The New York Times ran an arti­cle today about “Get­ting Out of a 2-Year Cell­phone Con­tract Alive.” Why did they bother writ­ing it? Every­one knows that the 2-year cell­phone con­tract only saves you money if you plan to take good care of the same phone for… 2 years. Peo­ple who drop their phones reg­u­larly, who or need to buy the lat­est hand­set all the time, ought to be smart enough to avoid 2-year con­tracts. Evi­dently that is not the case.

Some­times I won­der how it would affect their busi­ness if cell­phone providers were required to adver­tise the final, total cost of a phone sold with a con­tract. For exam­ple, that “$50 phone” (with 2-year agree­ment) would instead be adver­tised at a price of $1,130 (with a con­ve­nient 24-month pay­ment plan).