Indeed. I used to be on the upgrade program so I could upgrade every year, but decided to skip the 16 and keep my 15 until the 17 came out.

Even if you are upgrading every single year, it works out roughly the same to just buy every phone outright and then trade in last year's model -- you typically get ~half your purchase price back as trade-in value after a year anyway.

Hey that's not fair, there has been one actually useful "innovation" -- switching to USB-C like the rest of the world has been using for 10 years. Literally nothing has made me feel the slightest craving for a new iPhone since getting my 15 Pro Max.