> My theory on why they switched was to keep people from easily side-loading APKs, and backing them up easily, etc. I think it was all part of the battle to kee

> My theory on why they switched was to keep people from easily side-loading APKs, and backing them up easily, etc. I think it was all part of the battle to keep people from really owning their phones, keep them from rooting them, etc. Or, more realistically, by having file access mediated by the phone, you can: * have the filesystem available to multiple systems at once. If it's mounted as USB mass storage then it must stop being visible to the phone itself. That's not great, especially if there are apps etc. there. To not have apps there, you'd need to partition. That sucks. So, also... * you can use any filesystem you want. You're not restricted to things like VFAT. By not being USB mass storage, you can run BtrFS if you're so inclined and not have Windows get upset when you plug it in. * the phone is able to restrict what is seen by the computer. This is a security benefit. I don't want someone slurping my TOTP key database because I foolishly leave my phone unlocked somewhere. Also, you can still root phones just fine if you buy one that isn't user-hostile. So, there are solid technical reasons for the change that make things better for a large number of users (who, amongst your average user these days, really wants to plug their phone in to the computer to move files around? I'd estimate vanishingly few.) > My current phone is an S7 (TMobile version) - and they've made it hard as heck to actually root; it seems like every time they come out with a way to do it, Samsung/T-Mobile updates to prevent it. Well of course they do. a) they are use hostile, so they don't give you a path. b) because there's no official path, any method that does exist must be a security vulnerability. Do you want to have a vulnerable device? Don't buy user hostile stuff and then complain that it doesn't let you do what you want.