At the risk of stating the obvious: you can always set up an alt Google account without a phone number or credit card...
Any purchases can be paid for with gift cards.
Any purchases can be paid for with gift cards.
I like drawing and note-taking with my S-Pen enabled tablet. There's no good open-source alternative to Artflow or Nebo (both paid apps).
Sure, you could pirate it... even with morality aside, I'd rather trust Google than random APKs acquired from the dark corners of the Internet.
And with this setup, Google doesn't really have much information about my person, so I don't care if they have info on the device (assuming you take proper steps to keep the device anonymous).