I bought the Phone 3a because Nothing promised to be different. Clean OS, no bloatware, make tech fun again - that was the whole pitch. That’s literally why I chose this over Samsung or OnePlus or any other Android phone.
Now we’re getting lock screen ads and pre-installed bloat, with the excuse being “you can turn it off if you don’t like it.” That completely misses the point.
I didn’t sign up for this when I bought the Nothing Phone 3a. The deal was supposed to be a clean Android experience across all Nothing devices - there was never any mention of flagship vs non-flagship treatment. The 3a is still a Nothing Phone, right? Or are we now second-class citizens who get the enshittified version?
The “you can disable it” argument is honestly insulting. I shouldn’t have to spend time disabling things that go against everything Nothing claimed to stand for. This is the exact same manipulative strategy every other company uses - make it opt-out instead of opt-in, knowing most people won’t bother. It’s not transparency, it’s testing how much you can get away with.
And lock screen ads? Really? How is that “making tech fun again”? I unlock my phone dozens of times a day, and now you want to shove ads in my face every single time? That’s not fun, that’s annoying. That’s the exact boring, manipulative tech behavior Carl Pei criticized when he left OnePlus to start Nothing. You’re becoming exactly what you said you wouldn’t be.
This isn’t about the technical ability to disable features. It’s about principle. Nothing positioned itself as the honest alternative to corporate bloat and manipulation. Now you’re doing the same thing and expecting us to just accept it because “it’s optional.”
If this is the direction Nothing is going, you’re going to lose the customers who actually believed in what you were building. We chose Nothing specifically because you promised to be different. If you’re just going to do what Samsung and Xiaomi do, what’s the point?
I really hope Nothing reconsiders this, because right now it feels exactly like watching Google becoming evil while claiming “Don’t Be Evil”.
