People need to stop caring about warranties so much. Don't overpay, and have emergency funds. If you break something, fix it or replace it. When someone dropped my phone and cracked the screen, I spent 300€ on a new phone. Not 3000€ because I'm not an idiot.
Thanks for calling me an idiot I guess ...
I mean, I don't particularly understand how "caring about warranty" goes against what you've written after that. Replacing something for free is surely better than doing so for $300 dollars, no?
Are you saying I should have installed GrapheneOS on the phone, possibly discovered that the phone has hardware issues and then go out to buy another phone because I have an emergency fund? Or stick with a new phone that had issues?
Or maybe I have made a mistake by buying a phone more expensive than $300? I can see this one actually, but I was going for something that didn't have ads in every menu as the cheap Chinese phones I was using up until this point.
Outside of the used market, which I tend to ignore due to battery/performance degradation, there's no way for me to buy a Pixel for less than $300 anyways.
It isn't a free replacement. It's a $50 for a 50% chance of replacement if you need a replacement, and if you don't you still have to pay the $50.
This might come as a bit of a shock to you, but not everywhere has terrible customer protection. I was less interested in the (free) 2 year warranty than the 14 day free return mandated by the EU.
I wasn't really risking being denied, as long as I didn't break any rules.
Consumer protection doesn't normally include buying you a new phone if you damage it.