Recently while doing my daily trawl through Hacker News I came across this blog post titled, Sim Cards Must Die. The article claims that one day we’ll choose phone networks like we do wireless networks and can change plans whenever we want. The sim card is quite possibly one of the best things to have ever been produced and used in the telecommunication industry. Could you imagine buying a phone, then choosing a network like it’s a wifi hotspot only to find your new shiny Apple phone deliberately comes with lack of support for that provider you wanted to use?
The sim card keeps things independent, it gives us choice (except when the phone is sim locked of course) and above all it keeps things safe. I get you can clone a sim card, it’s not exactly the hardest of things to duplicate; buy a sim card duplicator and a bulk supply of blank sim cards off Alibaba. I could only imagine the flaws that would appear in such a system, what’s stopping someone from illegally bypassing the payment stage of switching to another provider and then racking up a massive bill anonymously? At least when you want a sim card on a plan, you have to show some form of ID, not to mention what is stopping someone from sniffing out your personal details?
While I don’t doubt the sim card won’t die in some ways, it’ll always be around in some shape or form; but the underlying idea of sim cards will never die, it’s too risky.
