I personally agree with you. Except for the singular case of unlimited international roaming data, Verizon has always grandfathered people, letting natural attrition take care of the rest. After all these years, there are still people who are grandfathered into America's Choice, even though Verizon did away with it so people couldn't use MOU for data and have to pay per MB. Very, very few people would be willing, let alone afford to pay a 150-200 percent markup on a handset.
Using myself and my five lines as an example, upgrading all 5 lines at full retail every 2 years will cost me about $2000 more (or $1000 a year) versus using subsidized upgrades. With our data usage, and the fact that I am getting the $20 per line Talk Text and Data discount, I am saving about $100 a month (or $2400 over a 2 year contract period) versus switching to Share Everything. That makes up the difference between subsidized and full retail right there. And of course, there is no law saying that I have to replace my handset every two years. For every month that I put off getting a new handset, that just increases the savings. While we still got subsidized upgrades, it made sense to take advantage of subsidized upgrades whenever possible since we had no plans on leaving Verizon anyways. Now that there is no incentive for replacing a phone, other than the desire to get the latest and greatest, I can put off getting a new handset unless either our handsets die, the technology becomes obsolete, or there is a handset that comes out that we "have to have". And the longer we wait, the greater the savings (ignoring the peace of not worrying about overages).
