> it's somewhat uncommon for people to actually buy their phones outright unless you make a lot of money

Or like many of us, you buy cheaper phones outright for your prepaid phone plans. The fact that people still go for contract phone services and finance a new phone every two years blows my mind. Especially when I can get all the data/minutes/texts I need for $15 a month on a service like Tello, and just get a phone for $200-400 that I can use until it dies. Which is currently a used iPhone 11 I recently opened up to replace the battery.