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Comment by _8j50 | Hacker News Reader

Why is there no opposition to this shit? SIMs were physical for a reason. As a consumer what do you get out of it? You have to go through the carriers to switch between phones now! You can't just pick up a random unlocked phone and put a sim in it. No more burner phones. I have been in situations where I changed SIM between phones multiple times a day.

But it sounds like it is too late for this. It's like people who oppose cash payments out of the convenience of card/app payments. This small chipping away of a small libery adds up.

I hope eveyone knows that you can't as a layman register an email address or any meaningful service you depend on without a phone number (i.e.: a sim), that is what is being regulated here even more.

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ESims are quite nice, out here in the real world.

You can travel to a different country, find your data is crap because reasons -- either they're not roaming well (hello edge on a cheap out of country provider), or you've travelled to Switzerland and data now costs 7.13eur/mb. (yeah, a car/Gb)

So you pay for an ESIM from an MNVO, get a qr code, install, and you're good to go in 5 minutes from any network connection. Nothing physical required. And your normal number is still there for incoming calls/texts, because all the ESIM phones I've seen have at least two slots (or one + physical sim)

Of course, you've got to have an unlocked phone. But you wanted that anyway.

It's so nice to not have to spend the first day of a trip wandering around looking for a SIM shop that's open and will sell to you with a foreign passport.

Last time I was abroad, I set up an eSIM while I was waiting at baggage claim, so I had service on my multihour train connection.

> It's so nice to not have to spend the first day of a trip wandering around looking for a SIM shop

I went to three different countries this summer and all of them had sim cards available on your way out of the airport. In Armenia, it was in the baggage claim.

This is sometimes true. Like in Tunisia where they give a free SIM in baggage claim. But I crossed a lot of land borders through west africa where it would be a day or two of traveling before I could find an official store that had a physical SIM.

Experiences differ.

I did not notice this in Ireland, but I may have missed it. It was this easy in London though.

Also all EU sim cards roam in the whole of the EU automatically.

A lot of asian countries have similar convenience for physical SIMs, order online and just pickup at a stall at the airport.

Can you actually get a European sim without showing ID? That would kind of surprise me, there has been a big push to get rid of anonymous phone numbers.

Depends, I think you can get them in Tesco pretty easily, and the MVNO I was talking about was giving numbers for their data plan from the UK, but with roaming all over Europe.

I think it's more difficult in Germany than a lot of other countries.

In France, providers will require you to provide KYC information within 14-30 days of obtaining the SIM, or it will be deactivated. Suitable for a short-term travel use case.

Here in Latvia you can buy sims from all major providers without any ID for as low as 0.99€. The caveat is that you have to top up them regularly because they have expiry times depending on the amount you top them up.

Swype by Yallo is the eSIM I've used.

My Telecom Italia SIM ran out of roaming data while I was in Switzerland, and there was no way to top up. Swype had a first month free promo, so I signed up from my Airbnb. I did have to send a photo of my documents, but the total time from download to data was less than 30m.

I took a quick (1 week) work trip to Germany this summer. I was trying to figure out how to get a SIM before getting on the train, when I remembered I still had the eSIM in my phone. I downloaded the app and bought data - $15 per month + $3 per day (since I was roaming). Not only was it super convenient, but I had unlimited data with roaming. I don't think even local cards get you that.

For short trips to Europe, I definitely recommend Swype for its convenience.

> I did have to send a photo of my documents

Didn't the parent ask about not having to show ID to get a SIM card?

I’m fine with showing ID but if I’m traveling I of course do not have a local ID and if it’s online it’s basically impossible to properly check ids.

In Sweden there are usually stands where you can pick up sims for free, in airport outside shops etc.

Depends on the country. UK has no national identity cards, you can buy a (prepay) SIM in the supermarket and pay cash if you like.

https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/sim-card-regist...

