this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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I told everyone that once contracts for cell phones were replaced with payment plans, companies would start gouging their customers with higher phone prices because the customers could now "afford" it.
Greedy ain't the right word imo.
I don't know why people still use the big carriers. Subsiding the phones and getting an upgrade every 2 years was the reason to use them. Now they just add the cost of the phone to your bill.
The brilliant thing is they've gone from "We'll buy the phone, but there's a $200 ETF" to "we won't buy the phone, and there's no ETF. But now if you cancel you owe us $1,000."
If you think you're not using "the big carriers" in the US I've got news for you: you are using the big carriers. They are all either owned or leasing bandwidth from the big carriers. It's nothing more than an illusion of choice.
If they are cheaper or different in any meaningfully way, it's still worth it. Not sure if would be considered an illusion of choice or not, unless you want to boycott them of course. Not American though so not sure how different they are.
But for example I am on a cheaper carrier owned for the most common carrier here in Spain which is quite expensive. And it's cheap as fuck compared with the main one and unless you want their tv deal it has 99% of the same services for a fraction of the costs.
I'm using their towers, but paying 1/3rd the price. My point is why pay the premiumto use them directly if they took away the only advantage of doing so.