I believe the point is that they could've been blacklisted from the start and instead carriers would just put up their hands say "there's nothing we can do" des

I believe the point is that they could've been blacklisted from the start and instead carriers would just put up their hands say "there's nothing we can do" despite there being something they can do. It's like when your apple laptop gets stolen and then starts using your applecare support and apple won't help you get it back. Of course, if you decided not to pay your phone bill I'm sure that device would get blackslisted real fast.