Comment by Razengan
3 months ago
Does the Common [Wo]Man have any control over any of our own shit anymore?
I just got an iPhone 17. I travel often and have a bunch of SIMs and eSIMs from various countries, with varying periods of validity.
With the physical SIMs, I can just pop them into the new phone and still use them for a month or two more just fine. (I specifically got a Singapore region variant with a SIM tray AND eSIM support just for this)
But with the eSIMs, it goes for "approval" through the carriers, some of whom demand me to update my ID with them before they can allow an eSIM to be used on a new phone.
When Apple announced going eSIM only in the US and other draconian countries, I thought nothing of it. Now I see how bad it can be...
esim is maybe my favorite mobile innovation ever. As someone who also travels a ton I could not stand dealing with a bunch of physical sims and would just end up not even bothering and relying on WiFi which made everything a massive pain. Now I have one esim provider that supports every country, takes all of 30 seconds to activate it for whatever country I’m traveling to.
Also, your original point is irrelevant anyway, because every single part of validating an esim also happens with a physical sim, there is zero difference in the process on the part of the carrier, from their perspective a sim is a sim, doesn’t matter (and some might not even be able to tell) if it’s a physical sim or an esim. No idea what you’re talking about with regards to IDs, never once had to provide an ID to use an esim abroad. Thats likely some local government regulation.