They are not exactly unconnected. Unrestricted root access would let you set up your own iptables rules and direct packets to the cellular network. This is how tethering worked on rooted phones before the carriers offered it as a service.

Now you are correct, and carriers responded to those demands from users for mobile networking with (usually metered or priced as an addon) "mobile hotspot" applications.

Contrary to your earlier claims, the advanced Android and iPhone user communities are not insignificant and may have played a part in getting demands like these met.

Places like androidpolice, and sites like engadget, lifehacks, gizmodo and others cater to this market, and drive popular knowledge of root modifications and jail breaking. Previous incarnations of Cyanogenmod boasted large numbers of downloads in the 100s of thousands if not millions.

But thats his point exactly - one of the phones allows him to get over customer hostile limitations of some corporation and makes his device more useful in his life. The other is controlled by a whim of somoeone who sees you just as a walking wallet.

If the carrier is giving you the device on better terms than an outright purchase then it's not "customer hostile" is it? You can always buy one instead.

Your attitude seems to be "I should be able to get a cheap phone from a carrier by agreeing not to tether, and then I should be able to violate that agreement anyway, and this is a totally moral position". Phones are a commodity. You can get them anywhere. Want to tether? Buy a phone and a plan that allows it. Problem solved.

No, my attitude is "I should be able to do with my 5GB dataplan whatever I wish because that's what I pay for and the carrier has no business dictating why my hardware can or cannot do.". And since I live in EU that is an actual reality - my carrier provides the voice and data service and my phone does what I tell it to and I can choose whichever phone I want. Free market as it should be.

Which is why it baffles me beyond all limits just why so many smart Americans go out of their way to defend corporate practices that hurt them as customers.

I'm not American, I'm European, so you're really putting the ass in assume there. And frankly the moralising so many Europeans are so quick to engage in is an embarrassment.

This really isn't complicated. If your carrier contract doesn't forbid tethering but they sold you a phone that does, take it up with them, that sounds messed up and rare. If your contract forbids tethering then you're just trying to weasel your way out of a market you voluntarily entered in to. That's the opposite of the free market.

Read your contract. You don't pay for a "5GB data plan". You pay for a "5GB data plan to be used on your mobile only". Violating your contract is not "free market".

What does "to be used on your mobile only" even mean? Does it mean you can't transfer any data downloaded on the phone to anywhere else? That's ridiculous. Or perhaps it means the connection must be via your phone, which is definitely the case if you are tethering. A data plan is an Internet connection. However you look at it, it's a gross violation of net neutrality principles to say what you can or cannot do with the data transferred through it.

It means what you know it means.

Again, I'm not from America. My contract does not say anything so idiotic. I can use my paid data as I wish.

Why are you trying so hard to support your telcos decision to make your life worse?

I'm not from the US either. And those policies are there to reduce congestion, that's all.

"reduce congestion" is just a weasel way of saying that the providers sell beyond their capacity. I understand overbooking is a very common practice, but it is based on risk assessment -- and providers shouldn't be able to dodge all risk for their decision by disavowing their responsibility in single-sided "contracts".

Yes, of course they sell beyond their capacity. This is the real world we live in.

If everybody in your neighbourhood turned their faucets on at once, water supply would simply stop working. So?

Nice straw man you have there "If everybody in your neighbourhood turned their faucets on at once, water supply would simply stop working. So?"

We're quick to ban accounts that post like this, so please don't.

You can't attack other users like this on HN, no matter what you're replying to.

Parent is just pointing out the BS in hindering tethering based on the amount of data and how well the customers are protected in EU regarding such practices. It's also absurd (perhaps a bit sad) to defend such policies from the point of the customer to your own loss.