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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.

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.