companies are doing this for cost optimization aka cost reduction

[alosslessdev]

i work at a company that does this kind of stuff. They actively look for things the average consumer doesn't do, and remove them because they see no benefit in it. so they can afford to cut or reassign staff to do things they consider more productive. like qa, cybersecurity, devs, etc. fewer features means fewer people thus lower operating costs and that means getting rid of bootloader unlocking, sideloading, maybe shizuku and adb etc.

[Lanchon]

and we are here to make it costly for companies to do this "cost saving" by informing potential buyers to look elsewhere.

ultimately average people are not able to fight for their freedoms in this regard where they do not understand what is as stake. in situations like this, the actors that should ensure consumers are not taken advantage of are government agencies.

problem is, many "democratic" governments are captured by corporate interests, they govern for the funders not for the people, so in too many places the situation cannot improve.

[JustCryen]

Unlocking is something Android had as a checkbox by default, so companies are getting out of their way to restrict access to it and make it harder.
I don't care that the process they created is complicated, it was once way simpler and they had to mess with it.
Either stick to that process or let us unlock the device with a single click again. Removing it entirely is still more work than just leaving the default Android behavior.

So this is not just a cost saving. This seems like deribetelly making their devices closed down, so if they stop supporting the device, you are forced to buy another one.

[Lanchon]

many companies monetize customers after the sale. think of the millions of ads shitty brands like xiaomi etc show to customers every day. companies like samsung also monetize customers, but their tactics are more subtle (customer data brokering, app pushing, ecosystem lock-in, etc).

you know that their monetization has become so important, and their software so shitty, when they need to force customers to use it by disabling unlocking. the situation will get much worse but in little steps, so that customers slowly adjust to get increasingly f*cked and like it. the first step is to close the system. with that normalized, they can later proceed to slowly use ever larger dildos on their customers.

[Lanchon]

and if somebody didn't put 1+1 together yet, samsung is long past its growth stage and fully transitioning into monetization, as evidenced by their completely uncalled for retroactive removal of unlocking. can you think of any other reason whatsoever to do this? any other reason at all? piece of sh*t company...

[alosslessdev]

No passive aggressiveness needed. My company is not a startup, just as you describe yet it is still trying to cut costs by guessing what users do. It's a flag carrier airline

[Lost-Entrepreneur439]

yeah, no. companies are doing this to make you buy a new phone when yours goes EOL and to make more money from selling your data