Activation requires you to (pretend to) be 18, AFAIK. Also they have quite hefty fees; a checking accout is free as long as you don't overdraft.

Are people also not technically allowed to use a prepaid credit card registered in someone else's name? A parent could activate the card and then give it to the child.

You could, but then you're still paying fees designed to exploit the unbanked. If the parent is financially secure, they can use that fact to get a free checking account for their child.

Checking account are free? Well, chequing accounts are not :(

Among the downsides of being in Canada is paying higher prices for anything that is not health care.

In the US most bank checking accounts have a monthly fee which is waived if you meet certain conditions, like maintain a minimum balance (I think mine was $1000) or get an automatic direct deposit at least 2 times per month of $250 or more - these would be hard to meet for a childs account. Credit unions are usually free though.

There is usually a "relationship waiver" that eliminates the fees on all the accounts you're party to as long as you have enough total wealth parked with that bank.

Sucks to be you. My checking account even gives me interest!

Look at your local credit union - many (not all, sadly) offer a free chequing account.

That's what I used in high school, but they're not very good value. You'd often need to pay a few bucks in fees just to use a $20 prepaid Visa card.

sometimes those cards don't work for some online stores because there is no address associated with the card, so card verification systems may fail.

Every time I've bought one of those cards, it has me go to a website to register/activate it (set a PIN, associate it with my email address+password, and most importantly, assign it an address and phone number) before it'll work.

many online stores i've seen/used actively block those cards due to fraud/chargeback/etc reasons