We lost the game when we allowed these players to impose limits on us in the way we can use the device that we bought with our hard earned money. Even modifying the root image of these OSes is treated like some sort of criminal activity. And there are enough people around ready to gaslight us with the stories about grandma's security, RF regulations, etc. Yet, its the extensive custom mods like Lineage OS that offer any form of security. Their extensive lockdown only leads to higher usage costs and a mountain of malware.

We really need to demand control over our own devices. We should fight to outlaw any restrictions on the ways we can use our own devices. We should strongly condemn and shame the people who try to gaslight us for their greed and duplicity.

They will.

All tech companies already comply with India's IT Act. And India now manufactures 44% of all iPhones sold in the US [0] while facing the threat of a $38B anti-trust fine [5], so Apple doesn't have much of a choice because both China and Vietnam (the primary competitors for this segment of manufacturing) have similar regulations. Same with Samsung at 25% in CY24 [1] which is trying to further entrench itself in India [2][7][8] due to existential competition from Chinese vendors [3][6].

Heck, Apple complied with similar regulations in Russia [5] before the Ukraine War despite being a smaller market than India with no Apple manufacturing, engineering, or capex presence.

All large companies who face existential threats from Chinese competition have no choice but to entrench in India as it's the only large market with barriers against direct Chinese players - ASEAN has an expansive FTA with China and Brazil is in the process of one as well.

And the Indian government is taking full advantage of this to get large companies to bend to Indian laws, as can be seen with the damocles sword of tax enforcement on Volkswagen [3] while negotiating an FTA with the EU and a potential $38B anti-trust fine against Apple [4] while negotiating a BTA with the US. It's the same playbook China used when it was in India's position today in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

[0] - https://scw-mag.com/news/apples-supply-shift-to-india-speeds...

[1] - https://www.techinasia.com/news/samsung-to-broaden-manufactu...

[2] - https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2025/11/25/SLEYWT...

[3] - https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20251118VL205/2030-samsung-s...

[4] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...

[5] - https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/16/apple-to-offer-governme...

[6] - https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=...

[7] - https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20250903PD208/samsung-india-...

[8] - https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20241212PR200/samsung-india-...

https://grapheneos.org/

Based on what?

> Another huge issue is unregulated loan apps

You don't need to root everyone's phones to regulate financial crime.

> Then there are obvious security issues with terrorism and organized crime

India is building a centralised backdoor into every phone in the country. That's a massive national security risk.

There are lots of ways to solve for this, mandating that these companies own the identification process through their systems, report misuse, govern apps. Why taken on the ownership of a process that is better handled outside of government while the government holds them to account via huge fines and timelines but giving these large companies ownership of protection from scams or stolen phones etc...? win win and I think these large companies are due spending extra money to protect their users anyway.

I would think very deep interests in niche or obscure topics is correlated with increased cognitive ability, not a decrease.

Which doesn't work. At all. A familiarity with the last 40 years of computing makes that clear.

The only things that have worked: ios/android walled gardens so users can't install spyware. yubikeys which can't be phished. etc.

Basically IMEI stamping because sim card purchase with ID has come to be viewed as flawed/compromised by NatSec types in India. Here's some additional context from a previous thread on HN [0]

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40476498

- Report fraud/scam calls and SMS directly from your phone.

- Block or track lost/stolen phones by disabling their IMEI so they can’t be misused.

- View all mobile numbers registered under your ID and report any unauthorized SIM cards.

- Verify if a phone is genuine with an IMEI/device authenticity check.

- Report telecom misuse, such as spoofed calls or suspicious international numbers.

The stated goal is protect users from digital fraud and safer telecom usage, who knows how good it’ll be. Probably a PITA.