Xiaomi made itself clear that device bootloader unlock policy shall be tightened after Nov. 2023.
"Tightened" is not the best word. It's more like "almost impossible", and I will further call the whole setup a scam. This is personal.
- They require the user to be level 5 on a irrelevent forum to be able to participate a exam. This step took me 6 months.
- They require the user to pass an exam filled with graduate entry exam and android dev interview level questions, in which for example they would hediously change the word "DOWNLOAD" to "DOWNLOAO", "STARTCMD" to "STARTCMO" so that the statement should be deemed wrong instead of correct
- They would change the exam schedule without any prior notice, multiple times
While one could pretend to be open-minded and do not care what Xiaomi did, the truth is that I was humiliated to be its client.
Consequences for them? Well I cannot really do anything. The bootloader unlocking is not part of the service they actually sell, so they are the one to make rules, whether reasonable or not. As a client the best I can do is just to decline some future offer. Guess what, people like me may not be their target clients at all, and a few boycotting won't change anything.
Sometimes I am just awed by how shameless corporations can become.