ChromeOS Developer Mode is an option for all customers.
It's not described in Google's marketing materials, and it compromises the trusted boot model of course -- but it's just a magic (but well-documented) keypress and a confirmation screen away, for all privately-owned devices.
However, recent Chromebook models make Developer Mode less useful for most customers. Google is no longer shipping alternative boot ROM payloads, and there are firmware bugs which do not affect ChromeOS, but do affect other Linux distros.
It's not described in Google's marketing materials, and it compromises the trusted boot model of course -- but it's just a magic (but well-documented) keypress and a confirmation screen away, for all privately-owned devices.
However, recent Chromebook models make Developer Mode less useful for most customers. Google is no longer shipping alternative boot ROM payloads, and there are firmware bugs which do not affect ChromeOS, but do affect other Linux distros.