David Pogue writes, <i>When you buy a cellphone — an iPhone or Android phone, let’s say — you pay $200. Now, the real price for that sophisticated piece of electronics is around $600.</i><p>Because of the subsidies, we actually don't know what the <i>real</i> price of that piece of electronics is. There's a very good chance the subsidies themselves are there to increase the price out the door of that piece of electronics.<p>In a no subsidy free market, who knows, while MSRP of a cellphone might be $600, the <i>real</i> price might turn out to be $450 or so.
It's important to realize that if AT&T had been able to buy up T-Mobile, this never would have happened.<p>Useful disruptions are less likely when we have too few companies in a given market.<p>Note: OfficeMax and Office Depot are trying to merge.