Here we are talking about things not completely paid off. If you use a loan to buy something (a car, a phone, a house, whatever) until you paid off all the loan the thing is not yours.
If you don’t pay your car loan, they can reposses it, if you don’t pay your phone loan they block it, if you don’t pay your data plan they close it. I don’t see anything strange here.
Here we are talking about things not completely paid off. If you use a loan to buy something (a car, a phone, a house, whatever) until you paid off all the loan the thing is not yours.
If you don’t pay your car loan, they can reposses it, if you don’t pay your phone loan they block it, if you don’t pay your data plan they close it. I don’t see anything strange here.
Every phone is going to get the code that does this - paid off or not.