Being European, I'm amazed that the US carriers have been able to keep their stranglehold over the phones for so long. Over here, the carriers have no say over which phone I put on their network, and which features that phones has. They can't cripple the phones, limit the phones, or force some sort of default configuration that gives them money if I accidentally push a button.

I have no idea how you could break that stranglehold though, and I've never really seen any good debate on it, only outrage and acceptance of defeat?