“because operators wanted the cash flow“ It's impossible to put too much emphasis on this part. The envisioned MMS money deluge never happened (at least outsid

“because operators wanted the cash flow“ It's impossible to put too much emphasis on this part. The envisioned MMS money deluge never happened (at least outside Japan? I have zero understanding of market history there), but it was the sole reason that suddenly all phones had cameras. In those days network operators were still the almost exclusive sales channel for phone hardware, so if they decided that phones without camera would not sell, that's what happened. Even if no consumer actually wanted that feature. I really believe that in an alternative history where the SMS goldmine never happened (and thus no MMS goldmine illusions) it's possible (though not likely?) that we might still use dedicated hardware for image capture. And in that case, given the political implications of "every person always has a camera with them", world history would be meaningfully different, just because its past does not contain that future that never happened (MMS goldmine).