this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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Nice to see another feature getting removed to make phones slimmer which is necessary because of uhh... 'Cuz the uh... You know that thing that uh...
eSIM just makes more sense. Why do you need a card just to store some random bits of data when your phone can store hundreds of gigabytes of data?
In a world of corporate control over everything, I’ll take my globally defined, physical interface standard thank you.
You realize that it doesn't physically do anything, right? Like it just has some bits on it
Yes I know what’s on a SIM card. But if it’s physical I can move it to another phone in a flash. With an eSIM I had to ask pretty please of the phone companies.
What control are you losing by going with esim? They already had you by the balls with the physical sim. Now its just more convenient and esim is also globally defined/accepted.
I can move my phone number to another phone in 2 minutes without involving the phone company. The same is definitely not true with an eSIM.
The ability to swap it to a new device without carrier approval is a big one for me.
This sounds like a your carrier problem, not an eSIM problem.
I've swapped eSIMs between devices 3 times this year at my own leisure, no involvement from the carriers, no back and forth calls or visiting a store.
From what I can tell reading these comments, people don't actually have an issue with eSIM (it's literally just like your regular SIM card and the spec absolutely allows you to move it between devices with zero friction), they have an issue with how some carriers implement them, in particular how some lock down how you can move an eSIM to a new device.
Seems like carrier implementation should be more standardized.
I would agree to an extent, but I dislike another step or dependency to change phones. With a physical sim I don't need to login to a carrier site for it to function, don't need to call their support, don't need to wait for activation times, only their towers gotta be working.
With an esim I need to change identifiers linked to the account, which takes time to propagate through the network, and also needs authentication either by a text message, login or calling support to change the account.
The path of least resistance is clear. Swap a physical sim? or authenticate and change the esim, and wait for it to sync. No brainer for me.
"This sounds like a your carrier problem, not an eSIM problem."
This is true, and we the consumer have no control of the carrier decisions. With a physical SIM, we have at least a little.
Yeah but how do make money? Is the few cents saved per unit worth it? Like I know that saving 1€ over a million units is 1M€ saved but still.
That really is how these companies think.
I've seen car companies selling $100,000+ cars sweating over whether we use a $0.10 more expensive part that would last 3x longer than the cheaper one
This isn't just cheaping out though, this is removing a feature. Surely no one will be glad to put in additional effort for no advantage? Or are there advantages to eSIMs that I don't know about?
When traveling you can pre-purchase an E-SIM and already have it loaded to your phone in advance of landing - avoiding the whole airport SIM purchase shuffle, or the holding off on using your phone until you get to a convenience store, etc.
I use an E-SIM for my personal plan, saving the physical SIM for a work line.
When I travel I pre-purchase an eSIM and it's just ready to turn on when I land
Somebody can't steal your phone and pull the SIM card out so that it can't be tracked.
As long as you don't have the ability to enable airplane mode or disable cellular data from your notifications shade, you can't stop it from being tracked if it's stolen unless it's physically powered off. And as soon as it's physically powered on again, it's immediately trackable.
There's a thing called the power button. You can't track a phone that's turned off
If the phone is in China, what are you going to do about it
Yes, eSIMs are much more convenient plus phones can have multiple. While I’ve never tried the multiple eSIM feature, I find it so much nicer to set up a new eSIM online than to have to deal with a physical SIM from a physical store. It’s also more convenient when getting a new phone, at least for iPhone. The setup can just transfer the eSIM from one phone to the next so your number gets moved with no effort on your part
From the phone manufacturer, it's fewer traces and less mechanical design work.
From the carrier side, it requires you to have their spyware installed to register the Sim
From a user perspective, someone can't just steal your Sim and put it in another phone
Except that’s not true, I neither need to install any apps nor give my data to my service provider.
Then you are using a feature phone, or a standard Android/iOS device with their tools preinstalled
If you try to use it with a free operating system, it's not possible.
Here are the instructions for installing the bridge code on Graphene: https://grapheneos.org/usage#esim-support
I use eSIMs on grapheneOS
Based
I'm betting the mechanical component of a sim card tray is more expensive than the chip.
And to answer your second question:
https://youtu.be/_n5E7feJHw0
Phone companies lost touch with what we actually want over a decade ago.
Seriously, does anyone know a single person that's excited about getting a new phone when they just bought one a year or two earlier (assuming it's not broken or cracked)?
It's consumer demand!
Shareholder demand
Because we have to force “features” that no one asked for.
Right but you gotta make money somehow. The 3,5mm jack was removed to sell wireless headphones. The SD card slot is gone to force you to buy a phone with more soldered storage. Why this? Can't be data collection, they have it all already.
Because they save money in manufacturing.
Bonus is if you have to go in to move your phone - there's a chance you buy something.