It's actually kind of hard to articulate how bad things were in the early-mid 2000s with respect to carriers all trying to push their own garbage and monetize absolutely everything possible.
Thank you for linking the article. I purchased my first cellphone in 2004 so I experienced the era, but I've never used AT&T or an iPhone, so this is all news to me. I also was a late adopter of 'smartphones' and didn't purchase one until 2013 so take my experiences with a grain of salt. (I also visited Japan in '04 and remember being blown away by their phone technology - "large" color screens!)