Comment by necovek
7 hours ago
Are you sure it is your whole country or it's you?
I mostly buy my phones outright too, but I am under no impression that everybody else does it as well.
7 hours ago
Are you sure it is your whole country or it's you?
I mostly buy my phones outright too, but I am under no impression that everybody else does it as well.
I've only seen the carrier locked phones and long-term contracts in a handful of countries. I've lived in a lot of countries on three continents.
In many places the default is prepaid SIMs with separately purchased phones. Sometimes the prepaying can be automated (e.g. in Russia), sometimes it involves you physically going to a shop once a month or so (e.g. in Egypt).
In my country, for example, buying phones from carriers as part of your plan just isn't a thing. As in, you couldn't do it even if you wanted to. Same for postpaid plans and contracts.
As a result, quite a lot of people use the "I can't believe they could make and sell an entire phone at this price" Xiaomi and similar phones.
The planet is full of such countries, it isn't only me.