So, what's stopping you from becoming Apple's competition? If a significant number of people crave your idea of FOSS and you have ideas to make a superior product, I'm sure the market will reward you.
Did you ever see any Linux laptop in a store? They do have some market share but never existed to the ordinary people.
Also, GNU/Linux phones exist (Librem 5 is my daily driver). However without Apple's budgets, you can't create the same smooth experience. You just can't compete with the duopoly.
So what you're saying is that alternatives do exist, but they aren't popular... that doesn't sound like a "duopoly" exists, it just sounds like Android and Apple cover the needs of the vast majority of people. I'm sure it's difficult to be part of a niche, but that doesn't mean that there's some conspiracy against you.
> I'm sure it's difficult to be part of a niche, but that doesn't mean that there's some conspiracy against you.
Yes, it does: https://puri.sm/posts/breaking-ground/. Purism tried to created their own smartphone not relying on Apple and Google and it was almost impossible to find the necessary chips. Nobody wanted to share the schematics or open the drivers. People are just locked-in into the duopoly. It's impossible to use popular apps without it, like Whatsapp or even Signal (!).