I'm Canadian. I recently travelled to Spain & Portugal for more than a month, used a Hong Kong esim for data for a few days until I found a local physical SIM. Then swapped between both depending on the coverage.

I bought the esim at the airport, while waiting for my bags.

I perceive the problem differently. Google Fi has demonstrated that it's possible to arrange service agreements across providers that offer consistent, predictable, relatively low costs for people that travel frequently between countries. If there was another couple global-scale competitors to Fi I'd wager we'd see competition squash the prices down even more. But at the moment, when I step off a plane or drive across a national border it's an experience basically equivalent to driving across states here in the U.S. I've used it in 4 continents and about 20 countries now and it's pretty much instant.

The problem of course is that Fi is U.S. based which brings a few extra headaches with it for people who want the service but are based overseas, or for expats living abroad for a long period of time.

Note: I also have some Voip apps on my phone giving me a few different phone numbers to the same phone without the SIM/eSIM mess. But these days I'm finding I'm more or less just making voice calls over apps anyways meaning I'm using voice service less and less.

+1 for Google Fi

I use Google Fi and I've been to the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland. When I landed, I'd get a text message saying something like "Welcome to $COUNTRY! Your data is $DATA_RATE per gigabyte and voice calls are $VOICE_RATE per minute. It may take a couple minutes to get connected"

DATA_RATE has always been the standard Google Fi rate of $10/GB (with data free after a certain point, and free but throttled at another threshold), and the voice rate is typically 10 cents/minute.

For people that do a lot of travel and use a lot of data, you can even get an unlimited international data plan.

But yeah, I can go to nearly any first world country, and even some 3rd world countries, and not pay extra for my data. The fact that Verizon/TMobile/Sprint/etc. can't get their shit together and make this happen for their customers feels like a scam.

-1 For Google Fi. I traveled to 2 countries on their list of "compatible" places where data should work, it didn't. Called support, no explanation. Bought a cheap local sim card instead, which always makes more sense to do. Now that Whatsapp and iMessage both let you "roam" on a different sim while keeping your phone number, there's no reason to try and roam with your original plan.

If you have a dual-SIM phone and your primary plan supports Wi-Fi calling, you don't even need to "roam" on a different SIM. You can use a local SIM card as your data plan and route your calls and texts over that network. There are a few iPhone apps I've used that allow you to download an eSIM in a couple minutes for five bucks.

Parent comment mentioned iMessage, that means iPhone. Are there any dual-SIM iPhones?

I think all of them since the XR/XS era, 2018 ish? My iPhone 13 mini does dual eSIM (I used both AT&T and T-Mobile when I was in a remote area and it worked great).

> The fact that Verizon/TMobile/Sprint/etc. can't get their shit together and make this happen for their customers feels like a scam.

Or maybe it is not worth it because the cost of doing so is not worth the possibly small number of people who would use it? A good number of people never even leave the country. I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of people in the US leave the country five or fewer times in their lifetime.

> The fact that Verizon/TMobile/Sprint/etc. can't get their shit together and make this happen for their customers feels like a scam.

TMobile provides this same service for free for international travel (I actually wonder if this is where Google Fi gets the service for it from).

ATT is $10 per day, up to $100 per month after which the rest of the month is no extra charge. It starts and stops automatically when you start and stop using international data/voice/SMS/MMS.

https://www.att.com/international/day-pass/

Which is beyond ridiculous.

Basically esims are more convenient, great. Why are they not optional? Why can't phones support both types of SIM?

A lot of phones do, eg most Samsungs since the S20 have physical and eSIM.

There's also an interesting product from https://esim.me/ that emulates the functionality of an esim on a physical sim card, and lets you switch between eSIMS via their app even on older phones like the galaxy S8.

Thank you, I didn't expect my original comment to get attention, I just wanted a healthy discussion and education on things I don't know.

Was a big fan of Google Fi, it really does work amazingly well when you travel a lot - I've been a digital nomad using it for about 5 years (back when it was Project Fi).

