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by cromka
1383 days ago
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> That’s nice but it’s still going to be 10 years or more until it’s as convenient as SIM cards everywhere. That's a bold statement to make. You realize that merely 15 years we didn't even have smartphones? How many random prophetic it-won't-happens happened in that time? |
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On the other hand, Smartphones were better positioned to drive adoption that eSIMs are. Smartphones create immediate utility for the user over feature phones. eSIM is arguably better than a physical sim, but at the end of the day you are only saving maybe a tiny inconvenience every time you have to swap out the sim. So there's not going to be a large push to switch from the user side.
A good comparison might be USB-C. People were writing in 2015 that the writing was on the wall for USB-A[1], and even though USB-C is basically better in every way, it's still not fully adopted 7 years later. It's not even the standard for desktop peripherals.
Also Smartphones are a highly competitive market with multiple vendors vying for users. Telecoms are mostly monopolies, and have little incentive to improve in most cases.
The only real driver I see for this is if eSIM-only devices get widespread popularity. I don't see it happening any time soon with low-end Android phones. Maybe wearables, but I feel like the idea of people in the developing world getting a second data plan for a wearable is a long way off.
But I could be wrong.
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/2/8704551/usb-type-c-is-the-...