I don’t know, my phone carrier charges me zero interest to “buy” my phone on a 36 month loan because of it. It’s not a huge financial windfall by any means, but it’s absolutely money in my pocket.
That's assuming they stop collecting on that loan once it's paid off. When I worked at TMobile we'd have accounts with phones that were eligible to be unlocked, and which were eligible to be moved to a cheaper plan, and the policy was just to leave them as-is unless they said something.
They keep you on a plan but they don't keep charging the payment for the device. In my case I'm on a cheaper plan than current offerings and have three lines, all with paid off devices.
That's only true if you're on a plan that supports it (i.e. the newer ones). It's been a while since I worked there, but I bet they still have legions of old folks on grandfathered plans that are not sensitive to whether the device is paid off or not.
In a competitive market ‘free’ interest deals just mean higher monthly premiums for basic service.
AT&T’s prepaid plans start at is 25$/month for unlimited calls & text, “Unlimited” data (After 16GB it degrades to 1.5mbps) + 10Gb tethering. Meanwhile their cheapest regular plan is 50$/month for worse service (4GB data).
Sure they don’t offer the best plans prepaid, but that’s basic price discrimination.
With a prepaid plan, you credit the operator, because you pay upfront, and the service is rendered after it, and ceases if your balance goes below zero.
With regular plans, the operator credits you, and you can be late with your payment for many days before the operator ceases servicing you.
So it's a month worth if credit, plus a different risk profile.
Also, it's market segmentation: the prepaid plan is the gateway drug %)
My family (parents, siblings) are asking me "How did our T-mobile phone bill balloon so much in the past decade?" and I can point to the slow creep and the plan changes they made that (without them knowing or anyone telling them) un-grandfathered them out of a favorable promotional plan. For instance my sister needed to increase her data cap about a few months before they moved our data to unlimited. It pushed her out of the promo and now the family plan costs $35/mo extra even though her line is getting the exact same things as mine, which is still on the promo pricing.
Then I tell them they'd be better served by switching to an MVNO offering significantly better rates and they come back and tell me they're locked in for a while because they just financed new devices.
I'm souring on the ways we create systems where you have to be super savvy and walk on eggshells with how you use the service and utter the right incantations or else you get hosed.
> I'm souring on the ways we create systems where you have to be super savvy and walk on eggshells with how you use the service and utter the right incantations or else you get hosed.
These systems rely on intentionally leaving people in the dark to manufacture legitimacy under the guise that well-educated consumers can avoid the hidden fees and restrictions. It's the expected end state when these shady schemes are allowed to exist.
I had one of those deals for 3 phones. I was paying $272 a month all in. Once I paid off the phones, I switched to an MVNO on the same carrier. I get the same level of service for $105 per month. My "free" phones cost me $168 x 24 months = $4032 for phones that cost about $3000 combined at retail pricing.
If it was Public Mobile, they really did their long-time customers dirty because of their points system change. I used to pay $27/month because of referrals and loyalty, and now it’s back up to ~$39 because their new system forces you to actively redeem your points.
I’m switching over to Lucky when I have the mindspace to do it.
