But gos dropped support for pre-6 Pixels so not quite.

I mean, I sort of get what you are saying but it also feels a little like Grimes's boots thing from Terry Pratchet. Like, I can spend $200- $300 and get a phone that will stop getting security updates in 2-3 years... Or I can spend $700-$1000 to get a phone that comes with 7-10 years of security updates. Money per year, you are the same or better off if you can afford the up-front cost of the more expensive product, and we are generating a lot less techno-garbage clogging up the planet.

Generally, I hate the hard limit of use of these things. Coming from desktop computers, if you spend more money the machine is faster, but if you don't need the speed you can use the cheap machine just as long (or longer if you really don't need performance). All phones feel like they are just a subscription model.