346
this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
346 points (98.1% liked)
Technology
79476 readers
4666 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
As a reminder to everyone:
If you can afford it, you can 100% just... Buy a phone online and use it with your carrier. Make sure it's carrier unlocked, but yeah. All but one of my phones (bought in an emergency) was bought this way, and I've been through... 5 or 6? carriers and never had an issue
Assuming they let you BYOD. I know T-Mobile does because that's how I do it.
I get used Pixels off eBay for like $200. Carrier unlocked ones like $50 more. But I think only Verizon is the problematic carrier for those.
I bought a refurbished Pixel 6 Pro, carrier unlocked, for around $250. I also switched to an MVNO called Tello, and couldn't be happier. If I should need to switch carriers, it's going to be to another MVNO. I'm done with the major carriers.
https://tello.com/
Another good MVNO, for privacy, is Phreeli. Louis Rossmann (on YT) created a MVNO which collects no data from you, you can even pay cash-by-mail anonymously and with crypto.
Pretty straight forward value proposition: You pay and they provide phone services, don't sell your data and design their systems around not collecting your data in the first place or, if collected (like payment information) is used for the transactions and deleted.
The only information you provide is a zip code (optional, but ties the phone into your area's 911 system if you're into that kind of thing)
I am not an ad bot(OR AM I?)