skullgiver , 4 hours ago

Carriers can sell phones in bulk so often they’ll be able to negotiate a discount.

With Android phones, they can also fill them to the brim with adware and branding. You can avoid that trash by not buying through your carrier, but that crap does help reduce the price of the phone.

I bought my phone with my plan, but paid off the entire thing in one payment. Saved me like 100 euros, and it didn’t even come with any carrier adware.

Some people use phone plans to buy phones they can’t afford. They’ll be unable to come up with the 1000 bucks you need for a modern flagship but still want a shiny new iPhone. That’s how you get several years of monthly payments and a locked phone.

As for zero days: I doubt carriers can move that quickly without making mistakes. Two months may be a bit long, but some margin so the customer has time to reboot when they’re able to and make the unlock stick makes a lot of sense. I don’t think I’d enjoy a random remote reboot on the day I fulfilled my payment plan, I’d rather be given a few days so it doesn’t reboot while I happen to be out of range or whatever.