This is an unspoken downside of that ecosystem. I have also generated many phones worth of ewaste when I give up on them in less than a year. Its one of the reasons I stopped playing games with all these manufacturers and just bought an "official" Google phone and not touch it software wise. It obviously still wasn't enough.
I was recently cleaning through my attic and I found a lot of these old Android phones. Its amazing how many of them didn't get anywhere near the support that iPhones phones do. I told myself that I would eventually find a custom rom for them and then reuse them for something else but lets be real, that is just another time sink that probably won't happen. Now I am left staring at these phones wishing there was an easy way to deconstruct all the components into their base materials. I know that it is possible to break down the plastics via pyrolysis but no one is really doing this. Secondly there are the circuit board. FR-4 is ground up and used as filler from what I understand. What that means is that even if this phone is recycled, it will never really fully go away. Put in that context, the Android ecosystem just seems even sillier.
Much cheaper than pixel and iPhone and Samsung has a design language that many prefer to stock android and ios.
Moreover, when it comes eventually replacing the iphone, I'm going to get a better trade in value than the android even if it's 3-4x older. Thus lowering the cost of my next phone. (less ewaste bc i know the iphone will end up in someone else's pocket, not in a landfill)
Maybe Samsung is different, but when I went to trade in my $7-800 Motorola after 8-12 months of use, I was offered $28 trade-in value.
My time is also worth money. I don't have time (money) to waste on dealing with android.
Samsungs provides 3-5 years of updates for current mid and high end phones. Does your iPhone last 5x4=20 years? Will it be worth much even in 5 years? But if you trade it only after one year, how does that in any way reduce ewaste?
When I got my current phone it was 1/3 of an iphone and 1/5 of the most expensive Samsung (the fold thingy). It works well and is guaranteed at least 3 years of updates. But I plan to use it as my daily driver for 2 years, maybe 2.5. After which I will probably keep it and use it for something else around the house.
I have zero interest in a f!cking OS pushing ads into my face.
However, I found myself in a similar situation as yourself with my Nexus 6P. Newlywed on a beautiful island all by ourselves ready to record some memories. 6P took phenomenal pictures and we were all ready with tripod and remote clicker. 6P just died. Luckily still had the wife's old iphone which managed to capture the moments, but not in all its glory.
Went through one more iteration of Android with a Motorola, that they stopped supporting about 3 months after buying.
As I've said in other posts, the amount of ewaste I generated while in the Android/Google ecosystem is criminal.
Switched to an iphone and haven't looked back. I'm still on the same iphone years later, still getting updates, still chugging along.
In all honesty, I preferred the Android OS, but it's too expensive to tolerate in so many ways; money, time (learning the new UX every time there's an update), environment/ewaste, privacy (google and affiliates vacuuming up all my personal information), convenience (it doesn't breakdown when i need it the most).