Originally Posted by
deRusett That would be the Carriers gouging
RIM can only give a Suggested Retail Price and a Lowest Advertised price they can not dictate pricing, it is actually illegal for them to do so.
The Carriers set their 1y, 2y, 3y subsidized prices based on what they think they can sell it for to maximize their return, on some of the CHEAP $100 dollar Androids they do this to get a customer who can not afford a smartphone into a smartphone with a slightly higher per month dataplan, the same was done with the BlackBerry 85XX series often going for $49 on contract with Free BBM and a data add on monthly and slowly customers would need more and the next phone would be the likes of the 9780