and degoogled version of the OS! That is more than any other vendor I'm aware of. Every time I need a new phone, I check if the latest Fairphone fits my needs, and even though it's a compromise, I've tried it out in the past for several weeks. It's really worth supporting. But Google's new restriction will almost certainly affect Fairphone users, too

> Surely the latest hardware and privacy/environmental responsibility are not mutually exclusive.

It pretty much is. The engineering for bringing out a latest-and-greatest device and opening it up is something a small independent outfit can't afford, and the big companies capable of it are not interested in doing it.

They also offer a Google-free Android:

https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/997915455681...

https://shop.fairphone.com/the-fairphone-gen-6-e-operating-s...

You can also run Ubuntu Touch on the Fair Phones.

They said with the latest device release (like 2 months ago) that they're shifting their focus towards what you're saying (good quality without paying a huge premium), but it's still hard because what's good for you isn't good for me. I find the device too large and not fast enough; my partner would find the device already quite expensive as well as on the small side. The device won't work for everyone, even if they'd make it cost twice as much (and very few people are willing to pay even a 50% premium). Instead, they're trying to now please more people while making somewhat more compromises in the ethics department as compared to being more strict there and having it work for even fewer people

None of their previous phones were (at release) as close to competitive as the Fairphone 6 is today

We could have both an ethical/privacy device and many models at competitive price points, but that requires economies of scale to the same extent as non-fair competitors are doing. It sounded for a short time (like ten years ago) as though more vendors would go this route when incontrovertibly shown that it is possible and they merely need to tell FP's vendors "give some of that fairly mined Cobalt to us, too", but FP is here and history hasn't played out that way so this is what we've got. I assume this is the best that they were able to achieve with the resources they could muster. All we can do to help it grow is buy the device, or start a competitor or collaboration