I like it for future proofing. Like always in a couple years Google will stop supporting the pixel 2 with updates so having an unlocked bootloader gives you peace of mind to flash custom ROMs later if needed. Or if any Google updates start slowing the device down you can flash a more optimized slim rom and get performance back.What's the point of having unlocked bootloader and not rooting? I did that and my Google pay and other ass stopped working, the only way to fix was to root.