Carriers have a metric **** ton of inborn costs that inflate over time unevenly. They have to install, repair, expand, and maintain physical infrastructure that can be damaged at any time and any place. All it takes is a little bit of lightning. And this is not just a small footprint like small Apple mini stores in select retailers or medium footprint such as retail stores across a planet.Steve may have had his failures but he was far more successful than you ever will be or I for that matter because sometimes what people can not get into their thick skulls is that some ideas seem daft at the time and in future are not daft.
Yes yes yes I know what you will say "but but but some ideas are daft then and now" and yes you are only half right.
Though the bigger point is that Apple being virtual mobile phone operator might have some costs attached to it but in case you forgot
1) Apple has more money than most countries do right now
2) We are talking virtual not actual so the costs will not be as great as you imply.
It makes great sense for Apple to become their own carrier but once again Cook is not smart enough to realise that.
This is large footprint running up and down large swath’s of land. You would need 4 times the retail stores employees to service and maintain that, or rely on contractors who charge a lot more.
No one wants to be an NVMO anymore. You’re subservient to whichever carrier infrastructure you are using, and Apple is not a submissive company.
Then they would have to decide whether to sell their service in store, and thus add more staff to the retail experience or require all customers to sign up through the phone itself as an e-sim (their preferred method and MO).
And that’s just inside the contiguous United States. We haven’t gotten to Hawai’i, Alaska, or TROW yet.