Yes, the forced data plans are irritating. I bought a used unlocked phone from another carrier and activated it on the target carrier. Their database has no a priori knowledge that my IMEI is a smartphone, so no data plan is forced on me. WiFi data works great, though, and I disable all the other data connections to avoid accidental data charges.
Based on contract costs I really think the names are reversed. I know I did not obtain a smartphone until work agreed to pick up the monthly costs.
The number of people who have them sometimes boggles my mind. I have friends and relatives for whom it is a major expense. People are paying quarter to half what they would pay on a car not for these phones.
I pay about as much per month to insure my car as I do for smartphone service and personally feel that I get more value out of my smartphone than I do out of my car. In fact I frequently find myself weighing the pros and cons of eliminating my car in order to save on recurring costs - this never enters my mind for the smartphone.
Agreed. While I have no plans on getting rid of my car, my phone is easily a more valuable and useful tool. Of course, I work from home as an iPhone dev, so you can take that with a grain of salt :-)
