I recently made a trip to the Verizon store that really gave me an in depth look at how the recent "no contracts" and "6 month upgrades" business model changes are influencing the access and affordability to smartphones. Basically with the trend started by T-mobile, here in the US, all of the other major carriers (AT&T and Verizon) have adopted similar "leasing" business models to entice and facilitate more people to get more smartphones and continue upgrading their smartphones at incredibly high rates (up to 2 upgrades per year as opposed to the traditional new phones every 2 years). Before upgrading that often was a luxury and quiet costly, and now with these new leasing-like business models it's not so costly and much easier. This makes things ever more interesting since with each new phone there is heighten improvements in functionalities and tools, but also the smartphone market is becoming more diverse and less Apple dominated, though iPhones do continue to maintain a huge market share.
The bigger question that this recent visit has made me think about is how is this going to impact mobility, economic and health access in cities.
The bigger question that this recent visit has made me think about is how is this going to impact mobility, economic and health access in cities.
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