Comment Re:Phone subsidies hurt many things (Score 1) 789
Well, often the phone is sold by a cell phone store, so this is not always true. But my impression is they don't turn that much of a profit on the phones -- I mean technically they sell them below cost.
However, there is clearly a number where the carrier makes the same amount of money by giving you a discount for your 2 year, no-subsidized-phone contract as subsidizing your phone for the contract. Perhaps it's not a discount of $200, perhaps it is less. Whatever it is, that would be good.
But of course it also gives the carrier control. And it makes the handset vendors beholden to the carriers because you can't sell a handset if the carrier won't put it on the subsidy list, so you take out features etc.
The iPhone turned that around a bit, with Apple dictating some things to AT&T, but caving in on others as well.