> It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist, but the others routinely have their service degraded by the government so they aren't a viable option.
Do those other options actually exist within China? I thought they were blocked and that's why WeChat is dominate.
Google handles the updates for Android One. I have a Xiaomi Mi A1 in addition to a Pixel and it seems to get updated on time. Occasionally, faster than the Pixel even for security updates.
I thought it's because they don't release the blobs/binaries for the camera. So when you another ROM, you have to use generic post-processing for the camera