The Verizon iPhone 4 launched this week not with a growl, but with a whimper.

This should come as a wake-up call to the network operators (though this is generalizable to any industry): if a competitor has a product that people want, customers are going to get it. The paying customers who wanted iPhones already have one. Saying “I like Verizon more than I like having an iPhone” is like saying “I like better roads more than I like having a sports car”. What the few Verizon iPhone customers are really saying to me is “my parents pay my phone bill so I’m stuck with Verizon”. Those are not great customers.

As time progresses I imagine that we’ll see more evening out, a more comparable number of iPhone users on Verizon as AT&T, but this is a strong sign that domestic growth has struck a plateau. There will still be massive lines at the launch of the next new phone—this time at Apple, AT&T, and now Verizon stores—but they won’t be significantly bigger than the lines from the last launch. Apple probably still won’t be able to make handsets fast enough to meet demand next year, but we’ll have a good idea of how long it will take them to satisfy demand.