Not everywhere. The typical practice was to offer steep discounts on phones (or even 'free' phones), where the phone was paid through a high subscription price.

Not everywhere. The typical practice was to offer steep discounts on phones (or even 'free' phones), where the phone was paid through a high subscription price. However, the high subscription price was maintained after the phone was long paid off. This was ruled illegal in The Netherlands (and many other EU countries I believe), first because it was a loan in disguise (so the providers were bound to do credit checks), secondly because they are not allowed to continue charging the high subscription prices when the phone is already paid off. As a result, SIM locking does not have any benefit to the providers anymore and they stopped doing that. That said, I have used eSIMs for years now and there is not much of a real benefit outside dual SIM in phones that only have one physical SIM slot (like iPhone). When first starting a subscription it's faster, because you don't have to wait until the SIM card comes through snail mail. But after that there is always the anxiety after switching to a new phone whether the eSIM transition goes well. With most providers you have to request the eSIM through their app on your new phone, you get a second factor code on your old phone (where the SIM is still active), then an eSIM is installed on the new phone, but only activated after you remove the eSIM from the old phone. Sometimes you get an error in the middle of the process and it's not clear whether the migration is complete or not. Another issue is that if somehow the screen of your phone is destroyed, it's hard to move the eSIM to a replacement. While with a physical card you just pop it out and put it in your new phone.