Comment Re:A naive question (Score 1) 306
Actually, the carriers aren't particularly happy about this. Being in the hardware business is a very expensive pain in the neck for carriers. Verizon, for example, essentially provides free tech support and replaces phones for free in their stores while the phone is in warranty. Verizon would love to have a way of getting away from this and telling people "Go buy a phone somewhere else and call us for service".
The problem is that the American public now expects not to pay for a phone, which means the companies don't have much of an option. If anything, VZW is moving away from this since their LTE deployment will be fully standards compliant (at least as of right now). What their future pricing structure will be, though, is hard to say.