Upgrade fee for iPhone 6

Question

You're going to pay an activation fee then an upgrade fee of 30 2 years later at verizon.

Answer 1

I find this whole thing to be ripoff as well.. I have 3 iPhones (a 3g, 4 and 5) on 3 lines and 10GB of shared data, unlimited talk/text.My 3g has out of contract for 2 years, my 4 has been out of contract for 6 months, and my 5 is almost out of contract.  I pay $145.00 plus tax p/m so it comes to $157.00 p/m. I wanted to upgrade my 4 to a 5c (cause that was the cheapest iPhone that wasn't refurbished.  I did an online chat with two representatives.A. The first one said I would lose my mobile share value discount if i upgraded with a 2-year Contract, so I would be paying $25 more per/month if upgraded that phone. B. The next rep said, no I wouldn't lose any discount, cause i was eligible for an upgrade with a 2-year Contract. C. So I called AT&T today on the phone and the Rep said yes, i would lose the discount if i upgraded to the 2 Year Contact. She said I would pay an extra $25 p/m. She then tried to convince me that ATT Next was cheaper overall. (Sure it is!) She then sent me a link to an online ATT Next vs 2 Year Calculater... (Screen Shot below). 
After pulling up the iPhone 5c (which is valued at $450.00 on ATT Website), if i did a 2-Year Contract the phone would cost me (with "ACCESS" fees) $1000.99!!!! What a freaking RIP-OFF!
And with the Next Program (24 mo) it would cost $720.00, so still $270.00 more than the cost of the phone. What the heck is going on???
So to finance the phone through ATT it would cost me more than 50% more than the retail value of the phone, and to do a 2-Year Contract it would cost me 100% more than the retail value of the  phone. Seriously???So where is my Upgrade Eligibilty?
Wow, seems like the only option then is to buy whatever iPhone you can afford directly from Apple, and then get the family plan with lowest amount of data you can deal with, in order to actually pay a reasonable monthly charge...
My head is spinning looking at the online Calculator. I've been with ATT for probably 7-8 years now, never had this kind of issue with them, since this NEXT non-sense came around. 
AT&T has jumped the shark!