Why not zero?
Because how else are we going to have at least some models out there for people who can’t fucking afford these ridiculous phone prices without doing payment plans?
Just like health insurance that’s like tied into your mobile plan. We all thought we hated when we paid for minutes, and then for when we were paying for minutes and data, how naive were we.
A locked phone and an overpriced monthly contract is precisely a payment plan. As far cheap phones, I like Motorola but I’m sure other stuff is out there as well.
No I’m saying yeah that is the thing that exists right now, and for some people that’s the only way that they can have / use a phone.
Between planned obsolescence and how careless and demanding in resources even phone apps are becoming now, cheap phones are as bad as really old phonesn
All I know is that maybe instead of putting a law like this in we’re going to just add the price somewhere else I say we just shut all these companies down and run this cell phone towers ourselves since all of our tax money has been going to these companies for them to build all these things that they don’t ever build or they build the bare minimum to get away with nobody taking the money back and it’s fucked up
What does this locking do? Where I live every online vendor offers to pay by installments which addresses the issue that people could not afford the upfront price, why do the phones have to be locked in the US?
Because most of these companies have some of the best lobbyists out there how else could they possibly get away with continuously taking money from our taxes and handing it over to them to build all these cell towers and infrastructure that they’ve only Built less than 5% of
Next they should ban phone models that only support carrier specific bands
Lol I thought it did not exist anymore, like in Canada (where I am)
It’s essentially a payment plan here in the US. Switch to a new carrier, get an iPhone for free as long as you stay subscribed to their most expensive tier for a year. How it usually works is that the phone is sold to you on an installment plan, say $80 per month, and the “free” part of that is where they also give you an $80 bill credit each month. If you cancel early then you have to pay off the remaining balance of the phone in a lump sum.
I have not bought a phone through my carrier for probably around 10 years. I always buy something factory unlocked, often a LatAm model, and drop my SIM in. GSM was designed with that kind of freedom in mind.
It doesn’t surprise me how much hardware costs are tied to (and inflated by) subscription plans in the US, though.
As of 2017, the rules in Canada have been the following:
All new devices in Canada must be sold unlocked, and carriers must offer to unlock existing phones free-of-charge
