You could apply the same question to pretty much every consumer product on Earth.
The answer is a critical function of marketing.
The answer is a critical function of marketing.
I can also have a firewall NoRoot Firewall), more granular privacy controls, I can root and and replace my hosts file, and some other nifty security/privacy things for paranoids like me.
Is it as polished as an iPhone? No Does it cover all my needs fully (and them some)? Yes Did I pay 1/6 of the price? Yes (trust me I can affort any smartphone) Do I think Apple is milking it and offers nothing new? HELL YES
I am happy that their stock is getting slapped, Apple put themselves in that position.
As for the Chinese economy, at some point many countries will reduce imports from China for a variety of reasons, and the slowing dowin is inevitable. Apple messed it up on many domains. Now they are paying for it.
Are you referring to modulating the power usage to avoid random shutdowns? If so, I don't understand why people have viewed that as a nefarious scheme. Seems completely reasonable to me. The newer user-visible stats on battery health and power usage are also a good idea, but don't change the physics involved, you still need to modulate power usage to match what is available or shut down.
I would gladly pay for a new (£50-£70) battery every 2 years to keep my phone up and running. It is the lack of transparency that made me angry. I do have the technical skills/knowledge to understand the reasons. I also have the critical thinking to (imho) dismiss their BS answer that they force me to spend £1000 instead of £50. And this is where they killed my 'loyalty' to their products.
But this really isn't the question. People "overpay" for luxury goods all the time in lieu of higher quality cheaper products.
Selling expensive stuff doesn't necessarily mean you have to or should have the best stuff.
I am sure that I am not 100% immune to marketing, but I like to prefer the function over the plush.
Luxury is for other people. I prefer F.I.R.E instead :) I do understand that Marketing creates artificial needs, and I want to believe that I avoid it :)
and no you can't root Huawei phones without unlocking bootloader, not unless you are willing to part with significant fee to shady third party for something which was provided for free by Huawei