> making doing so more or less “free”

except for those monthly payments you never get to stop making, yeah it's free.

Why do you think I put “free” in quotes? Realistically I was never going to keep the phone longer than the two year finance term anyway, because back when I started doing it a two-year old phone would be really starting to show its age running newer software. So I could either pay monthly and get a phone every two years, or pay monthly and get a phone every year.

Of course, these days a three or four or more year old phone is often still perfectly usable even for a tech enthusiast.