Well, kinda. Carriers can work around that by marking up the retail price so e.g. you have a $480 phone that the carrier sells for $700, or lets you buy for $20/m over a 24-month term with a promise to clear the $220 balance if you make it to the end of the term, so it's effectively a penalty if you cancel early.
Yeah, or you spread the regular retail price over X months with no interest and the carrier takes the manufacturer subsidy.
The real catch is that they typically require you to be on a high end non-BYOD plan, which keeps going up every year. I prefer to buy the device outright and minimize the plan cost.
