The US market has three big gatekeepers named Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. They charge huge money to certify devices to work on their networks. No certification and phones won’t work properly for mission-critical stuff like VoLTE, VoWiFi, and in some cases 5G. Without these features, no-one will buy the phones.

You also need to be selling a big number of those phones to eat the cost of all that certification. And what do you know, the telcos operate the stores that sell the lion’s share of phones in the US market.

All that adds up to niche handsets only working on 1 or 2 of the telcos, or only partially, and only selling direct to consumer or on Amazon or Best Buy or wherever in negligible numbers.

And that’s why you can’t buy a Fairphone at retail in the US.

The smell of fresh bread is like a hug for your nose.

A breadmaker which also makes jam.