eSIM was supposed to replace SIM cards, but carriers turned it into a trap

oh no, who could have ever seen this coming?

Article feels a bit shallow. Obviously carriers will do their usual fuckery, anyone who ever dealt with one knows this. What many people probably wouldn’t expect is when you’re in a country where physical sim are dominant, you the dumb tourist will pay 10x for the privilege of esim since you’re prime target to rip off and what are you going to do about it, buy a new phone? Pay 1000x the price for roaming? Feels like notable omission and is fairly common.

I’m also surprised about there being not a word about smartwatches. I got a cellular apple watch with the idea I could leave my phone at home when doing sportsy stuff like swimming, assuming that a watch with esim support will indeed work with esim. In reality most don’t, Apple is particularly restrictive about it. You’ll probably need some shitty "companion / wearable plan" that most networks don’t even offer. There’s also extra regional compatibility on top of it to deal woth. In the end I never found a deal worth using.

That being said, I settled on esim for my main number and second esim or physical sim as needed when traveling. Having the sim slot free is neat. The biggest downside is "phone gets wrecked and you’re on another continent -> need to authenticate to switch esim to different device -> you need previous number to authenticate -> good luck", but I’m not sure wrecking a phone is more common than having it stolen so it’s probably a wash.

Good catch. That being said, I used saily in multiple countries, it’s pretty useful. But they have dirty marketing strategies, like this one

>1. Buy physical esim on AliExpress. Even the cheapest ones have 15 profiles.

What happens when phones go esim only, like the iPhone air already is?

it looks like regular sim card, but doesn't have any profiles build in. It is an adapter for phones without eSIM capability to use eSIMs.