Actually it's more-or-less fair... [LWN.net]

Actually it's more-or-less fair...

Posted Aug 25, 2010 6:50 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Nothing actually changed... by rsidd
Parent article: The dirty little secret about Google Android (ZDNet)

Someone posted above that T-Mobile gives you a discount of $10, which works out to $240 in two years: that's not a huge incentive to buy a $400 phone outright.

Why should carriers offer any incentive for the buyers to avoid carrier's lockdown? That's just stupid. $240 is close to what AT&T pays Apple when someone buys subsidized phone so it's fair offer. That the people prefer "here and now" is well-known fact, but it does not make offer unfair. If people valued freedom the'd chosen this option every time, but alas, they don't. What else is new?

Actually it's more-or-less fair...

Posted Aug 27, 2010 7:25 UTC (Fri) by efexis (guest, #26355) [Link]

"If people valued freedom the'd chosen this option every time"

Reality's not really that black and white though is it? And 'value' isn't binary, so it's not a case of either valuing freedom or not, it's a case of whether they value freedom more or less than they value having the phone now while paying less now. From what I gather about America, 'credit' is the usual way, where 'save up first' is not, and so getting a phone on credit (ie, subsidised) just fits the culture. Finding the money to hand over in one go straight away may be more difficult, but for people who are already on a price plan, "upgrading" appears to be free. It's not, of course, but it is in terms of the budget they're used to spending.

Plus, the majority of people just don't understand these issues enough to really appreciate them, even if their financies do allow them the choice. Now you may argue "if they really appreciated their freedom, they would learn this stuff" and in some cases you of course would be right, and in some other cases, there may be perfectly valid reasons why it doesn't happen. Either way, if people felt their freedoms were being challenged, I'm sure you'd see them acting in a different way, but if you only ever walk a mile away from your home, the existence of a fence two miles out from your home doesn't stop you doing what you do, so it doesn't feel like freedom infringement. In other words, they might not be as free as you'd like them to be, but they're as free as they want to be, and they are free to want to be less free! *lol*

Anyway, I'm sure if you value truth over message you understand what I'm saying ;-)