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On a triple, we tend to used the half way to smallest cogs with the big ring, the mid ring uses most of the cogs except the extreme ends, and the small ring again uses the biggest cogs to maybe the middle-- so the cassette gets used more evenly, in my opinion and experience.
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I find that on a tour, I am using a lot of the cassette sprockets on my 3X8 systems, the extra weight on the bike means I am using the lower gears more than I do with an unladen bike. But my smallest cogs only get used on shallow downhills, which is rare. So it is the other six sprockets that get a lot of use on a tour.
But, on my randonneuring bike with a 3X8 system rarely carries more than one bag of groceries for weight, I wear out the two middle sprockets (16T and 18T) first. I use Sram 8 speed cassettes, I wish they sold extra 16T and 18T sprockets.
I can see your point on a 1X system, with 11 or 12 sprockets you probably are wearing out 3 to 5 sprockets long before the other sprockets see much wear. The vast majority of my time on my Rohloff bike on a tour is in gears 8 through 11.