But I recently got a taste of that "US based" policy. I am technically based in the US (have a company here) but I have been out of the US since Covid started. Google Fi worked well for about 2.5 years but suddenly when I was in Greece recently, the data stopped working.

When I spoke to customer service, they first told me it's a known issue in the region and I just gotta wait. When I called back 2-3 days later, they informed me that it's my specific account which has been blocked because I've been outside the US for too long.

They billed me for my unlimited international data but essentially blocked me from using ANY data. They said the data will resume as soon as I'm back in the states (which I was in a few weeks anyway). Ridiculous.

This situation really sucks. I'm in the US right now but my Fi data won't work outside the US. Makes it useless pretty much.

Anybody who thinks esims don't have issues hasn't seen much of the "real" world. In a lot of countries esim still isn't even an option, especially if you're a visitor. At least in developing countries getting a physical SIM is as easy as paying a small fee on your way out the airport and popping it in your phone or picking one up in a convenience store.

I just arrived here in Panama and got a local sim for $5/week from a grocery store. The esim options were 2x this price and required installing special apps.

can't a regular sim be typed in manually and used as an esim? at least that's how it worked on my iphone a year ago.

Airalo just works in most of the world. I travel quite a lot and eSIM made my life a whole lot simpler.

Before you had to find an operator kiosk at the airport and negotiate with someone there who might or might not speak a language you speak to try to get a pre-paid vaguely firing your need if one exists. Now you can just pre-buy in app before your flight and everything pretty much just works.

I keep seeing this sentiment and it's incredibly obvious that people are traveling to European or developed Asian countries. The sim situation in most other countries is exactly as you describe if not worse, and that's also accounting for language barriers between the traveler and the vendors.

My bet is that this is going to change a lot, very soon.

Apple apparently felt comfortable enough with the eSIM situation in the US to drop legacy-SIM already. The fact that they couldn't do this worldwide yet is because, as you say, eSIM availability is still spotty around the world.

However, the fact that they're moving to eSIM-only is a huge flashing warning to telcos around the world that the time to sort out their eSIM support is now. Otherwise, they'll soon be chasing away their affluent iPhone users.

I think the transition will now proceed pretty quickly. Physical SIMs have only continued on due to market inertia.

In a few years we'll look back and think "remember when SIM cards were physical objects... that was weird wasn't it?"

I agree, I also remember when sim cards were credit card sized!

Appel was a major driver of esim because they are obsessed with controlling every part of their phone so having a SIM card they don't control in their phone didn't fit well with them at all.

So dropping the SIM in the US is more a consumer hostile move to save a few cents and force them to use the tech Apple wants you to use then anything else.

They can't do that in many other countries as neither carrier nor population where okay with accepting not having a SIM slot.

eSIM is easily usable in the EU many people still insist on using physical sim cards for various reasons, similar "unlocked" phones are the standard in many EU countries. I'm not even sure it's legal to sell carrier locked phones in all EU countries, I think it isn't at least in some.

I think you underestimate how easy Apple has made it to switch carriers with eSIMs. I can have several stored on my phone and activate them with a few touches. Very consumer friendly, no need to go to the store or even shuffle SIM cards while taxiing to the gate.

eSIM can be sold in physical stores as well, just as a QR code rather than a physical chip. Sibling comment addresses the cost issue as well.

In some countries no domestic carrier supports eSIM.

Here's a map, thanks to a Redditor: https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/x8r6a3/countries_that_...

> So you pay for an ESIM from an MNVO, get a qr code, install, and you're good to go in 5 minutes from any network connection.

Physical SIMs require no network access at all: as a matter of fact, acquiring a SIM may be a prerequisite of getting a network connection in a foreign country.

That has never been my problem. Dealing with people, stores, passport verification, scams, etc has been.

The increased competition from international MVNOs likely also helps drive prices down.

