Canada

The options suck because there is no real competition, simple as that.

What the carriers actually care about is average revenue per customer (ARPU), so you will find that no matter the "deal" you get, you will be paying about the same minimum cost regardless of carrier at the same level. This is about $70/mo for Telus/Rogers/Bell, and $35/mo for their discount brands Koodo/Fido/Virgin. All that really changes is the amount of data you get, which they can easily give more of since the data itself is practically free. The only reason that these companies would ever do anything to deviate from the status quo is if a new company came in and challenged them, or they were legislated to change their policies, otherwise all they care about is maximizing revenues for shareholders.

Yeah Canadian prepaid plans all seem to have the scammy expiring bullshit built in.

I use my phone basically just for maps and being reachable in an emergency. Best one in Canada I've found that actually works is $99 a year or $119 if I want data (which I do need). A couple of the "budget" options have the exact same plan, but I went with Freedom to not have to deal with Rogers bs. These have unlimited calls and texts, data is limited to 15GB / year, but it's just goes to slow speed after 15GB at no extra costs. Very pricey for what I need it for still.

I used to have shitty prepaid plan sold by petrocan where the cheapest option was $25 for 3 months, but with very limited amount of data and the whole thing just didn't work half the time (no calls, texts or data).

Comparing these to Nordics is pretty rough. We go to Finland every couple years and we get a package with SIM card and enough data and calls for the 2 to 3 weeks we stay there with 15 euros. You just go to convenience store to pick it up, no signing anything needed. Just need to bring a phone that's not SIM locked.

Its the good ol' telco monopoly. Doesn't help that our population density is basically nothing. We're the second biggest country by land mass, but have about the same population as California.

I'm not sure who we need to pressure to get better service for the money...

True, in Canada most plan suck if you are not a heavy user. I use maybe 20 minutes of call per month, some SMS for 2FA, and quite often less than 250MB of data per month...

I know there is some 1 year plan sometimes that could be useful, check on RFD https://forums.redflagdeals.com/hot-deals-f9/?c=5121

Else I recommend fizz in QC, or PublicMobile in ROC I guess.

Is there some business in Canada that hasn't been regulated into an oligopoly?

I agree totally with what you said! . If you don't search for deals or negotiate, you will get a basic plan, which worth nothing. How about new providers coming in Canada, and a year later or so is leaving or bought by Rogers or Bell. They killed competition and now they control everything! Who is going to control them? This monopoly kills everything.

I also want to add phones, we stuck buying Samsung, Apple, Motorola and One plus, any other phones like the nothing phone, most likely won't work, because of bands. I want to be able to buy a mid tier phone, and not a crappy Motorola or an expensive Samsung.

edit: And now they going to shut down 3G, because as far I know it costs for them!