I just want to swap my number into different phones like I can with a physical card, without anyone else's involvement or approval.
If I could just grab an esim and download it onto a physical card that would be great.
> only allowing so many changes per month
That I have actually encountered. I've seen one (fortunately only when traveling) that actually charges a "SIM fee" for each new eSIM profile installed, and they don't allow reinstalls of my initial one...
Charging for a new eSIM is dubious even if a profile is reinstallable, but it's less of an issue for me, as I'd only have to do that if I lose a phone, or it fails to a point where I can no longer remove the installed eSIMs so that I can redownload them on another one.
that's only needed on non-rooted Android, due to security restrictions imposed by android. OP even mentions using an open source tool (lpac) with his esim adapter.