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Because if you don't own it nothing on it is monopoly anymore. You are allowed to use it the "intended" way.
At the same time T-Mobile just announced they're finally going out to 36 month installment agreements on phones.

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-carrier/eip-flex-36

... though curiously, out of all the carriers, T-Mobile is now the first to start charging anywhere from 0% to 24% APR on their installment plans based on creditworthiness. I assume this is a signal that the era of 0% APR installments from carriers is going to start to disappear as well.

Sprint also got sued a few times over for offering leasing for cellphones - I wonder when the first lawsuits against Apple and Klarna are going to strike as well when consumers realize what they fell for.

Not sure why people are so negative about this, macbooks only really last a few years under heavy use anyway and most small businesses would love to pay $100/employee/month to make sure they all have hardware they need rather than trying to manage depreciation accounting and cash flow.

Eg often hardware over $1000 gets depreciated over 5 years but employee laptops get replaced every 3 years so subscribing can have a huge positive effect on cashflow

>macbooks only really last a few years under heavy use anyway

What?

Small businesses won't go for this program because it isn't a true lease, it's a loan.
What happens to the whole attention economy, i.e., social media, apps, games, etc. when phones/devices become too expensive for people?
Subsidize them with phones or apps that pay them a drip of coins for their attention, maybe even a little real money.

Use camera-enabled eye tracking to say, hey, pay attention to this content, lost you there for a second, there you go, welcome back. Tap into edge LLMs to herd the user back to consuming content, since its subsidized, the budget for this goes up.

Then it is not a status symbol anymore.
For what it’s worth, it’s lease to own:

> At the end of your initial lease term, you can do one of the following:

> Upgrade and return your current device. Footnote ◊

> Leave the program and return your current device. Footnote ◊

> Buy the device outright with a one-time payment from your Klarna account.

https://www.apple.com/shop/apple-upgrade

Own nothing and be happy. Hope people don't fall for this BS. The only thing you can control is to decide where to spend your own money and time.
I use Klarna all the time but I always felt that it’s more suited for fast fashion, Shein, Aliexpress etc kind of like sites. Apple giving them a huge business here selling millions of iPhones.
Apple is introducing this now because hardware capability ceilings are being hit and component prices are preventing higher specced components from being used.

I buy a new (non apple) phone most years, but I'll probably skip the next 2 years due to flatlining of specs and increasing price.

The biggest enemy of Apple's upgrade cycle is a rugged phone case
> In order to lease an iPhone, you must select one of the following carriers (but you cannot use a prepaid carrier plan):

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I suppose I'll keep buying my phones outright... no protection money to the carrier mafia == no lease.

No thank you….
Apple = Landlord

You = Tenant

Stay poor, or just buy a basic phone, uninstall useless attention economy apps and live better.

Apple is obsessed with making sure you don't have control over anything, it's really really weird. It started with "no root access for you, only us" and now this.