I know that most customizability features that were once exclusive to custom roms are available for use right out of the box these days.
In the case of manufacturers like Samsung, I think,there are still no official builds of lineageOS for the newer phones after the galaxy s10 series.
I’m aware that GSI roms are available. My experience with GSI’s have been kinda bad. Most of the time they lack a lot of features which makes the phone not viable anymore. Then there are also the random UI bugs, which frustrate the hell out of the user.
I miss the old days when there were lots of custom roms, even for budget devices. I used to flash them when my phones were out of warranty. I could use my phone however I saw fit.
Is there no way to bring back these good times ? Or will the whole custom ROM community just shrink to the pixels and a select few devices ?
Some manufacturers, like Samsung, lock up their devices more.
Sealed up phones with no way to open the case are a little harder to tinker with especially when something goes wrong.
Years ago custom ROMs was used for having more features, but stock systems matured and it’s the other way around. Now customs are mostly limited to privacy and freedom community.
And a personal opinion from me, Android is now just boring. I loved trying custom ROMs, but there is nothing more to explore with monolithic, hard to bend nature of Android. I flashed plain old LineageOS on my main device and for playing around I am about to buy a Linux Mobile phone.