Carriers are the ones that sell directly to consumers though. They're optimizing for the showroom experience. They want to walk you around their showroom and ha

Carriers are the ones that sell directly to consumers though. They're optimizing for the showroom experience. They want to walk you around their showroom and have a variety of devices to choose from. If they can convince you that you have a lot of options, they've won. They also want to maintain control, and so playing manufacturers off of each other helps with that.