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This is the funniest thing I've read in a while. I remember the rest of the world mocking the American model for cell phone plans (contract lock-in with high mo

by cc439 8y ago

This is the funniest thing I've read in a while. I remember the rest of the world mocking the American model for cell phone plans (contract lock-in with high monthly rates in exchange for cheap uogrades) and praising the model used in the UK and most of the EU (no contract, incredibly cheap rates but phones are purchases outright). American carriers finally came around to adopting the UK/EU model in the past few years as people began to become more accepting of the idea that the latest smartphone is worth keeping for more than 2 years if it means halving their monthly service payment and now you're telling me the UK has adopted the old American business model? I find this to be hilarious for reasons I can't quite articulate but going from a model where service is decoupled from hardware to a model where you're contractually obligated to pay a set bundled fee is a 180 degree switch too inexplicable to ignore.

photojosh 8y ago
Australia had the USA's model, and to a certain degree, still has. But it used to be that if you wanted a reasonable amount of data (back in the days where 2 up to 8GB was "reasonable"), you'd be best off to get one of the expensive phones on a plan (say $80-100/mo). But these days, those expensive plans have 20-30GB a month, whereas I'm still only using the data I was back then, and you can get plans for $20/mo for 4-6GB. So I've now gone to buying the phone outright and getting a cheap plan, and save a ton of $. I suspect a lot of people are still under the mentality that they need the amount of data included in the more expensive plans, without ever checking that to be the case. Of course, if you're streaming YouTube/Netflix/music at the high bandwidth rates and not even doing the bare minimum to pull down that data while on WiFi, all bets are off.
detaro 8y ago
The UK hasn't "now adopted" that model. It has existed in european countries for basically forever, it just wasn't/isn't the only choice, and less popular.

by cc439 8y ago

photojosh 8y ago

Australia had the USA's model, and to a certain degree, still has. But it used to be that if you wanted a reasonable amount of data (back in the days where 2 up to 8GB was "reasonable"), you'd be best off to get one of the expensive phones on a plan (say $80-100/mo). But these days, those expensive plans have 20-30GB a month, whereas I'm still only using the data I was back then, and you can get plans for $20/mo for 4-6GB. So I've now gone to buying the phone outright and getting a cheap plan, and save a ton of $. I suspect a lot of people are still under the mentality that they need the amount of data included in the more expensive plans, without ever checking that to be the case. Of course, if you're streaming YouTube/Netflix/music at the high bandwidth rates and not even doing the bare minimum to pull down that data while on WiFi, all bets are off.

detaro 8y ago

The UK hasn't "now adopted" that model. It has existed in european countries for basically forever, it just wasn't/isn't the only choice, and less popular.