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AT&T tries to defend why it shouldn't let you unlock your phone sooner
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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It isn't been a hidden cost for a while. Phone companies sell the phones at full price, but consumers want the 2 year 0% APR financing.
If consumers bought the phones from a third party, there'd be absolutely no reason to lock the phone to a carrier. But when carriers also provide the financing, there's an incentive to keep them on the service until the bill is paid. Screw that.
If I could drop $1000+ for the device all at once, I already would be getting them carrier unbranded.
Then don't buy a $1k device, and instead buy something you can afford?
Otherwise, there are tons of buy now, pay later services, so you could just use any of those.
Not go into debt to upgrade something that actually in most cases doesn't need upgrading. What a amazing thought.
Yup. I upgraded my phone because it ran out of software updates (had for >3 years). My new phone cost <$400 and has >5 years of software support, if the hardware lasts that long. A $1k device is not necessary and is a luxury item, and you shouldn't go into debt for luxuries...
Exactly. I started buying my phones at full price unlocked in 2016 when I switched to a mobile virtual network operator and I've never gone back to $1,000 phones because losing $1,000 from your Monero wallet hurts bad.
Where are you buying phones w/ Monero?
https://xmrbazaar.com/user/SimplifiedPrivacy
Or put "grapheneos" In the search box on the main page
Ah, okay. I just bought a phone with fiat and loaded it w/ GrapheneOS myself like a pleb.
I wouldnt recommend an already setup grapheneos device in the first place. How would you trust that?
I've been doing the same. It makes traveling easier too. It costs way less to get a local sim for an unlocked phone you own than to pay the carrier to allow you to use a locked phone overseas.
At home, MVNOs, for me, were basically what the rest of the world had. The big carriers kept pushing phones, the MVNOs were simpler, quicker, and less scammy. Eventually I found a non-MVNO T-Mobile prepaid plan that gave me unlimited SMS, 100min. Talk, and 5-6GB data (which they deceptively call unlimited 👎, but was more than enough for me)
The site run by the greedy little pigboy used to have a "nocontract" community for discussing the best plans, they had a big google sheet and lots of research, but it seems someone infiltrated it because they no longer list the best deals.
Yep, me personally, I am on the T-Mobile Connect 5GB plan, which gives me unlimited talk and text with 5GB of data and then no more. But that's perfectly fine by me since the vast majority of the time I have access to Wi-Fi extremely easily.
I haven't heard of this. Is this plan available still? I'm on TMobile, but like my previous comment I have limited minutes. This works great as an excuse not to talk to people, but I have had to add minutes when I have to deal with someone, for example an insurance company, on a repeating basis. I pay $30 a month which is ridiculously good compared to the plans they advertise. I didn't think the 100 min limit would be an issue, but it occasionally is. If I could carry over my unused minutes I would be 100% okay.
https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/connect
Until you realize that things like wifi calling have to be an at&t phone. Unless they've changed this in the last few years.
What do you mean? Quick Google shows that T-Mobile allowed wireless calling back in 2007.
I didn't mention T-Mobile
But who is going to provide the financing otherwise?
There are tons of buy now, pay later services, and they make money through revenue sharing w/ the retailer, as well as when people fail to pay back the loan on time.
But ideally, this would just put downward pressure on phone prices as people look to buy phones w/ cash instead of going into debt.
Just like Smart TV's.
Honestly any moderately expensive item can be purchased through installments. Go to any electronics store and they'll have offers like that, and they use different services to provide that financing.
It's a non-issue, carriers don't need to be a party to that at all. I can literally go to BestBuy or Apple and get 0% financing on a new phone and take it to any carrier I want.
You know what you're talking about. It's nice to see that.
But if carriers didn't have phones for sale everyone would be mad about it. They might have even been mad in the beginning, so the carriers started selling phones too.
PayPal credit is an option. No interest if you pay it off in 6 months.