Devil’s advocate - why? Banks can take your home if you don’t make mortgage payments. With this technology, there might actually be more access to devices because lenders have recourse, reducing the risk overall.
If this is okay, then what's to stop the same logic being applied to other communication-assisting devices (e.g. those speaking boards)? Wheelchairs? Prosthetics? Where does it stop? Because believe me, they will keep pushing, if it makes them money; companies with shareholders are legally obliged to.
My grandparents had a phone which only allowed incoming calls (which my older cousins did a type of phone phreaking on to call out, or at least pretended to!)
That doesn't necessarily mean it's a trivial purchase—far too much of the country (never mind the world) lives in poverty—but it's not something anyone in the US would pay in installments.
The government can give phones away if they want to (and they do), no need to ban other arrangements.
No cost benefit analysis neede? By this logic we would still have endentured servitude and child labour, after all they are just "other arrangements"
A smartphone is required for thousands of essential services, up to the point where EU citizens need one to claim their right to reside in UK after brexit.
I needed it to open a bank account.
During covid you have to leave details in every restaraunt using a smartphone for contact tracing.
Can we please stop with this meme? No, they are not "legally responsible" to keep pushing. Saying this removes the moral responsibility from the people making these terrible decisions.
The system is broken; our job is to work around it, establish a de-facto “shadow system” and then (if necessary) usurp the original system.
There is no such thing. The reality is that companies that don't profit maximize are replaced by companies that do profit maximize. The effect does not have to be formalized in law.
The high level argument I'm making is that there are few benefits and more drawbacks to this.
What's the happiest possible success story we can tell here? Someone without a phone, uses loans they can only get with this invention. They use the phone to access social networks and build friendships, access government services, apply for jobs, turn their life around.
How likely is this story? Not likely. Getting a shitty phone is cheap, and this loan wont be needed.
So what is a likelier way this will be used? Someone is unhappy with their current phone and wants an upgrade. Having a history of financial irresponsibility, it would be hard for them to get a loan, but now with this tech they can. They get their new phone and show it off to their friends a few months earlier than they otherwise could, and reduce their consumption in other areas to afford their payments. In a significant minority of cases they fail to pay on time and their phone is looked, leading to significant distress.
In addition, it makes other things possible down the line. I believe some states suspend drivers licenses if you fail to make alimony payments. With this technology such a policy could be extended to the phone. In less democratic countries it could be used to disable phones of activists.
A rhetorical question: Is a country with legal indentured servitude freer than one without?
The business model is purely built around customers who can't pay the phone off and that you must lock the phone to get it back. The end result is that a lot people who shouldn't have gotten a financed phone in the first place will get their phones locked instead of simply getting a cheaper phone.
Making financing more accessible to risky customers means more repossession. The repossession rate is simply a matter of company policy and not a matter of personal responsibility.
The economic downsides of people having their phones locked will far exceed the benefits of being able to buy a slightly better phone.
The owner just doesn't show up on the 4th of the month and change the locks and take away your fridge and microwave...
If your argument is attempting some other point, you might consider restating it more clearly, as I'm utterly failing to find anything but an implicit justification of Google's practice here.