Why does that matter? It's an interest free loan and they eventually do pay for it. We don't criticize people for buying cars with loans or even houses. When we purchased my dads car we were going to buy it cash but we got a 6 yr loan at 0% interest so it was a no-brainer to do that. Additionally most carriers now are offering incentives when you're on their payment plans. If your argument is that you should ditch your current carrier and use some cheap MVNO service instead then that's something entirely different.