Are $200 (subsidised) phones worth it?

There are a lot of people who go through smart phones quickly and fewer who have more than one.

I'm still of the opinion that whether the phone is $200 on contract or $600 free of contract, it's too expensive.  It's a huge investment to me, and I would want to part with it after 2 years, but some say that they'll keep them a few months and get rid of them.  Hopefully, someone is buying them.

Maybe, the thing is that I've got a house and a car and bills.  Maybe, these guys don't have those things, so they just have phones and phone bills?  I guess you could handle more than one or pay full price, if you didn't have other commitments and were making loads of money.

It's a bit shocking every time I go for a new phone because there is a huge cash outlay and then, I get some of it back in rebates, but then the carrier wants to charge me for the switch and all the wonderful things they do--like increasing my plan.

New technology is great, but eventually, I see all the smart phones being commodities, as the feature phones are now.  The technology won't matter as much and people will be more concerned about brand and colour and size.

Speaking of which, why do I need a 4.7 inch display?  Are people getting personal with their phones?  Geez.  Anyone need a 400 cubic inch (6.6 litres to the rest of you) V-8 engine today?  It seems like there are a lot of 25-35 year olds who think bigger is always better...like 12 year olds.  Oh, well.  "Everybody has one."  Yep, and thankfully, you can turn off my opinion too.