Oh they are always making money. lol. But if you did the installment you still own it, you just don't pay them up front for the cost of it. Would you rather give someone $800 now or over two years for something? Yeah you can't trade in a broken phone but..... if you bought an X for $1100 and break it what do you have? I don't get the question. I have insurance for this very reason. If something goes wrong with it other than a broken screen you are always within the warranty with Apple so no, it's not on you.
Think of this way, you pay $1,100 for the X. What is it worth on the resale market in 1 year? It's so close it's not worth it to buy it out and resell it. Tech products are always depreciating assets... and rather quickly. You're taking a 50% hit about the 1st year you own it.
No... you don't own it. That's the whole point. You don't own it until you pay for all of it.
I know they are always making money no matter what but these 'keep giving us money and trading in your phone' plans means they are making a lot more profit because they ultimately give you no product AND they get the device you used back so they can re-sell it or send it out as a refurb to someone who broke theirs and had insurance or something.
It's only "not on you" if you pay even MORE money for the insurance. So you are basically paying insurance for something you don't even own or will never own because you are going to trade it in. That's just silly to me.
If I bought an X, a year later I can re-sell it for A LOT more than half of it's value which is essentially what you are doing when you trade in with 50% paid off. All those plans are is assuring the company you are with that you will keep giving THEM the money and the most you get is half the price of your current phone, which is exactly why they say you have to pay half of it off before you can exchange it for another phone but you won't ever own it or the next phone you get as long as you keep trading them in.
Lets say I buy an X for $1,100. Next year the X2 or whatever comes out. I can re-sell that on ebay and will probably get around $850-$950 for it. So I then spent at worst $250 to have the phone for a year. Where as you will pay $550 just for the convenience of not having to sell it yourself and you also guarantee whatever company you are with that you will be constantly giving them money for the next phone.
Think of it like this...
Lets say you spent 50% on iPhones 6($400), 6s($400), 7($400) and X($1,00)
So at that point you have spent $1750 and own none of those.
Where as I spent $3,500 but I own all 4 phones and end up getting about 80-85% of their value in resale so I make around $3,000.
Just spent $500 over the past 5 years total and I always
owned the latest iPhone. That's why they push those plans so hard. They make a lot more money on those than selling phones outright.