Again, those "selling points" are extremely fringe. Let's not pretend like grandma (and the average phone user) cares about hardware killswitches, DP over USB-C, etc...
Like they say themselves in that very article you posted :
> For people who want these specialized features that no other phone offers, the Librem 5's price is not unreasonable.
Also, specs are obviously not the only thing that matters, but having seen Librem 5 phones run, it's pretty damn obvious they do kind of matter - the thing seems to run quite choppy.
That is why I asked why grandma would need a performance of iPhone 12. Native apps work quite smoothly on Librem 5 (and many of them even on Pinephone).
I mean, just take a look at their own damn videos. [1] The thing runs choppy and had horrible input lag just typing the lockscreen passcode or opening the dialer.
I don't expect my mom to need iPhone 12 performance, but even my mom told me her older LG G-something was slow getting slow, and having played with it before her switching phones, it wasn't nearly as choppy looking as this video.
You and I obviously have very different definitions of "quite smoothly". And specs related or not, UI is a major part of the experience. The initial point still stands: Linux phones are pretty damn far from being anywhere viable for anyone but the most hardcore enthusiasts.
It does look quite a bit snappier indeed, but as I said in my previous comment as well:
> specs related or not, UI is a major part of the experience
When someone buys a phone (or hell, a computer), they're buying a package of hardware, which dictates available software. Hell, you could make some hypothetical $200 phone with the best hardware on the market, if it doesn't have what some people consider "basic" functionality software side, they won't buy... coming back to the initial point that Linux phones are not ready for prime time.
Fair enough. Some people prefer to buy early and get all software updates on the way though (with lifetime updates btw). It's also FLOSS, so everyone can contribute.
Edit: Also, why do you need a better performance? Browsing and 3D games work fine.