$10 is a lot of money to some people. It was a lot for me at one point in my life.

Sure, and some places you’ll get mugged over $5 or worse.

But it’s a lot more likely over $5000 right?

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.

No.

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.

Both of these tactics reduce the sale price of a stolen phone.

One is extremely effective. One is marginally effective. But that still means both of them are effective just to different degrees.

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.

Ok?

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 marginal == zero. Which is the part that is confusing me.

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.

Okay, but that isn’t what the discussion was about eh?

But it's not $10 because being locked to a major US carrier doesn't depress the price significantly.

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.