Cell phone contracts exist for a reason. Most people like cheap, high-tech cell phones, and once they find a good carrier they stick with them. Some people would love to change carriers or phones often, and with pay-as-you-go plans they can, if they’re willing to pay the price.

Consumers seem to have a utopian vision, where cell phones remain affordable but contracts go away. Then people can switch whenever they want, and their carrier is stuck with a used cellphone of diminished value. If Arizona forces this upon companies, I doubt cell phone companies will see much incentive to invest finite resources in improving service in Arizona when other states have far better opportunities for success.

With regard to the term “liberal”, I remain on the fence as to whether using the term in its modern derogatory sense to refer to statists is desirable. I am a proud liberal–a classical one. Would that libertarians could reclaim the term liberal, restoring it to its original meaning, and find a new term to attack big-government statists that is not merely a rebadged term.