The ability to unlock the bootloader on most vendors has already degraded from "Do whatever you want!" to "Here, jump through these hoops here, give us all your data and wait a long time" to "What? No of course you can't do that!". Google can remove that functionality from Pixels at their first whim. I don't think this avenue will remain open for long. Smartphone hardware is powerful, but it's completely subservient to software that can't be removed or replaced.
I was trying to avoid the software side of this argument as it is a worm cannister. I was just musing from a hardware availability point of view.
That said.... hopefully at least on Android side you can get a free (as in unchastified) OS to run on it.
Until they come for the HW.
The ability to unlock the bootloader on most vendors has already degraded from "Do whatever you want!" to "Here, jump through these hoops here, give us all your data and wait a long time" to "What? No of course you can't do that!". Google can remove that functionality from Pixels at their first whim. I don't think this avenue will remain open for long. Smartphone hardware is powerful, but it's completely subservient to software that can't be removed or replaced.