Digital Nomads

depends on the carrier, verizon in the U.S. automatically unlocks your phone after 60 days

This is very specific to certain countries/mobile networks. Many countries these days have laws which ban the networks from sim-locking. Maybe better to say where you got your phone so people know to avoid your network if they are getting a phone in your country.

Stop buying iphones.

I owe on my android and I got both a turkish and serbian esim with no issue.

It's about the carrier, not the phone. Not all carriers do this

My Google pixel had esim & physical sim from the get go. Apple's strategy is to lock you into their ecosystem, and it works well

That's something very carrier based.

I also buy my iPhones from the US (way cheaper than Europe), but I buy them at full cost. No carrier lock.

And carrier lock is not apple/ US only, it's quite popular everywhere on this planet. You buy something in installments? It's locked. You buy it at a carrier discount w/ subscription? it's locked. Regardless if it's SIM or eSIM. I stopped buying phones from carriers like 10 years ago because of this. I prefer to get them cash down.

In Europe carriers can't lock your phone anymore, unless in contractual period or in installments. But they have to unlock it after this passes.

yeah, that's a carrier issue, not an eSIM issue. make sure your phone is unlocked before switching carriers. and yeah, only certain US models lack physical SIM slots, not all new phones.