Yet, it's possible to create a new account and get un-shadow-banned after a few hours. Dunno if this speaks volumes about how great HN's mods are or if it just means that other forums a really lacking in moderation for one reason or another (like "we have shitposts but it drives up engagement").

The trouble is that HN is centralized, like most forums. So what if it stops working the way it does now? There are likely many forums like HN with good algorithms and mods, but we won't all move to the same one, we'll scatter around. There isn't even a competing HN; lobsters is for narrower subjects, reddit is trash, what else is there?

The fact that having root access is not the default supports that. Without root we're just "consumers" and that's how they see us. There's a lot of discussion about the security model of Android and how root is bad. But we've come to the point to argue that having root access is not only less secure but that we don't need root at all. A lot of replies, even on HN, are like:

> Why would you even need root access? What is it you're trying to accomplish?

That's a much bigger security smokescreen than the one in TFA. Sure, having root may be dangerous, especially if you don't know what you're doing, but it's still a choice. Having no phone or doing banking IRL or not downloading apps from the Play Store you haven't heard of before would also be more secure. But these 3 options don't align to the financial gain the consumers would bring to the providers. The consumers having no root, on the other hand, benefits the providers.

A lot of people don't seem to understand this and point out that Android is still more open and free than iOS, but iOS has never been about openness and freedom. People believed in Android, and in Google. Now they either see Google betraying them (once again) or only see the Android vs iOS comparison, forgetting about the implications about autonomy, agency and about the future of Android. Many people don't care which actors control their digital lives and what motivations they have. People should be made aware that Google is on their side and that they have shown many times that they have no honor.