Subscriptions were supposed to replace cable, then software, then heated seats, now phones. Funny how every innovation somehow ends with paying forever. If your business model needs me renting hardware I already carry everywhere, maybe the product isn’t improving fast enough to justify buying it?
You should buy it. Every time. Fuck subscriptions.
deleted by creator
Services as subscriptions: fine. They are ongoing agreements that require an unspecifiable amount of labor, it makes sense to pay as you go.
Subscription goods? Fuck that. If I am in posession of it and responsible for maintaining it in a specific state of operation and quality, I basically own it anyway.
Charging me monthly for a pocket-sized computer with the added stipulations that the seller gets to dictate what I’m allowed to do with it, probably installs spyware on it (on top of the OEM and OS spyware), and if I break it (or otherwise violate the terms of use) I have to buy it anyway and they still get to keep it? They’ve basically reinvented a mix of payphones and library PCs, but more invasive and more expensive
They’ve basically reinvented a mix of payphones and library PCs, but more invasive and more expensive
No this isn’t even the same thing. Library PC is made available to you for free (paid via taxes). Payphone was a bit a different breast, as they supposed to make phone service available at any place when before we had cellphones, although they were also available for free (you paid for making calls though).
Over here they want to remove ownership. Instead of owning a house, you rent an apartment, instead of owning a car you pay to use self driving one, instead of owning a movie or music (yes, I know) you pay for streaming service, and now you won’t even own the computer in your pocket.
Basically they want society where we don’t own anything and only pay subscription fees to live. This push toward that world is called technofeudalism. Only billionaires own things and we are just serfs at their mercy.
Lots of vpns claims are fake but whatever.
deleted by creator
With smartphones current prices and componants becoming more expensive they are realizing not a lot of people will buy a smartphone costing more than 1500 dollars. Especially when hardware is now good enough and people are starting to try to keep their phone as long as possible.
Making you rent your phone allow to hide how much it’s going to cost you and ensure them a steady cash income.
This!
Absolutely fucking not. Im not going to lease something that contains my private information ever.
I buy one smartphone per decade. Why would I want to lease it instead?
Think of the recurring opportunity for emails about price increases and downstream shareholder value!
And why burden yourself with ownership really
You will own nothing and like it
If you cannot control the software on the device — including the OS — then you never bought it. You paid for it, but you did not buy it and therefore do not own it.
I waited 8 year to get a newer phoner that was better than my previous phone in all respects at the same price. And even then it was mostly a convenience upgrade because my old phone was still working well.
Why the hell would it be worth it to lease a phone?
Never do that. You should always fully own and control your communication and computation devices. It’s a matter of privacy.
Even if you buy an iPhone outright you don’t fully control it.
That’s why I don’t buy Apple products…
Maybe we just need more affordable phones.
There were lots of affordable phones before the AI companies bought up all of the RAM and flash.
I wrote this comment on a $150 phone which for all the purposes that I use it for, performs exactly as well as an $800 iPhone.
I bought my Samsung for $240 CAD, brand new, not refurbished.
I can’t tell the difference from an expensive phone. Less camera lens? I don’t understand why other phones are $1000 to $2000. Processor speed? On a phone? I’m not running games on this thing except online chess. It plays YouTube without ads. It makes calls and sends texts.
I just don’t get it.
Past $800, you’re not getting a better processor. The base iPhone and Galaxy offer the same chip as the Pro Max and Ultra, respectively, in most generations.
You’re only getting more cameras or screen. The $2000 ones fold.
Thata why apple made their new cheap MacBook out of some phone processors but wont let us have a dual OS on the phone if we plug it into a monitor. Because its powerful enough to do that, but we wont buy both if we can.
They want a future in which only they own property, and everyone else has to rent even the freaking air.
If your current plan is to buy the latest and greatest phone today, sell it in two years, and then buy a new top of the line phone, then Apple’s new lease program looks like an attractive option. They’ve priced it such that, over the course of the lease, you end up paying about the cost of purchasing the phone minus its resale value. Leasing looks convenient because it saves you from having to find a buyer.
It also keeps phones out of the secondary market, which benefits Apple. Off lease phones are used for warranty replacements, or sold as refurbished through official storefronts instead of person to person.
Once Apple’s leasing program kills off a competing used phone market, they can also raise the cost of the lease to reflect that, which also benefits Apple over the longer term.
Apple would be stupid not to try leasing their phones.
There’s always going to be a robust used market for phones that were purchased outright, to be resold on a different cycle than every 2 years (plenty of rich people changing phones every year, and plenty of people replacing on a 3, 4, 5, or 6 year cycle). You can expect the market to basically settle on a curve where it depreciates along a predictable rate.
Leases don’t really change that, any more than leases changed the market for used cars, or even certified pre-owned by the same dealers and organized by the same manufacturers who sell new cars.
There will be times that the predefined lease terms will unexpectedly prove to be either beneficial or detrimental to the consumer. Sometimes external factors will affect the entire used market, like currency issues, or component pricing issues (imagine if RAM prices dramatically swing again for new devices in a way that affects the value of the already-sold devices out in the world), where the predefined lease prices turn into a windfall for someone. Like in 2021 or so when expiring car leases allows the lessee to buy out the car at the end of the lease for much cheaper than the car itself was worth.
It’s generally going to be a less than ideal financial decision to lease, but it also won’t collapse the used device market and it won’t be that far off the practice of selling your old phone when you buy a new one.
Yeah I generally switch every 5 years or so, and my old phone generally just rots away in a drawer. Leasing might actually make sense for use cases like mine (or not, I haven’t looked at the numbers). Might also give me less anxiety about accidentally scratching the thing.
An important thing to note here is that this isn’t anything new. This is what a significant amount of people have already been doing for years through their carrier. I don’t have any statistics on hand for this, but I personally don’t know a single person who has bought their phone outright. Everyone just leases their phone through their carrier around here, and upgrades as soon as they’re allowed. Hearing people complain about their cellphone plan cost increasing or poor cell service but being unable to switch carriers until their phone is paid off is a common thing to hear, as carriers have been using their phone leasing programs as a substitute for plan contracts for awhile now.
Leasing your phone through your carrier with the ability to buy or turn it in at the end of the term has been the name of the game for a very long time. What Apple and Samsung are doing is just trying to entice you into going direct through them instead of your carrier which is actually a good thing.
If you’ve been buying your phone outright then you shouldn’t use a program like this, but if you’ve been leasing your phone through your carrier I’d actually recommend switching to just doing the same thing directly through the manufacturer since it frees you up to switch carriers whenever you want.
I should have kept reading before posting. You basically said the same thing I did only better. 😂
All companies see there are more profits to be made if you let consumers pay your company monthly instead of once, while you do not let them own anything. It is disgusting.
Did you pay your rent yesterday?
Yeah, because these companies buy up all houses while there’s a housing shortage, so I can’t afford buying one myself as the market is fucked. So I’m forced into subscription.
I will go without. I will drag a PC and a mobile router everywhere I go before I rent a phone. Can these asshole corporate bullshitters just go to mars already so we can be free of them?
