[Moto Maxx General] ChazzMatt:
Companies like ZTE and OnePlus have gained market share or at least marketing buzz by allowing unlocked bootloaders and tacitly helping XDA devs. We on XDA do give our opinions to family/friends. Just like I'm never going to tell someone to buy an iPhone, I'm never going to tell people to buy an Android that is completely locked down. There's a term for people like us --

marketing influencers

. YOU are one.

You convinced three people to buy a specific phone. I've convinced a lot of people to buy various LG and Motorola phones because they were very good specs for the money and I could customize them to work even better with tweaks and ROMs.

Besides those people, there were others to a lesser degree: one of my sisters, my sister-in-law, and a nephew all dumped iPhone for Samsung Galaxy phones because I finally convinced them top tier Android phone specs were better than any iPhone ever sold yet. (I'm not a big Samsung fan, but at least I've pointed them in the right direction. They were such gung-ho iPhone users that they were only willing to go to the best known Android brand, Samsung. They weren't willing to go all the way to a Motorola or LG Android. They are "carrier store" people; unlike my other friends who really trust my opinion and will order off eBay from China, these relatives will only buy what they see and touch in carrier stores.)

Now Apple may not be hurt by my recommendations or your recommendations -- but the Android landscape is so competitive why would new or smaller Android manufacturers arrogantly overlook that marketing advantage? Nokia would be well-served to embrace the XDA enthusiasts, as they are the epitome of marketing influencers.

Due to my activity here on XDA, recently an accessories manufacturer contacted me to ask me to review some bluetooth ear buds and a phone case. They said samples would be included for free. See, marketing influencer. I declined, actually I just never responded. Stuff I review and endorse on various forums or even Amazon is stuff I've bought myself and it's my honest opinion. I don't want to feel pressure to give something a better review because I got it for free.

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Companies like Samsung and LG still do allow some unlocked bootloader models. Samsung

even still allows unlocked bootloader models for Snapdragon 835 Hong Kong and China variants -- which both have all the U.S. LTE bands).

There's even now TWRP available for the those mainland China and Hong Kong Snapdragon 835 S8/S8+. You just have to jump through hoops to get them via eBay or Amazon.

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But my point is agreeing with yours -- companies like Nokia who want to pull an Apple and sell locked-down smartphones -- "You'll do it our way or no way" don't understand the Android landscape. Yeah, there are some users who see no philosophical difference between an iPhone and a Samsung Galaxy S-whatever -- to them it's all the same -- but those are people who probably keep all their default settings for the hi-def TVs, too. They probably LIKE people to have orange cartoonish skin colors. :rolleyes: Or keep their menus and extensions (.doc, .exe., jpg) hidden on their Windows computers, because that's the "default" settings from Microsoft.

But I like to think Android grabbed 90% of the worldwide smartphone market share -- snatching all that share from Apple who at one point had 100% since they launched first -- because Android offers USER CHOICE. (This is what manufacturers -- like Motorola who are removing 3.5mm headset jacks -- are forgetting.) Android was never dictated by manufacturer, "My way or else." You could use the apps you wanted, you could use the ROM you wanted. Many of Google's feature additions to Android were first added by ROM groups. Apple's Quiet Hours or whatever they Apple calls it, came first from CM to Android, was copied by by Apple to iOS and then came to stock Android. I remember someone with an iPhone bragging about that "new" feature, and I showed them I ALREADY HAD THAT FEATURE, because I was running CM. Only in the next version of Android did it come to stock Android.

If everyone locks down their bootloaders and prevents that kind of user-driven system-level development, Android will stagnate.