Stickin' it to 'The Man' is stickin' all of us.

Reading through industry news, I came across this article. It's not the first of it's kind that I've read. I've seen many articles that encourage wireless customers to argue their way out of multi-year contracts w/o paying ETFs (early termination fees) because some government mandate imposes an additional 10 or 20 cent hike to the monthly bill. I attempted to post the following comment (currently being held for approval):

• Before you devise reasons to get out of ETFs first stop and think about WHY mobile carriers have ETFs! Did it never occur to you that you're cheating an American business? Your driving the cost of doing business higher and making it harder on everyone else. Every 1 or 2 year contract comes with $200 - $400 worth of equipment subsidy. That's cold hard cash the carrier is fronting on your behalf so you can be trendy, hip and cool. The "free" phones aren't free. Paying $199 for a $600 phone sure seems awesome until 12 months down the road when you want a newer phone and are looking to stick it to the American business that funded your first round of hip, trendy coolness.
  
  How would you feel if Sprint called you up and argued with you for an hour, day after day, about why you should pay them an additional $200 cash for that BlackBerry you got last year? Maybe you were late one day on your payment - WOOT! BREECH OF CONTRACT!! Pay up sucka'!
  
  It blows me away how many people in this country talk big about "buy American" and "stop sending jobs overseas." Every single mobile carrier in this country has been forced to cut jobs and personnel over the last several years in large part due to people like [those who try to get out of ETFs].
  
  Did you know that every mobile carrier will sign you up on a month to month service contract? All you have to do is pay full retail for the phone of your dreams and you can live contract free -with a clear conscious- w/o trying to devise sneaky, snaky ways to cheat the company. What I think would be more fair is mobile carriers that prorate the subsidy. The longer you honor your contract, the lower the ETF until it's $0 near the end of your agreement.

I'm all about being a smart, informed consumer. I don't like to hear when a working family is taken, cheated, scammed or overpays. Coupons, rebates, store loyalty programs and similar schemes work to the benefit of both consumer and business. It's a partnership. Let's do our best to be honorable consumers, which will in turn help keep American jobs American.