His argument is that retailers are intercepting “the phone they bought” and preloading garbage on it and repackaging it before sending it to them. Maybe that’s

His argument is that retailers are intercepting “the phone they bought” and preloading garbage on it and repackaging it before sending it to them. Maybe that’s something that happens a lot in China? If so, requiring registering on the Xiaomi website would be a pretty good way to thwart this. In a way, it’s to protect naive users. And it still allows you to root the phone - go through this idiocy once and then never worry about it again.