"Phones never were free - carriers controlled what went on them" This is only relevant for USA, not the rest of the world. All around the globe you could walk i

"Phones never were free - carriers controlled what went on them" This is only relevant for USA, not the rest of the world. All around the globe you could walk into a store, buy any phone you wanted, buy a carrier's SIM and insert into that. So the Apple model is a kind of dropback.