Can you elaborate on that? Many Android phones can have their bootloader unlocked, allow installing alternate operating systems, have alternate app stores, and allow sideloading of applications.

100% of that is optional and entirely unused by most people, excepting maybe a single side-loaded app if they actually care about certain things.

This is of course scoped to here in the US, where most of the time Android phones have their OS entirely locked down apart from sideloading apps, ie no running different ROMs, upgrading out of what you're allowed by the network, rooting, running super user apps, etc

Can being the keyword. None of that is even close to required. You have the option to tinker, you aren't required to.

what planet are you living on? you can install custom launchers,dialers,sms, third-party app stores, & pretty much whatever else even without root or flashing a ROM. Not to mention the ability to sideload apps. The sky is the limit with root. There's widgets too, something completely foreign to isheep. There is plenty of tinkering available on android.

I meant in the sense of setting it up initially.