I’m an iPhone 3G user nowhere near finished with his two-year contract and I’d like to pay the new customer price for the iPhone 3G S, but I can’t, and that’s fair. Here’s why:
The iPhone doesn’t cost about $300, it costs about $600. When you sign up for a two-year contract, AT&T is subsidizing the extra $300 they’re not charging you through the investment they’ve made in that two-year contract.
Why can’t they do that again for you?
They could, if they were extending your contract, not renewing it. If you’ve got 15 months to go on your contract and you’re willing to make it 24 + 15 = 39 months (3.25 years), then the additional two years will allow it all to break even. But AT&T isn’t offering that. When you renew your contract, it merely becomes two years from the date of renewal, nullifying the previous commitment.
Make sense? Arguing otherwise is literally asking AT&T to give you hundreds of dollars, and we all know that isn’t happening.