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.