There are certain topics which, whenever they come up, really just need to have an automatic disclaimer of "yes, we know that" to deter automatic replies people will always post.

* Anything that mentions regex needs to have an automatic disclaimer of "yes, you know the formal mathematical definition of regular expression and how it differs from what most programming languages now offer, good for you".

* Anything that mentions SQL needs to have an automatic disclaimer of "yes, you know that Database X isn't really relational according to a strict interpretation, good for you".

etc., etc.

Any article which discusses mobile phone pricing similarly needs to have a "yes, you noticed that it talked about contract-subsidized prices, good for you".

Because, to be perfectly honest, such comments add not one good goddamned bit of insight or information to the discussion (as here, where subsidized iOS phone prices were compared to subsidized Android phone prices, which is roughly as fair a comparison as one can get of how up-front cheaply such phones can be acquired), and typically are just restating something most readers already know.

YES! We need to get one of these disclaimers so we can stop the endless stream of needlessly pedantic comments that contribute nothing to the discussion. Of course, given the volume of those comments on HN, it would be a long, long disclaimer.

And we'd have to make sure to restrict pedantic comments trying to find workarounds to the disclaimer (by taking overly literal and meaningless interpretations of them of course) to one giant pedantic orgy thread.

In all seriousness though, I see this happening on every sufficiently busy thread on HN, it's annoying. It's not all bad though, as that kind of attention to detail is sometimes also what facilitates insightful discussions on the threads.

>It doesn't make any sense to compare those numbers

Well, it's a valid comparison, since it's apples to apples. Even the numbers themselves can be considered valid, given that a large portion of American mobile customers get their phones with their contracts.

At least in the UK, the price of the contract depends on the phone. SIM-only contracts are also available, which will be even cheaper each month. The only number which will give an apples-to-apples comparison is the total cost (initial cost + monthly cost * contract length). Some people seem to say that monthly cost and contract length are fixed in the US, making the initial cost the only variable, but I find that hard to believe.

Is there only one "contract" in the US? Don't you also need to know the monthly cost and exact details of the contract you are tied into?

Well, it's a "confusopoly", but you can reckon to pay about $80 / month for two years, plus an initial $100 - $200, for one single top of the line phone, such as an iPhone 4S.

Over two years, this amortizes the phone cost, and if you keep paying, it's basically just extra gravy for ATT.

In the US most carriers just require you to get one of the plans. The pricing on the plans is independent of which phone you get. So it makes comparing the subsidized prices of the phone an "Apple" to apples thing!