cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/34045100

still deciding to fully degoogle with GOS or muddling through with what I have (proprietary, data grabbing and bloated).

To understand the question, compare with my main hardware with debian on it: a regular notebook I bought in 2016 and I've used heavily for all kinds of stuff: working, writing papers, downloading and playing media including AV1, editing audio, torrenting...

One of the best investments I ever made, considering what I paid and how prices nowadays are. Debian offers regular upgrades and I don't have to check if my hardware is going to support the software on a level comparable with android devices (GOS only runs on pixels, other open-source, privacy focused Android operating systems have similar hardware restrictions).

I want this kind of ROI for the device I buy and the software I use, but I don't know if that's possible:

GOS drops support for older pixels but I don't know how many years any particular device is supported by GOS: 3 years? not enough. There's no way I'm buying a new pixel every 3 years. I'd even consider 6 years restrictive.