When you're traveling and don't want to plan weeks ahead, your options with physical SIMs typically were either

1) special roaming-oriented SIM cards from your local country (which were still a massive hassle and had to be ordered days in advance to allow for delivery),

2) getting a SIM in the destination country (hassle and might not always be possible)

3) very expensive offerings from your own provider, if they even had something better than the aforementioned car-per-GB rates.

Now, you can get an eSIM from an MVNO that's from a third country, before travel or from the airport/hotel WiFi, usually also bypassing any bureaucratic bullshit that the destination country imposes on getting a local SIM.

And these "travel eSIMs" are often cheaper than local offerings even for use in your home country.

For now. And the move to "eSIMs" will be a one-way door. There's a reason embrace, extend, extinguish works as a strategy.

You mentioned all the conveniences which I never disputed. As an optional feature I have no problem against them.

This is not a problem anymore. I visit about 4+ countries every year (hello IMF / World Bank contracts) and have done 43 countries in last 6 years (on Google Fi, T-mobile and Indian Jio).

T-mobile includes 5GB / month of full speed international roaming in virtually any country in the world. (15 GB for $50 after it).

Getting a new local e-sim does not scale when you visit multiple countries or area in a jurisdiction which requires ton of documentation (including a local address or contact they can verify). Even then, it’s complicated.

For example, just this year I learnt that a local Indian e-sim (pre-paid) will not work in state of Kashmir in India or parts of Xinjiang in China.

Nothing you say here has any relation to eSIMs.

1. This problem can exist with real SIMs too. Back many years ago Verizon used to lock your SIM to a specific IMEI and you had to call them to change it (they might have even charged a fee for changing it, I don't remember for sure?)

2. Nothing prevents a phone company from offering an anonymized eSIM.

Anonymous phone numbers are drying up, but not because of eSIMs.

Verizon is a bad example as they were CDMA and always more locked down

Verizon happens to be the provider I had at the time, I wouldn't be surprised if other providers did it too.

When I was on Verizon, I remember having to go into their store to get a new SIM each time I got a phone that wasn't through them. Using eSIMs after I switched to Fi was a small but noticeable quality of life improvement for me at least.

As another comment said, you’re referring to Verizon’s CDMA network. Which did not use GSM and this did not use SIM cards. Literally, no SIM cards. It wasn’t until their LTE network they supported SIM cards in any meaningful way. Their handsets were locked to their network and only worked on their network. Occasionally, an “international” phone would be sold that had CDMA + GSM so their customers could use it overseas but the SIM card slot did literally nothing here in the states since those phones wouldn’t have supported T-Mobile or AT&T’s network frequencies.

And just because nothing prevents a phone company from offering them, doesn’t mean they will. Having the ability to just move a SIM card is very pro-consumer in a way I don’t think esims will ever be (unless the EU regulates it).

More recent versions of CMDA devices did support SIM cards.

This comment thread = hn insanity. Putting aside your misplaced outrage here, I recommend actually reading the article. Granted it’s incredibly winding and full of the buzzword “zero trust”, but they explicitly mention adding support for physical sim cards.

My comment was about how phone makers like apple are getting rid of physical SIMs.

Just use a script to swap "zero trust" with "big brother", and the article becomes legible!

All of these things you mention are real trends, but they are not tied to eSIM.

1. eSIM standard supports transferring of eSIM profile from one phone to another. physical SIMs can be tied to specific IMEIs (and it use to be VERY common) 2. You can use eSIMS on unlocked phones. 3. Burner phones can still exist! Nothing prevents a phone company or MVNO from offering eSIMs the same way they did SIMs before (obviously local law might force you to provide ID, but this has been the case with SIMs as well in various countries)

>1. eSIM standard supports transferring of eSIM profile from one phone to another

Source? The only implementation I know of is on iOS, which allows you to transfer esims between phones that are on the same icloud account. For every other phone the solution was to get a new QR code from the provider.

You simply unregister the eSim on the first phone and then scan the QR code on the new phone, it works "offline" too.

