Well this has been one of the major selling points for me with Xiaomi. Always looked at the custom ROM and modding scene, like it is not just getting stock ROM, it is having freedom to do to your device what you want. Like applying a firmware that undervolts your CPU for better battery life

End of an era if true. I certainly won’t be buying a Xiaomi phone again if so.

Which manufacturers currently support bootloader unlocking?

EDIT: I’ll answer my own question and include Motorola, although the custom rom scene looks a bit sparse.

Oh well.

At least it’s a good motivation for me to go for a more sustainable device in the future like a Fairphone even though these do come with their own issues. But of a shame though, this Redmi Note 8 was my favorite phone and the good experience would have drawn me to Xiaomi again, but the official support has long ended so without bootloader unlocking, this perfectly working device would have become e-waste long ago for security reasons. Unbelievable how much value I got out of this 130€ phone.

I remember when Android was new, one big argument in its favor was that custom ROMs existed. It makes only little sense to me manufacturers want to get rid of that option, except for the part that this ensures that you can’t remove the bloatware from their devices anymore.

I wonder why they’re doing this? I don’t miss the era of locked bootloaders, though I preferred that to the modern difficulty of passing safetynet checks with root. Lately that’s a bigger problem than bootloader unlocking ever was iirc.