I think the issue of contracts is somewhat orthogonal to a market. Of course you need to be able to deal, but the details of that aren't somehow fundamental to

I think the issue of contracts is somewhat orthogonal to a market. Of course you need to be able to deal, but the details of that aren't somehow fundamental to a market. The point of a market is to allow sufficient flexibility so that lots of individual actors can by trial and error find an efficient solution to a hard problem without requiring a benevolent genius at the center. How much flexibility is enough? How much is too much? I don't think there's a one-size fits all solution here, and the size discrepancy between the cellular provider and the individual user only makes it harder. Personally, I think that in most markets, but particular these kind of highly asymmetric ones, we'd see more innovation and progress if the market were more fluid; which suggests to me that the carrier (and handset provider) lock-in is not a good thing.