You right except for the fact that Google is changing the game. If I can go to the Google play store and get solid high end devices at 300 bucks then grabbing a smart phone from Google and paying month to month and when a carrier starts giving you crap
But that's my point...people's contracts come up and they are free to go anywhere, with a subsidized phone for $200 or even free - and still VZW only loses <2% of their customers. It makes 0 sense to me that people are going to pay MORE for an unlocked phone just to have the option to leave month-to-month when 98% of their customers re-up anyway.