it’s not “forever”. it’s however long they don’t have any ideas to the contrary.
why it was implemented - so that executive #279 can show executive #114 that number go up. look how our engagement is rising! look at all them people downloading our app! when I took over from exec #317, number was this big, lookie now!
same way google made their search worse, so you have to search multiple times, thus upping the engagment, page views, etc. and then exec X goes to exec Y and say “look there’s a huge rise in searches where my bonus at!”
you should aim at $100ish (used obv) and make it as fungible as possible. a lost or stolen or exploded phone is then a no biggie. it’s encrypted by default so nobody can get at your shit, it’s easily replaced with another one, restore data, roll on. so it doesn’t matter which one you get, as long it has official lineageOS support. go to https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices click on “filter” and choose the latest Android version (15 as of now) and then pick and choose whatever’s in that budget.
edit: replacing the battery on the 6a is also possible, youtube for details; not the easiest thing out there but not that hard either, especially when it’s doomed anyhow.