I've switched to mint mobile I can't advocate for any of their owners (Ryan Reynolds?) But it uses TMobile and paying for it yearly (420$) with 10gb per month has been good enough for me.

I'd recommend waiting for black Friday deals and prepare to bring your owned device

I don't think there really are any good solutions for this both in terms of what provider to use and what product device to use.

In my opinion a better way to go about this would be to use a non-smart phone or a dumbphone or a featureless phone as they are now starting to be called. Then use the phone for strickly phone calls and perhaps text messages.

Use specific devices to control specific things instead of letting one device control you.

But if you still need to use the smartdevice and be connected constantly to the network but you want to "stick it to the man" or "dont like supporting evil companies" there are a myriad of MNVO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) out there such as:

Mint Mobile(already suggested here)

TracFone

Cricket

one I would recommend is Patriot Mobile. (I don't use their service but it appears on paper they are trying to do good)

^MNVOs are not networks on their own, they piggy back off the networks and towers owned by the "big companies". I don't really know how it works but the MNVOs kind of pay rent to the big networks and in turn sell access to the big companies networks. So your still supporting the big companies in the end.

Wasn't the Freedom Phone called out for being a scam by con artists? There was something about it a while ago.

I’m waiting for the GAB phone. I’m looking into de-appling my phone, I think there are some Linux based OS out there. I currently use CC.