Unfortunately, that's not true for all eSIMs I've used – some activation codes are single-use, and you have to contact the provider to issue a new one every time. Some of them even charge for that...

But I agree that this is exclusively a policy problem, not a technical problem with eSIM, which clearly supports reusable profiles as well.

I would still call that a technical problem, fundamentally. If the technical failing didn't exist, then businesses would be unable to create the user-hostile policy to decommodify the market.

But they are able to do exactly the same thing with physical SIMs! So what‘s the difference?

There is still a difference in that doing this to a physical SIM requires the carrier going out of their way to integrate a check with the automated SIM setup process, whereas with eSIM such activation request would seem to be an inherent step of the process.

I do agree that cell protocols in general need to be reformed to get rid of static device identifiers like IMEI. I'd go even further and say that the tamper proof aspect of SIMs should be eliminated - the application processor can store the key to auth to the network, putting the user in control rather than suffering arbitrary top-down restrictions enforced by hardware they purportedly own. Though obviously that's a pipe dream while regulators continue to work for Ma Bell.

It depends on the carrier implementation. Here in Italy both TIM and Vodafone allow for infinite rescan of the same qrcode, Wind3 does not.

I’ve got 20,000 devices in the field. All SIM. Can’t change providers as it would be cost prohibitive as I’d need to visit all locations.

With eSIM I can just push a new configuration.

20,000 devices on an air-gapped procedure, is a security feature.

If it's easy for you, it's easier for whomever has backdoor access.

I am not sure how common this is in the US or other countries, but in the Czech Republic (maybe in the whole EU?), the carrier is obliged by law to provide you with a special numerical code which you can then use to transfer your phone number to a new carrier without the old carrier being able to do anything about it or indeed being involved in any way at all. This completely erases the need to have a physical SIM in order to keep your phone number.

I am not sure whether carriers here offer prepaid eSIMs though.

Same in Poland. The usdye is that not all providers support esim (2 out of 4)

This is commonly called Number Portability. I don't think it's mandated by the EU, but every EU country I looked up supported it.

In the Netherlands, for example, you can obtain a new SIM card or port number to another NL carrier. KPN uses the PUK code to verify ownership, which I think is great and has the least amount of hassle if you have written down the PUK code that was printed on the SIM package when you first bought it. The downside is that you cannot change the PUK codes.

SIMs were/are also issued by carriers? You have to go through carriers either way. You're using their network.

You got a sim and you put it in any phone you wanted. Now every time you switch a phone, you have to contact your carrier and possibly even get charged for the change.

If you travel a lot, you just buy a prepaid sim card in whatever country you're in, and put it in a phone, then leave the country, take the sim out and use another sim in that country. Some new phones (notably the new iphone, us version) don't even have a sim card slot anymore.

> Now every time you switch a phone, you have to contact your carrier and possibly even get charged for the change.

This depends on the carrier.

I use US Mobile. In their app, there's a very simple button on each line's screen to transfer the eSim to another phone. I converted my physical sim to eSim on my iPhone XS before the iPhone 14 came out a couple weeks back. When I got my iPhone 14 I was able to transfer the sim to my new phone in about 30 seconds.

The ONLY gotcha here is you do need internet access to make this work, so that is one thing to keep in mind. But it's super easy to do and I really don't see a majority of the complaints around how easy it is being legitimate. I suspect many of you haven't actually used eSims before.

Can you transfer the eSIM if the source device is broken?

Presumably that would require calling your provider to do. But depending on how your source device was broken, even with a physical sim that might be required.

I mean a big benefit of a physical sim card is you can quickly swap it out of a broken device...

Or you just use a carrier that allows re-scanning eSIM activation codes. Then the only problem is your device physically breaking, which actually "traps" the eSIM profile.

So you depend on the company's goodwill. Has this ever worked when it comes to monopolized industries?

As others have mentioned, companies can (and some but not all do!) tie physical SIMs to a given IMEI just as well, so it‘s less a question of goodwill and more one of competition, consumer education and choice etc.

