Or when you switch to an MVNO :)

Then it's one line, $10 / month.

For the privilege of using the hand-me-down data of carrier's network (i.e. getting deprioritized in any situation where the network is congested)

USMobile gets you Verizon’s network at the same priority as Verizon customers. $390/year for “unlimited” data (but really 100GB/mo at high speed).

Yep, that’s who we use. It is half the cost of VZW’s cheapest plan with more data and better QCI. The latter aspect turns out mattering a lot more than I thought.

Why is American cell phone service so expensive?

In comparison to what..? Vietnam? Canada?

Other G7 countries. Unlimited data is about $15 a month in the uk, 150G is even less