FWIW you would still have to pay for the new phone, just in the form of the subscription fee. ATT has the same bullshit payment plan where you spread the cost of the phone over two years, but you never actually own the phone. If you upgrade, you still pay full price and you have to return your old phone.
Killing the subscription isn’t cheating subscribers out of a free upgrade, because you haven’t paid for the upgrade yet. You’re still paying off the first phone, and they bundled some of their premium services with the purchase of the phone.
The bundle being a decent deal is what got me to sign up the first time. It’s easy to budget the single cost as part of my Google Fi bill as opposed to Google Fi, YouTube Premium, and Google One all separately. I understand that the “upgrade” wasn’t going to be free but I assumed that I would just keep paying for Pixel Pass which included all these perks and I would just get a Pixel 8 when it released and the Pixel 6 would be paid off/mine to keep. But now I will have to pay for all of those other services separately again (I don’t even want the play pass and Google One is questionable) AND I’ll just have to buy a new phone outright? At least my Fi bill will go down a bit but I think I’ll be cancelling the services and possibly not buying the Pixel 8. It’s kind of a lose lose if you ask me.
FWIW you would still have to pay for the new phone, just in the form of the subscription fee. ATT has the same bullshit payment plan where you spread the cost of the phone over two years, but you never actually own the phone. If you upgrade, you still pay full price and you have to return your old phone.
Killing the subscription isn’t cheating subscribers out of a free upgrade, because you haven’t paid for the upgrade yet. You’re still paying off the first phone, and they bundled some of their premium services with the purchase of the phone.
The bundle being a decent deal is what got me to sign up the first time. It’s easy to budget the single cost as part of my Google Fi bill as opposed to Google Fi, YouTube Premium, and Google One all separately. I understand that the “upgrade” wasn’t going to be free but I assumed that I would just keep paying for Pixel Pass which included all these perks and I would just get a Pixel 8 when it released and the Pixel 6 would be paid off/mine to keep. But now I will have to pay for all of those other services separately again (I don’t even want the play pass and Google One is questionable) AND I’ll just have to buy a new phone outright? At least my Fi bill will go down a bit but I think I’ll be cancelling the services and possibly not buying the Pixel 8. It’s kind of a lose lose if you ask me.
Pretty much every mobile carrier has that here, I believe some will let you keep the device and some won’t.
It just depends on what deal you choose I guess.