Voice of Subjectivity: If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

Voice of Subjectivity is an occasional companion column to Voice of Objectivity, for when I can’t quite agree with my calmer perspective. The opinions presented here do not necessarily represent the views of Techcitement, but they’re all mine. Let’s face it, I get as Techcited as anyone.

I have a rooted Android phone. There, I said it. Take away my warranty Verizon Wireless. I engage in risky behavior that can break my phone. Oh, wait, that’s right, my phone didn’t break because I rooted it, it broke because a cheap spring in my volume key broke.

There lies the fallacy behind the entire concept of voiding warranties due to rooting. I’ve rooted four different Android devices. I’ve even gone the extra step and installed custom ROMs on them (CyanogenMod 7 is my daily driver, and I can’t see going back). I’ve had things go wrong with every single one of them. Not a single one ended up bricked. I don’t overclock.

Every problem resulting in repair or replacement that I’ve seen with an Android device to date has been a failure of a battery (which was never under the warranty to begin with) or a moving part. Why should that part of my warranty go out the window just because I like something a little more customizable on my phone than the HTC Sense interface or want access to root-only software like Titanium Backup?

The truth is, in the vast majority of cases, a root user who needs warranty service will just restore the phone to a non-rooted state (a process that took me all of 15 minutes when I tested it today), and then send it back to the carrier. The phone is replaced and no one’s the wiser. Carriers are aware how easily the rooting transition can be done in both directions.

The interests of the carriers lie far more in supporting their own paid services by locking out functions of the device than in providing a minority of customers with a few extra perks. By voiding the warranty on a rooted device, they know most people who want to tether go through the carrier and pay the typical $20 a month, even though free access to that capability is easily within reach. By discouraging rooting, the carriers also increase the value to their software partners of the bloatware installed on every device. If I could remove the City ID app on my Droid Incredible easily, its developers would probably pay a lot less for it to be there in the first place.

I hope to see a future mobile industry where competition is strong enough that the main driving force behind business decisions is customer satisfaction. Right now, the carriers see a future of virtual duopoly ahead, where customers wanting a major carrier can choose between two near-identical options. With no competition on price or service, we’ll remain in a world where the mobile industry’s main focus is on how to make their customers pay more, rather than how to make more by attracting more customers.

So, here’s what I want from my future warranty. Don’t force me to mess around tricking you about my software when I have a hardware problem. If whatever’s wrong with my device can be traced back to rooting, fine, void my warranty. If I have a shoddy manufacturing problem or a cracked screen and an accidental damage warranty, I want to know that I will get the support I expected when I bought the device, because nothing I did when I rooted the device broke that part.

For the more objective look at this issue that inspired this response to myself, check out my weekly column, Voice of Objectivity.