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Sounds like a direct attack against 'T-Mobile's bring your unlocked iPhone over' strategy?
 
Little brother

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of corporations and to the share holders for which they stand, one bank, under money, indivisible, with liberty and justice for none.

Technology is empowering us to be un-powerful.
 
Try to stop progress. Put up as many laws as you like. It won't help. But this just goes to show how broken and corporately-currupt our government is.
 
Yes, we are going back, one step at a time.

Whats the next step? We want to contractually tie the car manufacturers to gas station brands, i.e., you can get a subsidized Toyota if you sign a 5-year contract with Shell. If you have a Toyota and buy gas from Chevron, you will be arrested.


That wouldn't surprise me one bit. Those in power, in fact the small minority of of those in power, want to bring us back to the days of feudalism and serfdom. They pretty much want to take ownership of human beings like we had it 150 years ago.

Watch the late-1980's movie Robocop to see what happens when a corporation owns the city of Detroit. The sad part is that it's not too far from where we are in the modern day.
 
I am 74 years old and can remember when our beautiful country was free.

The corporations have taken over and now we live in a Fascist country. You younger ones do not know what you are missing in quality of life. Freedom was very very good. Video cameras everywhere, Homeland security agency, torture of prisoners, largest prison population by several times in the world, etc.

Corporations take over because government has the power to pick winners and losers via lobbying. Gotta cut the head of the snake and eliminate government's power to do such stupid things. I wish I could have seen America in its free days like you did...I can't understand our stupid, paranoid, expensive, and overbearing government...and I mostly can't understand why people keep voting for it.
 
It's called economies of scale and purchasing power. A consumer is not buying iPhones by the millions. It's more expensive to buy one can of soda than to buy a 12 pack.

I know what it is called, it can also be called collusion when those economies of scale are not transparent, one sided favorable and or not available to all interested parties. When a situation and law only benefits the selling company and not the buying public, or is discrimenatory there is something wrong. Buying in bulk at a discount is fine, selling at a subsidized price with a contract is fine, but when my contract is up, I should have the right to own my phone and use it with any carrier I want.

If you are happy buying a new phone at a "discounted" price and NEVER being able to EVER use that phone on any carrier you want after you meet your contract obligations, good for you. Me, I want to buy that "12 pack" of soda and drink it anywhere I want once my payment is made in full, not be told I can only drink it at the store I bought it because it was sold to me cheaper than a single can, regardless if I paid for it in full or not.

(I know, analogy fail, but you get my point)
 
Corporations take over because government has the power to pick winners and losers via lobbying. Gotta cut the head of the snake and eliminate government's power to do such stupid things. I wish I could have seen America in its free days like you did...I can't understand our stupid, paranoid, expensive, and overbearing government...and I mostly can't understand why people keep voting for it.



You kinda have it right.

It's these corporate cronies who lobby their friends in Washington with money so the politicians do their very will, both Republicans and Democrats.

What we need is to get big money out of politics and publicly finance elections. On top of that, we need to get rid of the two party system and institute proportional representation.
 
1984 returns...

The U.S. market for cell phone service is such a joke. And a bad one at that.
 
umm this is stupid.

So unlocking phones will be illegal starting Saturday...

and Saturday afternoon, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint will all change their policies so they either ban or charge outrageous unlocking fees!
 
Ok, then you only have yourselves to blame! You enable them to screw you over because you take it.



What I mean is that it's nearly impossible to stop buying smartphones and cancel service in the age we live in. Seriously, what modern-day person lives without a smartphone with an internet connection in the 21st century?

The better solution is for there to be real competition among these telecoms by breaking them up and forcing them to compete with one another along with new companies who want to get into the game.

Seriously, there are only four major providers here in the USA and three of them pretty much call all the shots. There are dozens of providers throughout Europe and each offers much better service than we get at half the price we pay. Why is that? Because they all compete with each other for customers.
 
Why doesn't the government take away our first right. Almost every other freedom has been taken away as of today's date.

You're just wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.

Almost every other freedom has been taken away? Name them.

