The problem is that AT&T are subsidizing the pricing of the new iPhones based on the fact that they will be receiving a new customer, or an existing customer, who is signing a contract for 24 months.

If you have had your iPhone 3g for less than 22 months, AT&T doesn’t have as much to gain from discounting the phone pricing. They will continue to lose money based on the upgrading.

Now, it may be a good incentive to meet people half-way, but even then AT&T ends up having to take a larger initial loss on the phone.

The sales strategy makes sense, they don’t actually intend most iPhone 3g users to upgrade right away. The iPhone 3g users get will still get their free software upgrades and next year, when adopters of the 3g-s are eyeballing the iPhone 4g, they will be required to pay the premium to upgrade and 3g users will not.

This has been the case every time every other cool phone has been released prior to the full discount being applied at every other cellular phone company. I don’t understand why iPhone users–users of a product made by a company that is notorious for charging a premium for their product–would feel so entitled to something that no other phone company, and no other cellular phone would do.

If I were a Sprint customer, and I wanted to buy a Palm Pre, and I only had my current phone for 12 months, I wouldn’t get the full discount on that phone either.

Same goes for T-Mobile and the G1, I won’t be able to get the full discount on the G2 when its released, because my contract holds too many months…