I think this (tieing phones to sims and vice versa) is forbidden in EU.

It's less about what's technically forbidden and more about what's actually enforced.

If the carrier forces you to spend an hour on hold to talk to a customer support agent to reissue an eSIM provisioning code, would that be considered tying? Probably not, yet it's still very effective at discouraging people from switching phones.

> SIMs were physical for a reason.

Because eSIMs had not been invented yet? You say it like it was a conscious decision…

> You can't just pick up a random unlocked phone and put a sim in it

True, but you will be able pick a random unlocked eSIM-capable phone and transfer your eSIM to it via bluetooth. I believe Apple already announced this feature coming to iPhone, all other vendors will follow. No need to contact SP anymore.

> I have been in situations where I changed SIM between phones multiple times a day.

Can I ask what the use case is? I believe this will continue to be possible with the “transfer eSIM over bluetooth” method I mentioned above.

>It's like people who oppose cash payments out of the convenience of card/app payments.

totally agree on this, laziness or the continued pursuit of convenience is the end of privacy, maybe even democracy.

>you can't as a layman register an email address or any meaningful service you depend on without a phone number

mailbox.org, posteo.de… there’s lot of email service not requiring a SIM. They even allow you to pay cash via postal service =)

> It's like people who oppose cash payments out of the convenience of card/app payments.

Well it wasn't that long ago, 95% of HN comments were all for Digital Payment, Apple Pay, and Cashless Society. Things only changed around ~2019.

Well, a lot has changed on HN. I used to agree with half of the people here. Now, it is less than 5%, usually gray comments.

I think it is not just HN, the society itself has devolved and going into the toilet. Or it could just be that I have changed, but that's easily litmus tested by just reading old threads which I still agree with (pre-2019).

Regarding physical stuff, just the other day people love the idea of QR codes in restaurants with no opposition to the totalitarian digital state we're slowly building. Same goes with security cameras, cashless payments, parking apps, esim, covid QR codes, etc.

QR codes are extensively used in China for tracking people everywhere.

How does a QR code in a restaurant translate to a "totalitarian digital state"? It's just a machine-readable link, nothing more.

> I hope eveyone knows that you can't as a layman register an email address or any meaningful service you depend on without a phone number

You can open a gmail account from a residential IP adress and get the phone number field as optional.

That isn't quite true. It's really up to a(n AI) coinflip whether or not the phone number field will be mandatory.

And this is exactly why I’m not going to buy new SIM-less iPhones.

In typical Apple asshole fashion, in China you can buy an iPhone which takes two sims, in US - zero. Talk about carrier lock-in and Apple helping it.

What carrier lock-in? My iPhone can support 8 eSims. I can have two active at a time and switch between them whenever I want.

When you drop your iPhone on the floor and it shutters, how exactly are you going to get to your SMS 2FAs?

The point of SIM is that you can transfer service to another handset without talking to anyone. Which is invaluable, for example, when you travel in the foreign country and your iPhone dies from water damage, albeit being advertised as “waterproof”.

The same example also goes into the opposite direction: Let's assume your phone gets stolen in a foreign country: With a regular SIM card I lost my phone service for the remainder of the trip. With an eSIM I can buy another phone (that supports eSIMs) and login to the website of my provider to download a new eSIM. Problem solved.

but it could _trivially_ support 8 eSims _and_ at least one physical SIMs for like a few cents of additional production cost and basically no cost for maintenance because that is already supported in some places anyway.

There's no "opposition" because your entire argument is predicated on a straw man that you have invented in your own mind.

The need for anonymity for legal reasons is absolutely not a straw man argument.

I just finished telling a woman how she should be careful on dating apps and always use an anonymous sim card, never give out her real number, or real contacts, to strangers.

But my country is making this impossible now too, and the reason is drug dealers using them for burner phones of course.

