Will more people eventually start buying the $1000+ iPhone models over time?

[metllicamilitia]

I don’t see any downside to making monthly payments on devices nor look down on those that do. But if carriers start charging interest on monthly payments and people sign up, that’s when I will judge people.

There is a downside for someone like me since carriers carrier lock financed devices which means I have no choice but to carry around two devices.

In regards to the thread, I think it's inevitable that people will pay for $1,000+ devices. However, I see some push back at this time that could temporarily lower the costs.

 

[anon(50597)]

I've never understood this. It's like some people are under the belief that if you don't have $1200 to drop on a phone so you decide to spend $50/month instead, you can't afford it? Financing is a thing is a variety of industries whether it's cars, furniture, homes, etc. Financing something doesn't mean you can't afford it, imo. Maybe you can't afford the up front cost and so financing makes it affordable for one's budget.

Financing a car or a house is one thing, financing a phone is another. As I understand credit (financing), and yes I am “old school”, means you do not currently have the money for something now but want it now do you pay it off in smaller payments but end up paying a lot more for it. If credit was no big deal there wouldn’t be so many people buried under credit card bills they can never pay back.

In the case of Apple and the iPhone, again as I understand it, there are no finance charges so this is a completely different subject. I am not sure what ATT or Verizon do. Perhaps someone can let us know.

 

[anon(50597)]

Well said, and a great point. Saying you can’t afford a phone because you used a payment plan is ridiculous. Those same people must have paid cash for their homes and cars then, right? I could have dropped the cash for my XS Max but I went through iPhone Upgrade Program. Why?

- There’s no interest and no fees.
- I’m removing the risk that I’ll take a loss if I paid cash and upgrade in a year and need to sell it.
- I buy AppleCare+ and it’s built into my iPhone Upgrade Program payment. If I upgrade in a year I’ve essentially gotten my AppleCare+ coverage half off (as I will have only made half of the payments at that point).

Makes perfect sense to me!

Again, completely different scenario with Apple. There are no finance charges.

You can not compare the price of a house or car to a phone. Let’s not be silly.

 

[anon(50597)]

Bingo!!!

Let me ask this.

When "you" bought your car, did you write a check for it? When "you" bought your home, did you pay cash?

No?

Then you shouldn't have bought it as you obviously can't afford it.


That's the attitude of some people.

Car = $30,000
Phone = $1000

 

[anon(50597)]

I don’t see any downside to making monthly payments on devices nor look down on those that do. But if carriers start charging interest on monthly payments and people sign up, that’s when I will judge people.

Thank you for understanding my comment.

 

[Rob Phillips]

Again, completely different scenario with Apple. There are no finance charges.

You can not compare the price of a house or car to a phone. Let’s not be silly.

Not completely different. This debate has nothing to do with interest. Some people think that putting a phone on an installment plan means you can’t afford it and shouldn’t buy it. These are likely the same people that utilized carrier subsidies to purchase phones in the past and allowed the carriers to hide the cost in the rates they were charging for wireless service (Let’s face it, the carriers were getting their money back one way or another).
Yes, I was being slightly facetious when I compared buying an iPhone to a house or car. I was merely trying to prove a point that just because you can’t or don’t want to pay cash for something doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t afford it. I believe in financing, even as a person who is quite financially conservative.

 

[anon(50597)]

Not completely different. This debate has nothing to do with interest. Some people think that putting a phone on an installment plan means you can’t afford it and shouldn’t buy it. These are likely the same people that utilized carrier subsidies to purchase phones in the past and allowed the carriers to hide the cost in the rates they were charging for wireless service (Let’s face it, the carriers were getting their money back one way or another).
Yes, I was being slightly facetious when I compared buying an iPhone to a house or car. I was merely trying to prove a point that just because you can’t or don’t want to pay cash for something doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t afford it. I believe in financing, even as a person who is quite financially conservative.

Thank you for the explanation.
I, of course, have no issue with buying a phone using payments vs. cash. There is no difference. Financing a phone is another thing.

I apologize if I was not clear.

 

[Rob Phillips]

Thank you for the explanation.
I, of course, have no issue with buying a phone using payments vs. cash. There is no difference. Financing a phone is another thing.

I apologize if I was not clear.

