The simplest explaination as to why consumers historically tended to prefer buying phones on contract vs putting those same phones on a credit card is that it's often better for both the consumer and the carrier. The carrier benefits by reducing churn (it costs more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one) while keeping modern phones in the hands of their customers. The customer benefits because they get access to all the latest infrustructure. In terms of pure cost, it would cost the author about $20/mo to put his Nokia 920 on a credit card and pay it off in 2 years and only $15/mo to buy it on a 2 year contract. He mentions that T-Mobile will let him pay it off at $11/mo but at that rate it would take him 3 years so what's it worth to you to forgo a new phone for an additional year?

So why is this starting to change? Because the improvements in phones are starting to flatten out a bit. The difference between my first smart phone (Moto Droid) and my second one (HTC Rezound) was like night and day but the difference between my Rezound and a HTC One or Samsung S4/5 is not nearly as significant so stretching out the life of the phone an extra year is not nearly as big a sacrifice as it was a few years ago.

BTW his contention that the phone industry is somehow unique is false. The average American has somewhere between $7k and $16k of credit card debt so it's clear that people really ARE borrowing money to buy all sorts of regular consumer products. The reason cellular service providers are willing to loan the money to consumers for a bit less than credit card companies is because the service providers benefit from having customers with the latest gear.

That would be the smartest thing to do. Unfortunately, the competative jerks are the ones with all the guns.

Did it ever occur to you that the fact that you would exterminate all those who disagree with you is the reason those others have guns?

The good news, humanity is not long for this world, which will mean the world will soon be a better place (but alas, without us)

Better for whom?

That depends. Does your version of capitalism involve a third party threatening to put the participants in jail of they don't turn on each other?

If it isn't voluntary then it really isn't cooperation, it's force.

It doesn't even really make sense to talk about selfishness and cooperation as opposites. Cooperation is an activity while selfishness is a motivation. Most human interaction is cooperation motivated by selfishness.

Cooperation and selfishness go hand in hand. If you give the baker a dollar in exchange for a loaf of bread, each of you is being selfish in that each of you believes that he will be better off after the transaction (you're happier with the bread than your dollar and the baker is happier with your dollar than with his bread). If the baker makes thousands of dollars selling bread it is a direct result of him making thousands of people happier than they would have been without his efforts. It is that selfishness of each of the parties that drives them to cooperate. Even many activities considered "altruistic" are really based on selfishness in that helping your fellow man makes one feel good or raises one's standing in the community or helps you get into heaven. Without those selfish motivations there would be a lot less charity.

That's pretty amazing, where is this (if you're comfortable saying)?

No, but the monthly fees are ON TOP of all of the tax money that has been put into this thing. Consider that if this organiztion wants/needs to raise fees in the future the town will have to give in no matter what may be in their contract because otherwise they'll never get their $6 million back.

Let's see. This organization was able to get a sweatheart loan from the city, a grant from the province, and is able to use a government built network for their upstream. Keep in mind they've been working on this for 10 years and only have service available to 60% of the town's 8500 residents.

Go read the article. That $57/mo is only a small fraction of the total cost of the system.

They essentially did, the town "loaned" this non-profit $6 million to help with the costs and another $2.5 million was taken from the other citizens of Alberta who won't even get to use the network. They're also using a government network for their upstream so all in all the tax payer is responsible for the majority of the costs.

The lack of competition in the U.S. isn't due to startup costs, it's due to government granted monopolies. In most of the U.S. it's illegal for a second cable or phone company to come in and start laying lines even if they want to

ALL products and services are ultimately produced through labor. The "low cost" in this case is largely due to the fact that they were able to get other people to pick up much of the cost rather than paying for it themselves.

What makes you think an attack would have to involve a DDOS? There are other ways of attacking a network you know.

It's a lot more relivent than the maximum tax rate which almost nobody actually paid back when it was over 90%. Even as a percentage of GDP taxes in 2007 were about the same as in the 1970s. As I said however, the real tax is the spending and spending as a percentage of GDP hasn't been this high (over 24%) since WWII.

Trickle-down is normally associated with Regan but during his presidency spending nearly doubled.

Maybe not purely but on average, yes. Every dollar spent by the government is a dollar not available to individuals to build/buy the things they need most so unless you think that, on average, the government spends more efficiently than individuals then it's a net drag.

Just the opposite. I think the complexity is why the decision making needs to be as decentralized as much as possible rather than being left to government bureaucrats who, all too often, spend for political gain.