You must work for Verizon who completely controls user hardware on their network.
A SIM card allows a user freedom to use any GSM phone they chose.
Now, I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason and all but I struggle with this.
The sim card is just something that stores certain settings that tell the network who you are and lets you connect to that specific network, right?
In this day and age, what's stopping us from having a virtual sim card, basically just a secure little bit of memory on your smartphone, that you can download as many different "sims" onto as you like and just choose which one you want to use from a little sub menu? Each one would be unique, generated at the point of download, and you could back them up to a secure, cloud based service so if the worst happened you could get a new handset and redownload your sim with all your settings, etc. Of course, if anyone accessed this that would be an issue I guess but there's always a loophole, right?
I mean, wouldn't this system be the most flexible? If I go to a foreign land there's Wifi at the airport, right? A little booth maybe that lets me connect and download the most competitive sim for my intended uses and top up and all that. When I arrive home GPS locates me and automatically pops me back over to my normal network.
Why is this not a good idea? If it is a good idea, who is it who wants it to not happen and why?