The whole of civilization has been a process of shielding people from having to know stuff.
The same way you don't know how to make fire from first principles, fix your car, make a CPU, or whatever...
Even someone with a Ph.D in computer hardware is shielded from tons of complexities and never has to know the whole process end to end.
How? Serious, genuine question. How can they give you “the right to do so”, but prevent “mom” from accidentally doing so or worse, having someone do it to their phone without them knowing?
It could even be as involved as getting an official image from apple/google that allows root access. I don’t think a “mom” would accidentally download an image and flash their telephones.
Who says “mom” flashed her phone?
How does “mom” know the shady place they took their phone to repair a broken screen didn’t do it? (P.S. many documented cases of this)
How does “mom” know their jealous/cheating/whatever spouse/bf/gf/whatever didn’t do it? (P.S. many documented cases of this)
How does “mom” know the phone they bought off someone didn’t do this? (P.S. many documented cases of this)
How does “mom” know their kid didn’t do this so they could install stolen games? (P.S. many documented cases of this)
The list goes on and on.
In order for any of those threats to work it would require physical access and access to passwords and accounts (for example reconnecting to cloud services, restoring backups or even just unlocking the phone to perform a flash). At that point I don’t think it’s having or not having root access that is the issue.
Of course they do, hence my comment.
> At that point I don’t think it’s having or not having root access that is the issue.
That’s the most naive thing I’ve seen said all week.
My coffee grinder won't turn on without the lid locked in place. Is that anti consumer?