This seems a lot like the same business model you're saying didn't exist before.
In fact, AT&T was more draconian. People can pay off their cell phones today. The old wall-tethered units had a monthly rental fee in perpituity.
In the US, at least, it literally took an act of Congress for customers to be allowed to port their numbers between wireless providers.
I hate that the system has it where you don't own anything and you are supposed to be happy with it. But from a market perspective what else can they do? They need to make a regular income to pay for the development and such, but they also need to deal with the fact that a competitor who offers a freemium or product at a loss but where they can at some point in the future hide future costs will just naturally win.
The difference is, culturally that didn't go too well with people so hating in MaBell was a thing. Enough so that it forced politicians to enforce anti-trust laws and break it up, eliminating all these restrictions.
I fear there is no political backbone today to do anything to the monopolists that own the hardware we "buy" from them.