----------

Seriously, what modern-day person lives without a smartphone with an internet connection in the 21st century?

Most people don't have smartphones with internet connections.
 
So if I purchase a house, the architect who designed the house could prevent me from hanging a picture on the wall. Or if I buy a car, the automaker could prevent me from using other than the listed recommended octane based on your analogy. By the way, the mobile providers do not "own" the intellectual rights to the phone.

If those things are licensed to you yes.
 
What I mean is that it's nearly impossible to stop buying smartphones and cancel service in the age we live in. Seriously, what modern-day person lives without a smartphone with an internet connection in the 21st century?

The better solution is for there to be real competition among these telecoms by breaking them up and forcing them to compete with one another along with new companies who want to get into the game.

Seriously, there are only four major providers here in the USA and three of them pretty much call all the shots. There are dozens of providers throughout Europe and each offers much better service than we get at half the price we pay. Why is that? Because they all compete with each other for customers.

What a cop out. You deserve to get ripped off.
 
I am 74 years old and can remember when our beautiful country was free.

The corporations have taken over and now we live in a Fascist country. You younger ones do not know what you are missing in quality of life. Freedom was very very good. Video cameras everywhere, Homeland security agency, torture of prisoners, largest prison population by several times in the world, etc.

Ah the good old days when the negroes couldn't sit in the front of the bus or marry whites, women couldn't vote and you had to buy your telephone from your provider because it didn't work with another provider. Oops.
 
Got to love how several consortium's have maneuvered the populace and Government into allowing and even clamoring and competing for digital serfdom, Financial enslavement, and the systematic erosion of individual rights in the Good old US of A.

The phone companies have long had people shoveling piles and piles of cash upon them for next to nothing in exchange (TEXTING) A form of communication that is actually more expensive than the voice phone that preceded it, despite using far less bandwidth and resources than voice.

And of course the next logical step. Data plans. That are just as exorbitant as SMS if not more so.

All on devices we are conditioned into paying for the privilege to lease, but by nature are not allowed to own, because of the cellular Gatekeepers Monopoly on the broadcast rights.

It's all very ingenious, if it weren't so fundamentally evil, and growing more and more corrupt by the second.

The internet was "free" but like all resources someone finds a way to cap it off and charge others for the access "rights". Oh and don't forget to call it "free enterprise" so that no one will call it out as a monopoly. It reminds me of how tap water is now bottled and sold as if it were somehow processed in some special manner and purified.

At least some people can make a small menial profit on apps. But obviously the real money is restriction of the resource creating demand and then charging fees under threat of law, and a division of the spoils between the main offenders, I mean "providers".
 
That would be me.

I don't either. I remember selling phones for at&t back when they were Cingular wireless. Phones were free and the plans were 19.99 -39.99 and it was perfect. All you had was calling and great texting and some fun little snake games. Even if I could afford it, I wouldn't in good conscious let at&t screw me over with a 100+ dollar a month cell phone bill and a 600 dollar iphone. Nope. No way. Not doing it. I refuse. I'll stick with the cheapest phone and unlimited texting. I'm even considering canceling it all together because I think 20 dollars for unlimited texting is insane. People survived without cell phones and did quite well. If everyone finally gave this up for a while the prices would plunge. But, no, everyone keeps buying it and so apple and providers keep raising prices. So, you only have yourselves to blame. Go ahead, keep doing it, some day your phone bill will be more than your rent or mortgage. Hope it's worth it! By the way, the CEO's are laughing their A**es off at you while they go buy their beach front houses, gold watches, and italian cars.

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"Land of the free..." yeah right :rolleyes:

Here in Australia we can have our phone unlocked (for a fee) and move to any carrier. And we can take our existing phone number with us.
 
Well if the government is going to allow this, then perhaps the government needs to enforce the agreements that the carriers, including google, signed when buying all of the bandwidth, that they must allow inidviduals to bring there own device. Better yet, require that all phones produced be unlocked by the manufacturer and contain all LTE bands before they get into the hands of the providers.
 
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