Its done!
I finally got through Red Pocket by using someone else’s card to purchase (Thanks @bed for the suggestion and saving me from spending weeks going back n forth with them. Weirdly, the cards that wouldn’t work for me were Mastercards and the one that did work was AmEx! Clearly Red Pocket has an issue.)
And… I bought Rob Braxman’s De-Googled Moto G7 Plus! It will be my first smart phone!! I’m so excited!! I’m most looking forward to being able to take pictures that you can actually see things with!
Hopefully I dont run into any issues getting the above set up. I’m still really looking forward to getting the Librem 5 (and parading it around like a lamborghini) but until then, I can have a functioning phone that aligns with my values and enjoy some crisp pics (crisp compared to the 2MP fuzzy dark camera I’ve had for years)!
Huge huge thank you to everyone in this chat, especially @amosbatto @amarok for helping me make sense of this crazy world!! Seriously everyone here has been amazingly generous with their time, information and resources. I have so much respect for this community and am so relieved to have found others who value privacy as much as I do. <3