> Why on earth are we leasing phones now???

Same reason some people lease cars:

* want the New Thing regularly

* are happier with OpEx than CapEx (can be handy for business/accounting reasons)

Well, lets do math:

- from this thread: iPhone 17 pro max would be $1199 to buy (~1273 with tax) or $34.99 for 24 months totaling $839.76. So would cost 433.33 at the end of the lease to keep it

If you upgrade your phone every 1-2 years then what you pay for the phone is something like "full cost - optimistic trade-in value". I see no reason not to do if you know you going to upgrade.

I'm a little confused on why anyone would pay this much for a phone. (Although if you consider it conspicuous consumption that happens to work as a phone, I can believe that.)

That’s tame when people are leasing literal meals with klarna

money number must go up?