I was thinking about upgrading my T-Mobile/HTC Shadow phone to the new G1 that runs Google's Android operating system. Before it came out they offered existing customers a pretty good deal on it, but last weekend I looked and they now want $350 dollars ($400 without a 2 year extension). Pretty expensive, but still "special pricing that's just for T-Mobile customers."
To see just how special the pricing was, I checked the page for new customers: $180 (with a 2 year contract), about half the price.
Now I can understand why they are doing this. They have this phone that lots of people would like to try, and see it as a way to bring in new customers. When my current plan expires next year though, I expect that I will be looking around for what's new, rather than a happy T-Mobile G1 user like I should be.
--Th