> I'm happy to trade some control over my phone for assurances that it will have an up-to-date OS that gets security updates in a timely manner. Unfortunately,

> I'm happy to trade some control over my phone for assurances that it will have an up-to-date OS that gets security updates in a timely manner. Unfortunately, you have things just about perfectly reversed. Using stock firmware on Android devices typically leaves a few months' lag time between upstream AOSP patch release and OTA updates for your phone. In contrast, LineageOS devices get updates every week; sometimes LineageOS beats even Google at issuing security updates. Further, OEMs often discontinue updates after a couple years, while LineageOS will support your device for years and years. Your tradeoff is really to lose control over your phone for a less-up-to-date OS, (frequently) months-old unpatched vulnerabilities, and a short support period. Your point about users not wanting to root their phones and install another OS still stands, but I dispute your perceived advantages to using stock Android crapware. PS: Check out the Moto G4 Plus. It has a decent processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a microSD card slot, all the bells and whistles (fingerprint reader, GPS, LTE, etc.), full LineageOS support, and all for ~$220 on Amazon.