I agree, with a caveat. The vast number of consumers don't even know Linux/BSD or any the alternatives exist.
I have zero faith in a Linux smartphone. What will happen is that there will be some GNU/FSF thing with specs that are 15 years out date and you will have to install Linux via a serial console using Trisquel and the only applications available will the Mahjong (yes I am being hypobolic).
Clearly hyperbole! We'll also have TuxPaint, SuperTuxKart (CPU rendering only, because the toolchain doesn't support Android's HAL), and a couple of (long-abandoned) LibreOffice forks that crudely adapt different subsets of the interface for a touch device.
Unfortunately in the past people have taken obvious hyperbole literally.
I realised a few years ago when one of my friends didn't know what the browser was on her phone, that any notion of people caring about the OS outside of branding is pretty much non-existent.