After spending some time in Hong Kong, these are the motivations that I've seen for jailbreak: 1. Piracy. Apps are expensive on iOS, but Hong Kong loves brands

After spending some time in Hong Kong, these are the motivations that I've seen for jailbreak: 1. Piracy. Apps are expensive on iOS, but Hong Kong loves brands. Having an iPhone is a fashion symbol. Also, access to pirated content (video/music) is a big deal in HK; content is often expensive or unavailable in the region. Content piracy apps, such as BitTorrent clients, Baidu music downloaders, and some MKV-friendly video players, are only available after jailbreaking. 2. Carrier unlock. iPhones sold in Hong Kong are carrier-unlocked, but imported iPhones are often carrier-locked. To force a carrier unlock, you must jailbreak your phone. As a result, a lot of iPhones in HK are either jailbroken to allow carrier unlock or use hardware-based SIM card hacks. 3. Tethering. In HK, most data plans did not allow for free tethering (at the time I was there). Jailbreak allows "illicit" tethering that uses the same data plan, without informing the carrier about how the data is being used. So, don't assume that jailbreakers are necessarily ignorant. It's unfortunate that jailbreaking comes with non-obvious security compromises.