What problems do you suppose using an anonymous sim card solves in the real world of dating?

With many mobile providers, the name on the account is directly associated with the number. Try to enter your own mobile number into Twilio’s lookup feature and see what name pops up.

Not just for dating, women who flee their home with a child in their arm and are put up in a secret apartment by the local ROKS org here usually still have to contact the babys father at some point. I know first hand it's one of the biggest issues in those orgs to keep their apartments hidden from anyone but the police.

> The need for anonymity for legal reasons is absolutely not a straw man argument.

That's not really an argument against eSIMs. As you point out getting an anonymous real SIM is also impossible in many countries. What prevents anonymous SIMs (or eSIMs) are legal issues and is not related to the technical implementation. Potentially eSIMS could make the whole process of getting burners much easier, if it wasn't for the legal issues.

Remember also that about 1/3 of Australia just had their PII leaked because one of the nation's biggest telcos couldn't do basic isolation between dev and prod.

I feel you, but consider this - we live in alternative reality where eSIM comes first and then somebody comes and says you need to put a black box into your phone (which is btw spinning up whole java environment) if you want to make calls. You could probably get outraged at that too.

An eSIM is the same black box, just reconfigurable and soldered on.

I mean so is CPU, but in general it's a bit harder to hide stuff in some untrusted binary than it is in hardware. In general. In this case I think we're doomed regardless.

Btw, if somebody knows good technical writeup on eSIM, I'd love to read it.

eSIMs are called eUICCs in the specs iirc, that might help you find information about them.

For many of us in the US, that was indeed the case. I had a CDMA phone on Verizon's network until 2007 when I switched to T-Mobile and got a GSM phone.

I just opened a google account without a phone number.

Was it easy? Hell no, but its still possible. (Its just for search console and technical stuff, never using it for my personal data)

And the Phone number trend is so annoying, and its made to force you to hand something rare and difficult to change.

Want to order something from any carrier or an online shop without a phone number? Good luck

Phone number does not equate to SIM. I use VOIP for SMS and only when really needed. I suppose this solution could work with dual esim where one could primarily use https://invisv.com/articles/pretty-good-phone-privacy.html.

I've honestly never thought about this issue until reading it. I wonder why they couldn't make registration-free eSIMs like they have with physical SIMs. That would be a major inconvenience when traveling otherwise.

If your phone can scan qr codes you can use esim its pretty easy at least in my experience. I unlocked my phone when i was traveling to Kenya grabbed an esim for a couple cents when i landed and was set up in seconds.

Why does this effect the existence of physical sims?

I do remember this thing called SIM-locking

It's definitely a trade-off between privacy/liberty and other benefits.

The spread of standardised time and clocks had a significant negative impact on individual liberty, and people would even sabotage clocks. They failed of course, as will the opposition against the cashless society, because cash is so much worse in most aspects.

If it's something you care a lot about, rather than going the way of the Luddites and opposing eSIM and electronic payments I would suggest focusing on using technology to find new solutions to the privacy/liberty problems.

Yeah. They want a magnificent dystopia, where everything will be digitalized and you will be tracked, micro-chiped, no privacy, own nothing, only rented and be a happy 'user'.

Physical SIMs are microchips.

I think OP meant microchips that cannot be detached from the device.

Physical SIMs can be easily disconnected and destroyed without destroying the device.

Which doesn't help from a tracking point of view because the device still retains a persistent, unchangeable identifier (the IMEI) which will be broadcasted as soon as you insert a new SIM (and maybe without one even, since in certain locations SIM-less emergency calls are possible).

> It's like people who oppose cash payments out of the convenience of card/app payments

Well, yeah, cards are radically more convenient. And this eSIM also looks like it solves real problems. People want to solve real problems. Until "my eSIM provider won't let me register for email" (or something? I'm guessing that that's what you're saying is a problem) or "I have no physical SIM to swap into another device, and for some reason I care about that" are bigger problems no one is going to optimize for that.

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