a security nightmare, phones are updated from 2 to 4 years and then left for dead. after that no more security updates and apps will eventually stop supporting your version.

also, android lacks proper networking tools. no root access is also a big problem when selfhosting.

oh and let's not forget the unlockable bootloaders that will lock your "server" into an Android version full of spyware and whatever crap the manufacturer decided to include.

but even on a a clean Android like Lineage OS, Android is unsuitable for an OS because it's ultimately designed as a phone OS which are too restricted for self-hosting or doing serious computing at all.

they also have zero reparability and upgradability. if my storage runs short, I just buy a larger HDD and replace the old one. Cloning the disk is as easy as using one command, good luck cloning your whole system in Android. If my CPU dies or I need more processing power, I buy a new one and plug it in.

Android = Google

People concerned with self hosting don’t want spyware on their servers.

Android is great as a general use phone/TV/watch etc OS for running apps but it's fundamentally not designed for this use case. Installing ProxMox on an old computer is going to simply work better for every self hosted use case. Most people that are remotely interested in this probably have something laying around that could be used. For those that don't, decent x86 machines can be had for super cheap second hand.

I get the point of this is hardware reuse since people have old phones laying around but it feels the same as all those "turn your old phone into a security camera!" posts. Nice idea but ultimately impractical.

Hopefully Google is promising 7 years of support will start a trend that leads to people having less old phones in the drawer collecting dust.

It's a neat idea, there are some generic HTTP/FTP server apps out there, and you can kind of tinker around in the CLI to run other things. But it would be cool to see 'one click' APKs for popular services.

Avoiding battery management killing them would be the hardest part I imagine.

My limited understanding is that ARM usually is a lower priority for devs and so software is often harder to come by?

My personal hope is that people start to turn used desktops/laptops into servers.