Thats a very binary way of looking at this.

But true.

I think it’s very valid. I want to be hardware-independent, not only OS independent. I need graphene to work on a fairphone, jolla phone or whatever other alternatives there are. E/os can do that (to an extent), Graphene can’t for probably very good reason, but still: It‘s not an alternative then.

You can buy used Pixel, effectively not giving money to Google, or buy a Motorola when their GOS phone is released

Why are we degoogling, for what purpose? I couldn't care less about giving them what likely amounts to ~10€ of margin per year on the hardware sale. What I care about is not giving them data which is worth a lot more than that, and to take back control over my device.

When you go with an alternative you lose superior privacy and security offered by GrapheneOS and you just end up leaking more data back to Google and other ad-tech companies than you would otherwise, negating any benefits several times over.

See: Advanced features, degoogling, privacy, security, and updates sections of https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

I don't think Google makes a lot of profit on Pixel phones.

The real profit comes from their advertising business.

Maybe the phones are even subsidized by the ad business.

Nobody was arguing about profit, that's just a matter of internal accounting. Is Google receiving revenue from Pixel phones?