Apple (and every other manufacturer) can already carrier lock a phone. They already had technology to take away consumer choice. So the idea that a soft SIM will take away consumer choice because it can is not particularly useful. It's far more likely that carriers will be able to offer soft SIMs in exactly the same way they offer hard sims, and you can pick whichever you want.
The real significance of this is that Apple are now nearly in a position to buy airtime wholesale, in real time, potentially creating a monopsony with the power to end the carrier-consumer relationship. It's not that carriers couldn't continue to offer service, it's that they couldn't compete On price or coverage with an Apple multi carrier MVNO. How barren would our high streets be then?
But Apple are cleverer than that. They already only have to glance towards the cash pile as they say to a new industry "we'd like to work with you". So the soft SIM may well appear to make little difference to the consumer. But it does substantially alter the balance of power between Apple and carriers. It's not clear how Google could follow without becoming a manufacturer. It's already miserable enough being an Android licensee, and soft sims under Google control would just make it more miserable.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
