[ukoki]

You know people can finance just about any purchase right?

People buy cars on finance all the time without needing to buy their cars through BP and signing an exlusive gas purchasing agreement with them. There's no reason for the phone to be tied to the carrier.

[Ekaros]

Finland the operators sell phones, either fully up front or with even 0% financing. Then contract is entirely separate deal, it might have or not have commitment.

Might miss some "discounts", but it really is entirely workable and reasonable model.

[bitfilped]

Poor people offen do not have access to credit lines, it's much easier and beneficial to just have cheap products available for those that need them. There's no reason phones should cost $1000 or more anyway, they aren't worth that much.

[zrobotics]

Yes, but 1000 phones aren't normally in the cards for poor people unless they're financing via carrier or using a tax refund. Before switching into software, I spent most of my mid-late 20s under the poverty line, I never had a high-end phone. But cheap android phones are readily available, here's one [0] for $100 USD that honestly looks like an absolutely fine phone.

IME people who are poor enough to not be able to get a contract with a carrier buy a phone at Walmart and then do prepaid carriers. This has the 'fun' side effect that they get a new number whenever they have to switch phone plans. These switches aren't deliberate, they just run out of money to keep up the old prepaid line, go a week or 3 without a phone, then sign up again. Porting the old number is too much work/time, so they just end up with a new phone number. Its just one of the shitty things about poverty.

[0] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/motorola-moto-g-play-2023-32gb-...