I can think of no good reason to enter into a contract for cell phone use. It always seems to me to be at least as cheap to buy the phone outright and use a pr

I can think of no good reason to enter into a contract for cell phone use. It always seems to me to be at least as cheap to buy the phone outright and use a prepaid sim. You pay more up front but less monthly. You have more freedom, you can still buy on credit with a credit card if you wish to (and benefit from additional protections by doing so usually). You can change networks if you relocate or have signal problems, you can keep your number and you can sell your phone and buy a new one if you fancy it. I use a prepay in the UK, I bought my own Note 2 which was expensive (~£400), but now I pay £12 a month for unlimited data and text and more minutes than I'll use by an order of magnitude. Even in the US, where airtime charges are comparatively high, it seems to be cheaper to do this overall. Why save $400 on the phone by agreeing to pay $20-30 a month more than you need to for two years? Am I missing something? Why do people get sucked in?