I find this line of thinking to be flawed. I’m not going to delve into my finances as it’s no one’s business but laying down $700 for an iPhone 8 just simply isn’t possible for me. I don’t make enough to afford that lump sum payment in one month.

However, splitting that payment over 24 (or less) months is easily doable. I can take monthly payments in stride just fine and still have plenty of money left over for rent, the necessities, so on and so forth.

If we all went down the road of only buying what we could afford outright, the only phones that would sell in meaningful volume would be Moto Es and Moto Gs and phones in that price bracket.

And at least to me, a phone is a tool, an investment if you will. Paying top dollar—even for a phone on EIP—is worth more to me to ensure I have a decent device that gets updated, remains secure, and lasts a long time versus some budget shitbox that gets maybe one update and slows down harder than a throttled iPhone 6 not even a year later.

(Take it from me—I bought a Moto G4 and that thing got hit super hard with premature obsolescence. Slow as frig AND Motorola wishes everyone forgot about it.)

Now there are smarter buys out there if you’ve got the cash: the OnePlus phones come to mind. But I just can’t pass judgement on someone just for being in my situation where buying a phone outright is a tall order but the monthly payments are easily doable.