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With cell contracts and subsidies, you're paid 400 dollars over 2 years essentially to sign a contract. You could go the prepaid route and see significant monthly savings but then you're paying full price for the handset. Seeing as prepaid is such a small fraction of the market in America, why would someone not upgrade? They're not getting the 400 dollars back into their pocket if they don't.
In summary, it would be pretty dumb to not upgrade. At the very least, take the 650$ phone for 200 bucks and sell it for 500 and pocket the money. It's essentially wasting money and padding the lines of wallet. American carriers don't do reverse subsidization now that TMobile got rid of it.
You're passing judgement. I have no idea if that's true or not about the computers. Don't care. Suburban schools will have iPads. Soon. This is what curriculum will be taught on. The paper book is a thing of the past. There isn't a better device for a toddler than an iPad. What parent would rather have their child corrupting their brain watching cable television when they could be playing fun education oriented games?? Interactive learning is the next big thing.