I may be guilty of the same thing you're mentioning (I'm in the USA), but my Nokia 6210 came with a carrier lock and I wasn't even able to visit websites via the WAP browser unless my carrier approved of them because WAP acted like a sort of mandatory vendor operated proxy that allowed them to see and filter everything the phone did. They would, for example, filter out websites about ringtones to try and force you to buy theirs for $0.99/piece.

My experience with a Nokia 6210 was very much the opposite of what you describe.

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goku12 2 days ago | parent [-]

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jen20 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

It was exactly like the GP described in the UK too. All-powerful carriers at a time when Apple was almost bankrupt, before Google was a verb and before Microsoft made phones that would crash just sitting waiting for a call.

	▲	goku12 a day ago \| parent [-]
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reaperducer 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That's very much a product of the American oligarchy

And yet it happens in dozens of other countries that are not America.

You may be surprised to learn that the whole world is not Europe. The colonial era is dead.

with Apple, MSFT and Google at the forefront

None of those companies had phones in the era we're discussing.

	▲	goku12 a day ago \| parent [-]
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