Green Gecko wrote:I respect that, however your usage needs a really really high and you want the latest and greatest phone - all I'm saying is it's simply not a typical case scenario. So you are arguing to one extreme, in which case yes you may be correct. However, I am saying generally from the point of view of value one is not getting that unless your needs are at the top-end - which for most people, they are not needs in my opinion. I can say that dude. I don't think anyone could argue the most expensive handsets and contracts represent good value for the average user; the point of these contracts and extremely expensive handsets is to extract as much money as possible from a value judgement that is inherently off-kilter in order to acquire the highest luxury at the lowest upfront cost i.e. dangling the proverbial carrot.
How many people actually exhaust their allowances? When for example I look at my real usage in the past it is always drastically lower than what you are sold on, and providers know this - this is also an example of FOMO economics; "I need this high/unlimited allowance because I might need it, every single day". This is part of what Ad was complaining about; the race upwards in terms of cost/luxury for the same functional device. The credit extended to the customer is comparable to another form of credit such as a credit card (but with a higher % interest) in exchange for a level of service that costs almost nothing to operate.
Of course I'm not going to be sympathetic to looking at only the best handsets if I consider the high end of that market, and what I consider most usage to be extreme, beyond most reasonable humanitarian needs. If people want the best for the least that is understandable from one perspective of luxury only but imo it is not good value to go down this route, that is understanding my means are very low so of course I will hold a different perspective. This is the general customer journey upwards from weening onto mobile phones by the selling of cheap handsets with PAYG SIMs. Why do people really "upgrade" in the first place, is it based on need or desire? For upper end offerings to offer bad value is a fundamental reason for their existence which is vast profit, and there are few greater examples of planned obsolescence built on top of that to make the profits even more insane.
It isn't atypical to look at those low-end handsets and lower service offerings and basically disregard them because they are poorer.. that's a bit crass honestly, as that's what the market wants you to think. For most intents and purposes those offerings are perfectly fine which is where the monthly SIM / phone purchasing strategy comes from when detached from the want of the best for some reason one can personally justify.
I also think smartphone usage and fashion driven gadget acquisition is a cause for low quality of life so I also factor that into what people are getting for their money; essentially an endless dependence on credit in order to have the most luxurious electrical device in the world and constant access to stream of largely pointless information (data addiction) geared around selling them more things they most probably don't need. See app store and free to play expenditure, and the size of mobile advertising market and vast, utterly vast data collection on all of that. All of this to me makes a top end phone a poor value proposition and so looking at those top end phones/contracts a moot option.
I also find the fetishism around getting the most expensive phone and the biggest numbers on x contract a bit well, boring. There is of course the option of simply spending and using this thing less, but that would be heresy.
I realise this post sounds a lot like "Damn you for liking this thing!!" but I don't mean it that way, just offering an alternative perspective on why the best phone (or other) for the best price isn't always, well, what it sounds like when put that simply. My perspective is more the best value possible to each individual's need, and my criticism comes from the need part looping back into the value assessment.
I appreciate what you are saying, value ultimately is a concept that is hard to pin down - what constitutes good value will vary greatly depending on subject, context, and what aspects you are trying to optimise on. I'm not in any way advocating spending more than necessary
just because, ask anyone who knows me and they will say that I'm as tight-fisted as they come and my wallet is home to many a moth. I drive a 20 year old VW Polo because I see absolutely no reason to spend more money than necessary - it has 5 doors, 4 wheels, has a radio and gets me from A to B as well as something that costs 100 times more, why spend more than I have to!
Do most people
need the latest handset? Depends on what their use cases are but for the most part almost certainly not. They need a handset that is good enough, and what satisfies that will vary on a per user basis - a more value handset will probably do for the majority.
But there are plenty of considerations - cheaper handsets effectively limits you to Android, I'm an Android user myself and think it is great, but for a former Apple user there is a large cost associated with switching from one ecosystem to another. This cost will come in many forms including in terms of education, learning how to use Android, but also financial - they may have a large library of apps they have invested in that they would need to replace after moving across, then there are accessories to consider as well - another cost that must be taken into account. Lower end handsets are also less likely to have a long life in terms of their upgrade path on Android, an annoyance if you wanted the newer features or if apps stop supporting your device, but a much bigger problem if being left behind opens you up to security risks. Getting a cheaper handset and holding onto it for longer will absolutely save you money, but if it comes at the cost of an increased security risk then I would argue that that is a poor value offering when looked at holistically.
Do most people
need a large data allowance? Again, needs will vary but general smartphone usage is eating more data than it used to so where the average user would get by with <1GB I would wager that most people do need a
reasonable amount of data in this day and age.
Continuing with the more holistic analysis of the situation there is also the factor of the users general happiness. Having a cheap phone that gives you a poor experience is going to make some people frustrated and generally less happy, yes there's an argument that they should just get over it and some people will have the opposite response - saving money will make them feel more happy, but these more human factors shouldn't just be dismissed and do make up a part of the value proposition.
As I say ultimately it will depend on an individuals needs,
genuine needs, believe it or not there are people out there who do need a reasonably high end phone and a lot of data, these folks do exist! Telling someone with those needs that they could save loads of money with a burner phone and a cheap SIM is like walking in to Eddie Stobart's HQ and telling him that he'd be much better off just buying a fleet of Smart cars to run his haulage business!