Pine64 does not invest a dime into developing drivers or an operating system. I love my pinephones and would not want to part from them. But a big share of the software stack they run has been developed by puri.sm employees on their payroll. The pinephone doesn’t put any hurdles into your way to freedom (in contrast to other vendors) but they are not building the road themselves.
P.S. well, 10$ of the community editions went to the respective OS communities, so “not a dime” is wrong.