There is increasing demand for ID upon purchasing - and you are also forgetting that prepaid cell phone purchases must be activated at point of sale - which can

There is increasing demand for ID upon purchasing - and you are also forgetting that prepaid cell phone purchases must be activated at point of sale - which can trigger a CCTV snapshot from the terminal and record the method of payment. Sure, you can "walk" to the store, browse to the phone aisle, pick up a prepaid phone, wait in line, ring out and pay in cash and walk out - but that all creates a foot print, geographically at a minimum. You can try a smaller store, franchised sure - but there will be recording of the transaction. Then the activation itself. Then the recurring topping up of credits to use the service. As with Singapore/Japan/Indonesia and China, yes - pre-activated sims still are sold w/ government intervention and seizing information and terminating the sim in use - but another thing to note is that the telecom in those countries are also state enterprises. In the USA, they are not - not yet. But, "effort" into being anonymous, is friction - and the more friction you need to overcome, the more opsec you need to execute to maintain a hygenetic environment. That's where it becomes impossible to maintain.