| As someone who has worked in the telco industry for over 30 years now, I like eSIMs as a _secondary_ method of using services but avoid them as much as possible for any of my critical numbers — simply because I want to be able to move my SIM to another phone in an emergency without needing to visit a store. In an age where phone authentication is still absolutely critical (banking and all sorts of online services still rely on texting you six-digit codes instead of relying on TOTP air stronger non-phone-number-dependent methods), being without my phone number for a day or more when I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere is completely untenable. Also, eSIM implementations range from ultra-smooth to hilariously bad. There are still providers (I’m looking at you, Vodafone Portugal) that absolutely require you to buy, unwrap and scan a physical piece of paper with a QR code printed on it, like an animal, _because they actually keep inventory_ of those printed pieces of paper. Yes, it’s as if the Industrial Revolution was still getting started at telcos. Anyway, the above is why I will always get devices with physical SIM slots for as long as I possibly can—-and when I can’t, I will likely incur the expense of getting a secondary phone where I can reactivate my critical numbers myself without visiting a store. They’re great for IoT devices and Internet access, but a liability if you still require receiving texts at a given number for anything important as if your phone dies, you’re SOL—-and nobody in the industry cares about that, or about ensuring travelers can re-activate eSIMs in foreign countries where their provider simply doesn’t exist. |