I've been on the Apple Upgrade Program since basically the beginning — maybe 10 years now. When I first signed up, it felt like a straight swap. My carrier bill went down by roughly what I was paying Apple each month. It made sense.
Fast forward to now and I'm trying to figure out if it still makes sense. I'm on a very old grandfathered T-Mobile plan and I'm starting to notice some throttling, so I've been shopping around. What I'm finding is that carriers basically don't reward you for bringing your own device anymore. Verizon's BYOD discount is like $10/month per line. The pricing assumes you're going to finance a phone through them.
When I first joined the AUP, carriers seemed to genuinely price in the fact that you weren't getting a subsidized phone. Now it feels like they've quietly dropped that.
If you're grandfathered into an old plan like I am, the AUP might still pencil out because your base rate is low enough that you're still roughly splitting the cost. But if you're on a current plan at current prices, I'm not sure the math works anymore.
Am I missing something? Has anyone else gone through this calculation recently? Curious whether people think the AUP is still worth it or whether it made more sense a decade ago.
Thanks!