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I keep seeing article after article talking about to slow down of buying phones, but I’ve never seen any mention of the main reason I stopped buying phones ever
by jader201 8y ago
I keep seeing article after article talking about to slow down of buying phones, but I’ve never seen any mention of the main reason I stopped buying phones every year:
They stopped subsidizing them.
For a while, most carriers (at least AT&T with iPhones) would include a phone with a two year contract as part of your monthly bill. But about 3 or 4 years ago, they stopped doing this. And so people had no incentive to renew every time they were eligible.
Everybody I’m close to stopped for this reason. Now they only renew now when they have to, or when there’s a really compelling reason to. And any more, both of these are becoming less and less of a need.
Why has nobody talked about this?
- petersellers 8y agoI don’t think “subsidizing” is the right word as the customer still had to pay for the full price of the phone. The carrier would just spread out the cost of half of the phone across a 2 year period. Nowadays (at least for Verizon) you can get a phone for nothing upfront and have the entire cost spread out over a 2 year period. Basically the same as before except it requires nothing down instead of half the phone value. If anything I feel this method is more likely to get people to sign up as it requires nothing upfront.
- jader201 8y agoIf I remember correctly, the “fee” they charged for the phone was charged regardless of whether or not you renewed. I remember doing the math multiple times each year, and there was never a reason to not renew, unless you planned on changing carriers.
- wmf 8y agoMostly because the media's memory extends back a year at most. But there seems to be an additional slowdown in addition to the one caused by the end of carrier subsidies.