>>54309023
because that was retarded and served no good purpose for the consumer

>>54309023
I think they still do, I just saw a commercial earlier
some company giving away """2 FREE GALAXY S7s""" once you lock yourself into their overpriced service plans

>>54309041
>assuming asshole cell corporations give a shit about anything other than profit

They are chasing frantically after consumer interests because of MVNO markets (ie contractless) increasing rapidly

>>54309041
Why? You save like $500 on a phone for being locked in for two years. The new lease options are just scams.

>>54309084
ok and you havent justified why this is a bad thing or why you are complaining about not being locked to a carrier for 2 years

>>54309097
>he doesnt buy his phones unlocked separate from his service

>>54309023
Here in Germany all of them still do.

What have they been replaced with in America?

>>54309132
24 month leases/payment schedules. I'm not why anyone would lease since the payments are the same.

>>54309132
The carrier does a credit check, then you borrow against your credit. For example, you get a $600 phone but you pay $25/month for 2 years if your credit is good (at 0% interest). If your credit is bad, then the interest rate goes up and you pay more per month.

IMO it's better than overpaying for service as long as you buy a reasonably priced phone. After a year it's easy to pay off the rest of your balance.

Some people are never happy though, and they want to go back to paying $200/month for cell phone service.

>>54309170
>lease
So it's essentially the same, only you don't own the phone?

>>54309215
I've never seen it done as a "lease". The moment you get the phone, the phone is yours because you're taking out an unsecure loan. If you break the phone, you still owe whatever is left on the loan.

>>54309214
>>54309247
Ah ok, so it's basically separating the actual phone (hardware) and the service? So I don't see how it's a big deal.

Here you can get phones (w/o contract) on credit, too, but not from phone companies, but mostly from retailers. Although I think none of them do 0% interest.

Sprint has cheap service and still does the 2 year contract discounts. Why?

>>54309270
It's not cheap

>>54309023

Because cell phones are not a luxury item anymore, everybody has to have one at all times and switching carriers is such a mega pain in the ass that practically everybody just stays with the same carrier anyways.

Cable internet used to be a contract service as well.

>>54309023
Because competition. Once one company stopped doing it and got many customers, all the other companies saw they are losing customers, so they did the same and got rid of the 2 year contract shit.