Let me rephrase my original question.
For reference, Google offers who types of Android Things kits. One is a Raspberry Pi kit, the other is an NXP i.MX kit.
What do I want to use a general purpose personal computer for? Good question. To my best understanding you shouldn’t have a predefined purpose what to use a general purpose computer for. Once I’ve listened to this popular Apple podcast and the hosts argued that a MacBook Air should be perfectly capable of doing everything (including movie editing) a much more powerful MacBook Pro is supposed to do, albeit slower. This is so true.
Obviously you won’t edit movies on a Raspebbry Pi or equivalent NXP i.MX single board computer but what can you realistically use such a computer for? A home server, a home router, a smart TV box, learning to code, or running a very lightweight desktop among other things. The Librem 5 phone (with its NXP i.MX heart) in this sense is also a very lightweight desktop, but with a touch interface.
Let’s assume that our Raspberry Pi computer and our NXP i.MX computer is of roughly the same generation, and has similar computing power (but in reality, are they comparable?). Is the NXP i.MX “more free” in any sense? Even though the Raspberry Pi sure has a larger community, and a wider choice of operating systems and application programs to choose from. If my assumption is true that the NXP i.MX turns out to be “more free” then why the less free Raspberry Pi manages to attract a larger enthusiast base? It’s an interesting question. After all, these kind of computers are for tinkerers, free software enthusiasts, and the like.