No, I can understand it. You said your iPhone was locked to Uber. As Meg said there is a different kind of activation lock a company can do but it isn't the same thing being discussed in this thread. Not sure why you had to pay a 3rd party to unlock since Verizon offers that.
No, the Verizon iPhone 5 and later models did not have the GSM side unlocked because of a law that was passed. They made an agreement to unlock the GSM side of their phones when they made a large bandwidth acquisition through a merger. And there was no law passed in March, there was a CTIA agreement that was forged between the major cell carriers and the FCC which is largely voluntary. It has nothing to do with all new phones being unlocked out of the box.
So you paid for an unlock that you could have done for free. Good move. Glad you are leaving here you can't seem to get any facts straight.