I'm pretty excited about the Librem 5, if it comes out even halfway decent it'll be my next phone. I'm basically banking on my current phone lasting just up until their release day.<p>When they initially launched their campaign I was a little pessimistic about the whole thing. But since then I've realized a couple of things:<p>- I really dislike the current trend in phone hardware, and Librem will fix most of those problems (kill switches, replaceable battery, etc...)<p>- Most of the focus on the latest and greatest phone hardware is wasted on me, especially if I can control the entire software stack. Using Linux a lot has since taught me that high performance is often only necessary because large tech stacks with mandatory upgrades degrade heavily over time. And I don't really do heavy graphical work with my phone, so I just need good enough performance.<p>- Most of the focus on app compatibility is wasted on me. Android has a ton of apps, and theoretically I could learn Java and develop more of them... but, I don't like Java, and I don't like Android's development experience, and most of the apps I download are trying to hack support between my phone and my desktop anyway. Ironically, I would probably be able to get better integration and more useful software for a phone running Linux.<p>When their campaign was first announced I know a lot of people (myself kind of included) were thinking "well, it's never going to compete with Android." And at some point, something flipped in my brain and I realized, "I don't care."<p>It doesn't need market penetration, it just needs to be more useful for me. If they can build an experience of even just decent quality, then that'll be an improvement over my current Android situation.<p>I've grown more to realize that I really value controlling my own software stack, and that the more I control my own software stack, the less I care about stuff like 3rd-party compatibility, because... well, it feeds into itself. I don't want to run much of that 3rd-party stuff anyway because I can't control it.