[mrweasel]

I thought it was an EU regulation, but perhaps not. In Denmark you can't bind customers to a mobile contract for more than six month. You can sell them a phone and have them pay that off for 24 months, but that different, you can pay that off at anytime, for a fee.

That's also why you're not getting a new phone from your carrier every two years like most Americans seems to do.

[selectodude]

Phone subsidies have completely disappeared in the United States. Phone companies will finance your phone over 24-30 months but you can cancel the contract (and the interest free financing) at any time.

[ghaff]

It's sort of interesting that, if you had told people 5+ years ago that phone subsidies were going away, a lot of them would have predicted a lot of doom and gloom for Apple and other smartphone makers. In fact, I bet if you looked around, you could probably find articles and reports to that effect.