For better or for worse, the android world is reliant on custom roms if you want long-term software support. Wiping the camera firmware is unacceptable given that reality.
Again, the whole custom rom thing is a bandaid patch on a shitty, user-hostile OS model that makes it nearly impossible to perform a vital function of the computing system (updates). The inability to deliver updates effectively is itself a symptom of a product defect here. It would be better if we could require all companies to provide useful first-party support lifecycles for the products they release.
But sony is deliberately gutting the device’s functionality to prevent you from unlocking it and that’s unacceptable even among android devices. If you’re going to do this shitty custom rom model, vendors that decide to kill even the ability to try and use that bandaid are going to suffer poor sales.
I would love a high-end cameraphone, the Xperia lineup was a serious consideration when I bought my last phone. But I could never get over the hump of buying a device that would have less than 2 years of updates by the time I got it, and that would deliberately self-destruct if I attempted to extend it beyond that.
I got an iPhone instead. Much less user-hostile. Forcing me to use a custom rom is already user-hostile, but to then punish me for doing it is unconscionable.
Oddly enough, there’s not nearly as much emphasis on banging the EU’s door down to stop that kind of waste and really honestly intentional/malicious damage, as there is about whatever apple thing people are whining about this week. Oh no the pelican case full of oem phone repair tooling that apple lets you rent (or buy) is too big/heavy… or Sony phones deliberately self-destruct themselves when you unlock the bootloader… somehow the “we can do both!” reply-guys never get around to doing both. Curious.