The Next plan really isn't a scam any more (the plan when they originally rolled it out most certainly was, but no more). Now it's just the full price of the phone financed for 0% interest for whatever term you choose. You can pay the phone off in full at any time, and you won't spend a dime more than buying it off contract. For me, it made sense because the monthly cost between a 2 year contract and Next was a whopping 2 dollars a month, and after a year, I'll sell my wife's old device, pay off the current phone and get the next phone on Next. Same as on a contract except this year, I didn't have to pay the $300 upfront for an on-contract phone. Just tax and then I got the phone.
Because they don't require you give the phone back at the end of term, if you can get more money than what is owed after a year, you can just sell the phone and pay off the remainder of what's owed with that and then get another phone. There's really little downside, unless you have grandfathered unlimited that you want to keep. For my wife and I, switching to Family share was nice...same cost, 3 GB more than we were getting and now we both get tethering instead of just me.
