In message , at 14:33:56 on Thu, 18
Jul 2019, MissRiaElaine remarked:

if the networks hate PAYG so much, why does it still exist..?

PAYG exists, like it always has, to fill a gap in the market for
customers who want a phone but aren't credit-worthy enough to qualify
for a contract (and thus present a risk they are walking out of a shop
with £500 of brand new phone and will never be heard of again).

The problem for the networks (and this is true of many kinds of
discounted market-priced rail tickets as well) that credit-worthy
cheapskates[1] see an opportunity to abstract revenue from the system
by reducing their expenditure via a carefully chosen SIM-free phone
plus tariff package.

As I think I mentioned before, the first and most egregious example that
came to light was "glove box phones" which very likely only send £10 of
revenue to the networks in their entire lifetime.

Networks have tried hard over the years to introduce their equivalent of
"standing charges" to fight back a little bit. One I'll be writing about
later (in more detail) in another subthread, is the O2 requirement that
PAYG phones wanting to use the tube Wifi are topped up at least once a
month.

[1] And I'll happily admit I'm one of those.
--
Roland Perry