re: The cell phone industry is such a scam.

You need to learn to work within their system. I have had Verizon for 20 years. I pay $136 a month for 4 lines with unlimited 5G everything and have 4 free phones. 2 S25+ and 2 iPhone 17s. I wait until they offer free trade ups. It does lock me into 36 months because they credit you the phone cost monthly but I haven't paid for a phone in over 10 years. I do get a veteran discount but it's only about $10 per line monthly.