Unless something’s changed recently, gig workers are not, in practice, independent contractors. At best you get to pick your schedule, but even that can come with penalties to your algorithmically assigned jobs. It’s full on employment minus all the benefits.
Idk all the particulars, I just know my S7 is still not bootloader unlockable, and pretty sure previous galaxy phones weren’t either. That was my last Samsung. Not sure if this was a US thing, a T-Mobile/Sprint think (who I had back then), or a Samsung thing. But HTC and Pixel phones seemed to always be unlockable.