Did you know that Windows tracks everything you do? Do you expect it would be different on a phone? Consider using GNU/Linux instead (on smartphones too).
Firstly, yes I do know that. Windows Phone was before Satya and the telemetry ramp up and was a quite marvellous platform compared to the alternatives on the market. Unfortunately they fucked it up switching from CE to NT and burned all the developers in the process.
Would it be different? No. Should it be different? Yes. They had a unique market position and squandered it. Microsoft had the whole world as its oyster and chose the bad path every time.
As for GNU/Linux on phones, only when they make a usable non Android distribution which AFAIK does not exist. Until then I'm going to have to sell a piece of my soul to the devil (Apple) who actually spend enough time making something fit for purpose to make it usable without incurring a major societal disadvantage.
Username checks out. That is to say, I too use Linux full time on laptop / will ignore games just because I'd have to reboot into Windows or fiddle with WINE / advocate for free software free society / use F-Droid instead of the Play Store... and yet for me, a Linux phone just wouldn't cut it. I'm already feeling impaired with blocking Google Play Services on Android, various apps don't run and sometimes I pretty much need them. So I will tend to say you're the outlier here and this is not a good definition of a daily driver for virtually everyone, though ideally you wouldn't have to be an outlier because I fully agree with your ideals.
I'd rather they resurrected windows phone.