The CRTC has asked wireless service providers to stop offering the 36-month device financing option for new rate plans – August 3, 2019,
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which is a public organization in Canada with a mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasting and telecommunications, is again looking to stick their noses into the private sector, to again assist mobile carriers in raising their prices. First a foremost I hate Tab plans and contracts, but none of these mobile carriers are holding guns to people’s faces and forcing them to buy an overpriced cellphone.
Personally, I hate tab plans because they make mobile phones more expensive. I don’t think the best Apple iPhone on the market costs more than $300USD to make, but because of these tab plans, prices get inflated, because people are willing to go into debt to be the cool kids on the block. Being cool or being trendy is part of what makes the public sector provide jobs for people, if you voluntarily put yourself in debt for a cool kids phone that’s your fault, there are still cheap phones available for consumers.
Flip phones and those little phones available for $50 – $200 that were priced similarly or even were more expensive in the early 2000s still exists today, people simply don’t buy them because people want to be cool. What the CRTC is actually making an argument for people not learn things the hard way and if the CRTC is doing this in mobile, why not do this in auto-financing?
The cost to build an automobile isn’t $30,000 Canadian, yet if you buy a new vehicle in Canada you’re not paying less than $30,000, why? Because of auto-financing, which is the equivalent to Cell phone tab plans. If people are willing to go into debt for it, the price goes up, humans love debt, part of the reason the Bank of Canada has interest rates so low revolves around consumers and businesses ability to go into debt. If they have tab plans for 30 years I wouldn’t be against it, there’s still an option to file for bankruptcy in this country and as been proven with every bad move by the private sector the chance for a new company to emerge as a dominant player presents itself.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has been in operation since 1976 which one would assume would make them excellent at anticipating where the market is heading, so they can save consumers money, but Canadians pay some of the highest wireless prices in the world, but the argument for this, of course, is that Canadians are sparsely populated, which we’re supposed to be convinced as consumers is because only a few telcos were willing to build the infrastructure, but again the truth is the long term thinking revolved protecting particular Canadian telco industries from competition.
Being that wireless Canadian consumers are being forced to subsidize big telcos in Canada, while the private market is doing everything it can to stay relevant, the CRTC is obviously looking at regulating the easy targets in wireless space. The tab plan is under attack and the truth is the Consumer will pay for it because the consumers who want to buy the cool kids’ smartphones are going to find a way to buy the cool ids smartphones, they might even go to the United States or China to by the cool kids’ smartphone and what does that do? It kills the industry in Canada and helps foreign markets.
This happens all the time, it’s silly that the CRTC can’t see this, the Private Sector is fueled by people buying things they don’t need, people love luxury, people love to feel rich even if they’re not, this is what fuels capitalism and socialist try to tame capitalism with social engineering via regulations or stupid laws that the government thinks will make thing better. No, banning drugs doesn’t stop people from using drugs it actually creates a whole new market for drugs that otherwise wouldn’t exist, in Toronto, there are now injection sites for drug abusers because the government made drugs illegal and drug abusers will still do whatever they can to get a fix.
The government as the cause and the government as the solution, it’s silly, I hope the CRTC doesn’t make the mistake of killing the tab plan. I’ve written about tab plans, I hate tab plans but I also believe that people have the right to remain stupid. I think there are 7-8 year car financing, this is stupid, but I don’t think it should be illegal, because of these car financing idiots I can often buy a used car for cheap, I pay cash, when you pay cash and you know that a seller wants the car off their lot you get a better deal when you pay cash and you’re not specific about the exact car you want you to have more flexibility, but most humans are money morons, they see a depreciating machine as a must-have and they’ll pay an inflated price for it.
If CRTC wants to solve this problem have a campaign warning consumers about potential additional costs for financing a phone. We live in a voluntaristic society nobody is putting a gun to your head and telling you to buy that Smartphone phone. You buy the hip new smartphone because you want to be the cool kid in your social circle. It’s really that simple and the CRTC should stay out of it!
Interesting times ahead