Subsidization and Saturation - stratēchery by Ben Thompson

Ben Thompson reacts to AT&T CEO’s remarks about subsidies for smartphones. He covers a number of good points, including both the duplicitous nature of the original comments and some of their accuracy. One thing he doesn’t mention, however, is Apple’s unique advantage in usage. As carriers stop subsidizing the phone for simple access, there might still be a virtue in incentivizing heightened usage. More usage means bigger data plans and more demand for carrier services and whenever usage is measured, the iPhone has had a distinct advantage.