DeGoogle Yourself

1+ for PCAPdroid. Added some domain names and IP addresses to my hosts file by analyzing idle traffic. 😁

Which, ironically, in an ideal world, should be NONE except for perhaps some keepalive packets, if one's running a VPN or such... Boi, if normies knew the traffic going in and out of Google Play Services when "idling"... 😑

how are we hiding root nowadays in a way that works?

It does mean you have more control over your device in most circumstances, especially given the imminent closing of side loading from stock Android. There is certainly more privacy on most popular ROMs which is control over my personal information, and more security from not being rooted does also imply more control. Everyone's threat model is different, but personally I am more worried about viruses or the rise of fascism leading to brown shirts confiscating my phone and accessing private information than I am concerned about maybe not being able to automate something in Tasker that would be fun to mess with. Again, as you say, it is a personal choice, but it has just been a LONG time since I've even bumped into anything that can only be done rooted. And last time I did, I think it was something that would have made it a single use device for that purpose, in which case rooting is a lot less dangerous. Android has come a long way with having sand boxing both work and having workarounds for functionality. Linux is learning a lot from it, but immutable distros are not quite in the same level yet. In fact some of the stuff I used to do on a rooted phone you can just do with built in Android 16 terminal or Termux.

Is there EVEN MORE control when rooted? Sure. But the use cases for that keep diminishing, and for most people wanting to get off stock Android on the degoogle sub, the things they are trying to accomplish will be done better with a custom ROM, as well as prevent them from potential exposure that they may not even be aware is a tradeoff