Cost of contract
I think if people bought phones they could afford and not get caught in these long term contracts, alot of the problems with these companies would go away. Bad service ,complain, well if you don't like us, pay the ETF, which you can't ,otherwise you wouldn't have signed the long term contract. I'd go so far as to say the price of the ridiculously high profit margin phones would drop. As Jobs said about his products" I want 100% profit on each item sold and the seller tacks his profit on. So roughly a 600$ phone could be had for a lot less. But the customers have to force the issue, and signing 3 yr contracts, is not going to do it. If people just paid for monthly billing and did this for one year maybe even 6 months, the customer would have the power of bargaining back. The Telcos want long term contract. If people paid what the telcos demanded on a high priced phone without signing a 3 yr contact, they would just raise the price until the consumer couldn't pay without a long term contract. These companies are beholding to shareholders and they would like long term projections for profits.
