An increasing portion of phones are eSIM [0] only these days, and the difficulty of swapping can be weirdly-bad depending on provider.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESIM

But non esims exist still, and if you're that worried about security, you can get one.

Not forever though, and if you're an iPhone user, already current iPhones sold in the US are eSIM only. So in some number of years (depenfing on your device oldness tolerance), they will become obsolete eventually.

US iPhones don’t have sim slots at all anymore.

Can't one just buy some craphone for like $50? with whatever sim.

The whole problem as I see it is that people for some reason submit all their life to a device they can not control. And when it bites them they go all suprised.