Because carrier-locked phones to major carriers don't suffer a severely depressed price. AT&T has high market share it doesn't matter enough if a phone is locked to AT&T to prevent theft and depress resale prices.
>Most criminals clear less than they would working minimum wage.
I know people hate "Source?" as a reply but I think this claim really needs a source.
There is also the assumption that everyone has access to a job, which depending on where you are and what you're background is (we are very hostile to people with disabilities, physical "deformities" that people find unpleasant to look at, felony convictions, etc.) may or may not be true. A lot of folks turn to theft out of desperation.
It depends on what you mean by crime, income, etc. and what factors you consider - but as you note, people often start out desperate, and then escalate because crime doesn’t really solve the desperation. Some crimes do produce good income, relative to the same effort in a legal occupation, but most don’t. And in many (but not all cases) the people involved can’t actually get equivalent legal work. So it is difficult to compare.
An unlocked phone is indistinguishable from a locked phone until you attempt to sign it up for another network. That distinction isn’t made until the phone is already stolen.
If I’m a thief, I steal the phone either way. Sometimes I get a carrier locked phone and only make $10 (realistically more. Carrier locked phones sell at a discount around 20-50%), or I get an unlocked phone and make $400.
Your argument is the same that carrying less cash would make you less of a target for pickpockets. It won’t. They will steal a wallet with no cash as fast as a wallet stuffed with hundreds.
If the average selling price of a stolen phone drops, the incentive to steal phones does so too.
> Your argument is the same that carrying less cash would make you less of a target for pickpockets. It won’t. They will steal a wallet with no cash as fast as a wallet stuffed with hundreds.
People don't tend to carry cash any more. And you know what has stopped happening as often as a result?
But what you are missing is that a carrier locked phone isn't worthless, it is worth quite a bit. A carrier locked iphone 14 sells for ~$400 on ebay, an unlocked one sells for ~$525.
The carrier lock mostly just affects the owner of the phone, and the resale value when they are done with it. In completely unshocking news, TMobile also has a program to buy back t-mobile phones, unlock them, and sell them on.
Stealing a $400 phone vs stealing a $525 phone is irrelevant to the thief.
What DOES stop thieves is activation and firmware locks. Phone theft is way down since Apple effectively made it impossible to use a phone that hasn't been logged out of. Those phones are only worth what their unlocked parts are worth, which is not that much.
> But what you are missing is that a carrier locked phone isn't worthless, it is worth quite a bit. A carrier locked iphone 14 sells for ~$400 on ebay, an unlocked one sells for ~$525.
A reduction in average selling price is a reduction in incentive to steal, full stop. I'm not sure how you can argue with that. I'm not stating it's 100% effective, I'm not stating that it's worth the cost, all I am saying is that it is a disincentive.
Because my belief is that the number of thefts doesn't exist on a relatively linear curve, which would have to be true for your position to be correct.
My bet is that stealing phones is more like a thresh-hold. Does this crime pay > $x? Then I will do the crime. In this case I suspect that $x is well below the selling price of an unlocked phone. There isn't a gradual dropoff, at least not in the region between $400-$520.
I could also argue that carrier locked phones could have a paradoxical increased effect on theft. If the expected value of stealing a phone is lower, the average thief needs to steal more phones to make the same amount of money.
Phone theft in areas with predominately iPhones went from ‘very common’ to ‘non-existent’ because of Apple’s remote bricking.
In theory there may be a point you’re describing, but in SF for instance people just started looting cars instead of mugging (or snatch and grabbing) phones.
Carrier locking is not firmware locking! Carrier locking doesn't disable a stolen phone. It disables the use of non approved carriers on the phone, stolen or not.
That's my whole point. Carrier locking used to be standard, even on iPhones, and phone theft was very common too. Carrier locking wasn't a theft deterrent.
Firmware locking is a great theft deterrent. A stolen iPhone is basically just a few cheaper used parts, and all the expensive ones are useless.
Yes, but one harms the consumer far more than any possible benefit from reduced theft (again, I would argue that carrier locks don't reduce theft), and the other causes no harm to the consumer while providing a huge benefit by reducing theft.
So we have a measure that is, at best, “marginally effective” as a theft deterrent by your phrasing and actively harms consumers while actively benefitting the entities that artificially impose it.
The only theft it is preventing is other carriers stealing customers from one another.
You seem to think that I have said there is a marginal reduction in theft due to carrier locks. I do not think that is the case at all, and I have said so.
I am arguing that the reduction in theft due to carrier locks is 0. You are arguing that it is small (marginal).
I am saying that no matter what, the actual cost of the carrier lock to the consumer (as demonstrated by used phone values on eBay), is far higher than whatever marginal benefit you are arguing for.
It is a massive net loss to the consumer, and the only guaranteed beneficiary is the wireless carrier.
Indeed. Anecdotally I’ve seen in a few places where the going rate for one carrier or another is actually a bit higher than unlocked because people aren’t that well-informed and think “I need a Verizon phone cuz I’m on Verizon.”
Which was pretty universally true in the USA 15 years ago.
Before Verizon stopped using pre-LTE, most unlocked phones wouldn't work on Verizon. I imagine you get burned by that once, and then you pay attention longer than necessary.
Ding ding ding, that's the key. There are some people who will mug you for any amount > $0.00. You can't make crime disappear by lowering the value. As that value drops, though, fewer and fewer people will bother as the risk/reward ratio shifts. You'll still have crimes from people desperately sick with drug addiction who need something, anything, to get more, and they're notoriously bad and risk/reward calculations anyway. You'll have fewer crimes from people who'd otherwise think, hey, let's go out and boost some phones for spending money.
If I steal an $800 phone but can only sell it for $400 because it's locked to AT&T I've still sold it for a profit lol.