Agreed. I would never pay finance charges for a phone. There’s definitely a line crossed. We need a place to live and a car to get around (usually). We DO NOT need $1,000+ iPhones.

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

There is a downside for someone like me since carriers carrier lock financed devices which means I have no choice but to carry around two devices.

Except Verizon at least.

 

[Rob Phillips]

Except Verizon at least.

I thought Verizon recently changed and started carrier locking. No?

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

I thought Verizon recently changed and started carrier locking. No?

That's what I thought but apparently the phones are still unlocked no matter what.

 

[Just_Me_D]

I've never understood this. It's like some people are under the belief that if you don't have $1200 to drop on a phone so you decide to spend $50/month instead, you can't afford it? Financing is a thing is a variety of industries whether it's cars, furniture, homes, etc. Financing something doesn't mean you can't afford it, imo. Maybe you can't afford the up front cost and so financing makes it affordable for one's budget.

Yep. The financing makes it affordable.

 

[Mr Segundus]

I hope there are no concessions. I hope the market realizes that these prices are a little too high and it forces prices to drop. I shouldn't be able to spend as much on a mobile device as I do for a laptop. That's kind of wild, imo. And I'm not sure people, in general, are prepared to do that.

Especially when you consider the fact that our phones aren't doing THAT much more than they were a few years ago. I can honestly say that my day to day use hasn't changed with the higher priced phones that we see today. So it's tough to justify. Sales on the higher end XS and XS Plus models appear to be lower than anticipated. Apple is running more aggressive ads for trade-in's on their equipment to motivate purchases. I honestly think people will avoid shelling out this kind of money in the future if the device manufacturers aren't making compelling products to justify these costs. And imo...they aren't. This is the first year in 10 years that I haven't upgraded annually to any device. The first year in 8 years that I haven't upgraded to a new iPhone.

I agree with this. Plus, if you want the 44 mm Apple Watch with cellular, you have to spend an extra $575 (after taxes). So, if you get the 512GB iPhone XS Max and an AWS4 with cellular, you’re paying $2100. As Flossy Carter says, “that price is too goddamn high. I ain’t feeling that.”

 

[Quis89]

Financing a car or a house is one thing, financing a phone is another. As I understand credit (financing), and yes I am “old school”, means you do not currently have the money for something now but want it now do you pay it off in smaller payments but end up paying a lot more for it. If credit was no big deal there wouldn’t be so many people buried under credit card bills they can never pay back.

In the case of Apple and the iPhone, again as I understand it, there are no finance charges so this is a completely different subject. I am not sure what ATT or Verizon do. Perhaps someone can let us know.

I pay installments towards my device through Verizon and there are no finance charges.

Personally, I don't judge people for making purchases in ways that are affordable to their situation. There is a way to finance responsibly. It's up to the individual to determine if it's a responsible purchase or not. But simply financing a phone (whether there are interest charges or not), in my opinion, isn't enough to judge a person on. Not everyone has $1000+ disposable income to drop on a device but they are able to budget a monthly payment into their expenses.

Sure....maybe they should save then purchase but who am I to judge. We all like our nice things.

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

Sure....maybe they should save then purchase but who am I to judge.

Obviously not me because I have no problem saying that someone is a moron if you pay installments on a phone with interest. If you don't have disposable income to drop $1,000+ on a device, that's one thing and completely understood. It's another to just pay more for that device over time especially when you already proved that you don't have the disposable income. Again, this opinion of mine is based on something completely hypothetical but also something that I feel is coming in the future. These corporations know that people who can't afford something just can't help themselves but to buy crap on interest. It is coming, no question about it.

 

[Quis89]

Obviously not me because I have no problem saying that someone is a moron if you pay installments on a phone with interest. If you don't have disposable income to drop $1,000+ on a device, that's one thing and completely understood. It's another to just pay more for that device over time especially when you already proved that you don't have the disposable income. Again, this opinion of mine is based on something completely hypothetical but also something that I feel is coming in the future. These corporations know that people who can't afford something just can't help themselves but to buy crap on interest. It is coming, no question about it.

Elaborate on this then. What is the issue if one pays interest on a phone? People pay interest on furniture purchases, cars, homes and a variety of other things. Explain why one is a "moron" for paying interest on a purchase over $1000?

