I think AOSP will stay open source for quite a while, so the forks can continue. What Google removed was access to the drivers for Pixels, which makes development for new phones or driver updates much harder.
So I think the custom ROMs will take more time for updates or some might even ask for money to use their ROMs (which is fair in my opinion).
If the ROM ecosystem happen to die down, then my next step would be to get a open souce / hardware centered phone and install a mobile Linux distro.
I think AOSP will stay open source for quite a while, so the forks can continue. What Google removed was access to the drivers for Pixels, which makes development for new phones or driver updates much harder.
So I think the custom ROMs will take more time for updates or some might even ask for money to use their ROMs (which is fair in my opinion).
If the ROM ecosystem happen to die down, then my next step would be to get a open souce / hardware centered phone and install a mobile Linux distro.