alt Hacker NewsIt used to be better.
I've been running Android custom ROMs since Gingerbread days, on HTC HD2. At that time, I'd be flashing nightlies, switching between CyanogenMod and Paranoid Android, kernels, getting bootloops.
Setting up the phone was no big deal - most apps could be backed up with Titanium Backup, few that couldn't (e.g. banking) would just get redownloaded and I'd log in immediately. I was also still a student back then and had more time to tinker, but if it was anything like it is now, I would've given up much quicker.
In the last year I had to do few clean flashes with changing my phone, then updating LineageOS, and once the phone just wiped itself for no reason. Backups don't work for most apps - even if you can get one, they'll crash without a specific reason. 2FA everywhere is mostly security theater, with apps that have no business keeping my data but insisting on it, using SMS, email, authenticators, selfies. Banking apps needing two layers of root detection circumvention (because a custom ROM is already problematic, so you need root to stop them from detecting an unlocked bootloader, and then again not to detect root). Google insisting on sending a security check notification to a phone that's just been wiped with no ability to confirm that it's really you from your PC (but if you give it few minutes, it will give in and let you verify with SMS), always feels like hacking yourself.
It's a massive pain already on a clean, bloatware-free custom ROM, with a truly minimum app list. Once you need to start debloating the official OS, it's another hour or three, depending if they're nice and let you uninstall things or if you need adb access to disable offending packages.
I found that TiBackup was both the secret sauce that allowed for playing with ROMs with impunity, and also my primary reason for rooting phones back in the day even when I was just using phones in stock form.
It was the first app I ever spent money on, and I did so without any hesitation at all.
It was just genuinely useful to be able to back up and restore my own data on my own devices, and to do so on my own accord. It was a process that I owned, and controlled, and if it went wrong somehow then I was able to troubleshoot it and make sensible decisions.
I haven't had a rooted phone in a decade or so now. These days, backups allegedly happen -- somehow -- and the entire process seems to be both deliberately and inscrutably shrouded in mystery.
When I switch devices or reset to factory to try to fix an eSIM issue (or whatever I do that makes restoration a useful path today), then it's never clear before I start whether the backup/restore will magically work or if it will simply fail without recourse. The uncertainty demonstrates a reprehensibly terrible way to deal with backups.