Totally agree. If Apple had released the iPhone unlocked-only and sold it through retailers, no network would have dared to exclude it. At a stroke it would have done far more for American mobile phones than any interface or hardware design, because it would have shown all the US networks' claims about "activation" and many other issues to be a pack of lies.

It would have been a real revolution for the US market, because the effects would have been felt across the entire American market on non-Apple devices too. It would have put network operators in their place, as ISP-style dumb pipes, instead of the jumped up control freaks which they are right now.

Remember how AOL used to try and control users' experience from start to finish, and then had to give in and let people just use the open internet? The US network operators are trying to still be AOL.

It's the business structure that makes American network operators possibly the worst in the developed world. They have too much control over hardware and too little incentive to compete with each other. Only in America do people pay to receive phone calls, it's a symptom of a crazy twisted system.