Like the title says. I’ve been reading recommendations about this OS, so i went to look on their homepage, but you can only install it on Pixel phones, which are from google, right? In other words, to get rid of google products, you still have to spend your money on google? Am i missing something? I thought there were other custom roms where you can choose whether or not to add to add google products? Please be gentle, i’m a noob when it comes to custom roms. I have had CyanogenMod on a phone many years ago, but someone helped me do it. And i’m really not current with changes in recent custom roms.
I appreciate all you have written here but I have to differ with you about buying a pixel second hand. The transaction is over, someone else will buy the phone or it will go into a landfill. The latter is an awful outcome and I think we all should oppose that. If someone else buys it, Google still gets none of that cash. True, you could argue it’s “promoting” Google. But we all make sacrifices. For many, the budgetary constraint is a big one.
Well, I stand by what I said about second-hand purchasers ultimately effectively giving money to the company that makes whatever product they buy second hand. It’s just plain logic: if you buy something from Acme Inc. for $100, Acme has $100 of your money and you have their product. If you resell that product to your neighbor for $100 (assuming no depreciation), you get your $100 back and you don’t own the product anymore, but your neighbor is now in your initial situation. Whose money do you think now lines Acme’s pockets?
If you care very much about not giving Google any money like I do, the only way to achieve to own a Pixel phone is to steal it. But I ain’t no thief, so… no.
I agree with you on the budget constraint though: I’ll admit I have enough disposable to blow extra money on a Fairphone 4 that has the specs of a Google phone that’s $300 to $400 cheaper: it’s not cheap but I can afford it, and not touching a Google product with a 10-ft pole is that important to me. If you can’t afford it though, it’s still better to swallow your pride and get a Google phone so you can install a deGoogled OS and at least deny Google the monetization of your private data than not doing that.
I mean, for your logic to hold up at all, it requires ignoring a very real fact. A second hand phone was already purchased. That transaction was done already, and there exists no world in which if you don’t buy the second hand phone the seller will think “omg no one will buy this, guess I have to switch from Google forever”. Another person will absolutely buy it. But even if not, then it gets wasted, and I think the environmental impact being ignored here is a pretty crass move also. I’m not willing to sacrifice environmental concerns to send a message to Google. Honestly they absolutely know how many phones are running stock android so that number decreasing would “send the message” just the same without a phone potentially ending up in a landfill.