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

Elaborate on this then. What is the issue if one pays interest on a phone? People pay interest on furniture purchases, cars, homes and a variety of other things. Explain why one is a "moron" for paying interest on a purchase over $1000?

Because furniture and homes are actual necessities. Why would one "need" a $1,000+ iPhone with other cheaper options out there?

You're looking at it as a simple "purchase" while others feel that it's a "need". You pay interest on a high-end phone, you most likely don't need it. It's pretty simple.

 

[Quis89]

Because furniture and homes are actual necessities. Why would one "need" a $1,000+ iPhone with other cheaper options out there?

You're looking at it as a simple "purchase" while others feel that it's a "need". You pay interest on a high-end phone, you most likely don't need it. It's pretty simple.

Furniture isn't a necessity. It just makes life easier and more comfy. And even if you wanted to pretend it was, nobody "needs" furniture that costs over $1000. Walmart has couches for $200. You can get a decent used car for a couple grand rather than financing cars that are over $15/30/50/70k. The financing of a home, I'll give you. The only real alternative there would be renting (but there isn't any interest with a rental lol). People finance vacations, and jewelry (this is actually a pretty popular one lol).

I guess I just don't see the correlation between one financing something they don't need and being a moron for doing so. Sure, they may pay more by way of interest in the long run but if they can afford to do so, eh.

Honestly...by that metric we are all morons for even spending the money we spend on an iPhone whether financed or not lol. If our measurement is wasteful spending on items we don't need, it seems pretty wild that most of us have spent close to if not over $1000 on these new shiny iPhones we love.

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

Furniture isn't a necessity. It just makes life easier and more comfy. And even if you wanted to pretend it was, nobody "needs" furniture that costs over $1000. Walmart has couches for $200.

I'll give you that. I've never paid a dollar of interest on a piece of furniture though.

I guess I just don't see the correlation between one financing something they don't need and being a moron for doing so.

Then that's your issue.

Honestly...by that metric we are all morons for even spending the money we spend on an iPhone whether financed or not lol.

Perhaps. But I wouldn't be stupid enough to pay interest on a phone. That's where the difference lies.

Again, this is all hypothetical. I have no issue with just paying off a phone over time for the same amount it is advertised at without paying extra. Once we go the route of paying 8% interest on an iPhone, I will lay into anyone who does it. If you do that, you simply can't afford it no matter how you try to justify it. There is a societal problem where people can't just say, "I can't afford it." There is no shame in saying that.

 

[Quis89]

I'll give you that. I've never paid a dollar of interest on a piece of furniture though.




Then that's your issue.




Perhaps. But I wouldn't be stupid enough to pay interest on a phone. That's where the difference lies.

Again, this is all hypothetical. I have no issue with just paying off a phone over time for the same amount it is advertised at without paying extra. Once we go the route of paying 8% interest on an iPhone, I will lay into anyone who does it. If you do that, you simply can't afford it no matter how you try to justify it. There is a societal problem where people can't just say, "I can't afford it." There is no shame in saying that.

Well hey...your opinion is your opinion. Agree to disagree. I just don't believe one "can't afford" an item just because they finance it. Again...by these definitions we can't afford the homes we live in or the cars we drive. The ability to afford an item and it's level of necessity have zero relation to each other so I'm confused as to why you guys keep saying, "They are different because we need these items". Simply financing something doesn't mean you can't afford that item.

What it could mean (and what I believe it to mean more often than not) is you can't afford to pay it off RIGHT NOW but you can afford the monthly payment.

I have absolutely no shame in saying that I can't afford to buy the iPhone XS Max 512 GB outright at around $1700 at this moment. But I could easily afford paying $70 a month for it. Factoring interest (if applicable) doesn't change my ability to afford it monthly. It just increases the amount I'll be paying over time.

I'm only saying this because IF all carriers switching to financing with interest tomorrow...I'll probably be one of those folks doing it and I imagine in time so will many of you lol. I'm not even going to pretend otherwise. If it's the only option, and I need a new phone, I guess that's what I'll be doing. I have a family of 5 smartphones. The alternative is do without, buy outright for 5 phones or finance with interest? As long as the interest isn't outrageous, I'll probably be one of those "suckers" you all talk about lol.