You obviously didn't live at this age or were too young. Most people in the late 90s and the early 2000s got their phones subsidized by a carrier. There was a

You obviously didn't live at this age or were too young. Most people in the late 90s and the early 2000s got their phones subsidized by a carrier. There was a time when the carriers were the most important channel for selling phones and this was not only in the US.