Yes, it is more secure against the user. That is not a desirable characteristic for the user, it is a desirable characteristic for the controller of the operating system.

Also, this isn't a 'nerd' problem. The economics of smart phones would be much saner if phones weren't so deliberately anti-recycling. Thus it affects all consumers. Framing this as a 'nerd vs corporation' fight is misleading at best.

I'm growing less tolerant of the use of security as a convenient excuse for these big companies to restrict their customers on their own devices. There are always alternatives that don't involve infringing on consumer rights. And most of the time, that alternative is rather trivial. But the OEMs just ignore it and never mention it while excusing themselves. That's intentional gaslighting.

And you completely neglected an important part of my question. They didn't just lock the boot loader and the root. They also put measures in place to retain remote control of the same. Why not share that control with, or simply transfer it to the owner? Please don't argue with me that this is harder than what they've done for themselves.

We all know the answer for that - profits - something they can't ever be satisfied with. As an engineer, I know that such extra privileges can be made foolproof. It can be designed to prevent normal users from accidentally messing it up, while power users and service professionals can easily navigate their way to a full customization. I know this because I still retain that control on my laptop. There is absolutely no reason why it has to be different on a phone.

But OEMs won't consider it, talk about it or even entertain public discourse about it. Instead, they spend plenty of money on projecting the consumers they exploit as too naive and incompetent to take care of a device they paid dearly for. This is an absolutely vile and reprehensible corporate behavior that gets excused only because they captured their regulators.

> They didn't just wake up yesterday and go "let's mess with those nerds."

Of course not! Instead, they just woke up yesterday and decided "let's screw our entire consumer base". What you've demonstrated here is another example of their dirty tactics. Frame this as a fight between them and the 'nerds' and pitch the consumers against each other. Let's just end the charade that this sort of overreach hurts only the nerds. It truly harms all consumers. People who are old enough to remember service shops and repairmen know what I'm talking about. But these crony capitalists have been at it for so long now that there is an entire generation who doesn't know what's possible with user serviceability. That's the sort of leaching that they've inflicted upon the society.

And, security is never an honest or acceptable excuse for restricting user freedoms. Anybody who argues that information security and user freedoms are mutually exclusive is out to sell techno snake oil. Yet another reprehensible behavior that needs to be reined in.