I remember a while back in 2022 when the iPhone 14 first removed the physical sim option in the US. That it caused a big uproar in the community. I was one of the few who saw this move favourable as it would massively reduce the amount of plastic needlessly wasted when people would switch providers or go travelling.

Think of the plastics, papers and shipping required for those sim cards only to eventually end up on the landfill or contaminating the natural environments of the animals.

Some people argued that is more restrictive and I countered saying that it could become much easier to change your carrier as long as the regulations of your country force them to do so. But in the worst case scenario you would have to pay for e-sim like you do now with the physical ones.

Some people argued that not enough carriers support it and I said this change would force them to since they want to keep receiving customer patronage.

Some said the new iPhone would be terrible for travelling because now they cant just buy cheap sim cards to use in their holidays and I responded saying that they should just keep using their iPhone 13 model to avoid this problem. They have 5 years (2027) before they have to worry about this, but by then the adoption would be much better all around the world.

I remember arguing with someone on r/apple about the sustainable benefits of forced e-sim and they thought they had a gotcha as they’re acting like I buy a new iphone every year and that my argument is now invalid because I’m a “hypocrite” then I told them in 2020 I bought an 2016 iphone SE used and had rocked that baby for 2 years and they of course went immediately silent buhahaha.