I still say BBK electronics was looking to break out of the Asian market and used OnePlus to do it. Carl Pei, the "founder" of that tiny little "startup" came up with a crazy marketing plan. Tell them you are developing a "top line" smartphone with a lot of features, rock bottom price. Use your "startup" website users forum and ads to spread the word. When the price is announced, it was WAY less than a flagship phone, so they called it a flagship killer. Oh! But since we are a poor startup, we don't have the money to make enough phones, so you have to have an INVITE in order to buy one.
I remember the feeding frenzy in 2014 when this came along. Users on their website would almost give up a kidney to get one LOL.
Phone was released, and lo and behold it was a pretty good phone but amazingly looked almost like the Oppo Find 7. And, people found out that the parent company, BBK electronics who owned OnePlus, also owns Oppo (among others). Then it was discovered that Oppo was the manufacturer building the OnePlus
phones too! (guess that is why they looked like a mirror of the Oppo phones, minus a feature here and there.
With each new phone, they got more expensive, started to look more "expensive" too. Flashy colors, all glass back, dumped CyanogenMod for Oxygen OS and on and on to the point, they aren't the "bargain" they once were. (especially the trade in value when you sell one).
Now that BBK/Oppo/OnePlus are known more outside of Asia, from a business standpoint, it does make sense to dump the OnePlus, push everyone on the
Oppo phone now. That is, if Oppo phones are approved for use in the USA and other countries, with all the bands, and, the carriers will allow them on their
networks.
OnePlus had a good run, but their time is over.