I wouldn’t worry about it. You can make things work just as well as android phones work with everything else. AirPods work with android phones and you can sync data through google apps, etc. just as well on iphone. I have both and android (Pixel) and iPhone and don’t feel “sucked in” to anything.

The main difference for me is that iphones have been more durable. I went through three Pixel upgrades, two times there was some minor hardware issue that bricked the phone. The one I have now had a cracked screen - even though I got a tempered glass screen protector and always keep it in the case. If my iPhone gets bumped around I don’t need to worry. With my second Pixel I dropped the phone four feet onto linoleum ( not a super hard surface) and a capacitor came loose. It cost almost as much as a new phone to get it fixed and it was not a typical repair, so trying to even find a place to do this specialized kind of repair was going to be a hassle.

For me knowing that my phone isn’t just going to spontaneously break is a big factor.

I don’t want to get sucked into an ecosystem where my choice of what product to buy is so limited.

This isn’t actually the case in my experience, because non-Apple products work just fine with the iPhone unless it’s some Android-specific accessory. No one wants to ignore the iPhone market so they make sure that their product is well-supported on iPhones. For instance, I use a bunch of headphones from various manufacturers, apart from AirPods, and they all work great too.

The actual issue is that if you want to move from iPhone to Android later you may have issues getting some Apple devices you have to work with Android, e.g. I don’t think the Apple Watch works at all with Android.