The first thing from my perspective is that I would look at this FIRST from a Moral perspective, and then from a Financial one. That is the way I choose to look at all of my decisions and this would be no exception. Flipping those priorities, especially for the reason of money, would make it morally all the worse in my book.
I'd disagree with the last sentence. Perhaps we could agree that one should thoroughly review all financial and emotional ramifications of all possible options. Or, being technical...you only state that flipping the priorities would make it worse...that's fine with me. I was only talking about the order in which you approach the decision making, not what should take priority.
I find that emotions are often a roadblock to sound financial decisions. Mention to someone that maybe they could sell their huge SUV and trade it in for a station wagon and they'll get heart palpitations. Suggest cutting back on the Christmas gift-giving and they'll go on about how Christmas would be ruined for their little darlings. And don't even think about telling them that maybe, just maybe they should let the bank take "their" house from them. Emotions are the first thing that pop up in their decision making, and they go no further. Perhaps this is simply a hack to get around "normal" human behavior, but it just seems that if you look at it from a cold analytical point of view (i.e. what's the best for us in a pure financial sense) and THEN let emotion in, you're more likely to get the whole picture (i.e., fully analyze the financial and emotional ramifications of all available options).
That is why they give you the option to walk away built right in. Just pay them X and they will let you out of your obligation. Easy Peasy, both parties agree.
So, the ease of breaking the contract is part of what determines how moral or not it is?
This differs from buying a house because you promised them that in return for them giving you X thousands of dollars you would pay them X each month for the next X years. The only way they have built in the contract to get out of that is to instead pay them the entire sum back at one time.
I don't have our old mortgage papers with us (they're all back in the US), but for some reason I thought there was wording to the effect of "if you stop paying us, we have the right to take possession of the house and kick you out."
Perhaps that's the (subtle to me) difference. A mobile contract says if you don't fulfill the terms of the contract they'll charge a fee; a mortgage contract says if you don't fulfill the terms of the contract they'll have to repossess it. Even then, I still see similarities. With the mobile contract you can simply pay them the cancellation fee upfront, even before they bill you. In the case of a mortgage, you can simply inform the bank you'll no longer be paying, move out without requiring eviction, and be cooperative with any foreclosure proceedings.
Ok...now I'm thinking that it might not be so much the contract, or how it's worded...but in how MOST people handle the process of breaking the contract. It's fairly common to call up AT&T, tell them you'll no longer pay for their services, pay the ETF and the final bill when it comes, and that's that. It's also fairly common to stop paying the mortgage, ignore the bank's calls asking "dude, why aren't you paying for your mortgage...hello?", fight the foreclosure proceedings every step of the way, and after a year or two of rent-free living, finally be evicted (after fighting that as much as possible). In that case, it's not the breaking of the contract that's morally bad, but the actions afterward. If we hear of someone breaking one of the aforementioned contracts, our judgement of that person is automatically clouded by the manner in which most people act in a similar situation.
To me the main difference between various forms of contracts and agreements comes down to the disposition of both parties. If both parties are ok with ending the contract, either through approvals external to the contract or through built in allowances in the contract, then it is more likely to be morally ok. If one of the parties has to end up suing the other to settle the affair, ending the contract probably wasn't on the moral up-n-up.
If I was dealing with a smaller, more personal company...maybe. But not because I'm against big bad corporations; rather, any feelings of goodwill I have toward a smaller company are more likely to be reciprocated. Once a company grows past a certain point, and has more than a few dozen lawyers just to handle the wording in their contracts; they don't have warm fuzzy feelings about you anymore. You're just a number, statistic, what-have-you, and I don't think it's exactly fair that we should let our decisions be overly influenced by emotions. If AT&T were truly concerned about my emotional well-being and what's best for me, then I would likely extend the same to them.
It's also why I can understand the need to pay back family/friends before big corporations; the corporation loaned to you because they took a calculated risk, and are expecting to make a profit on you; family/friends are helping you because they care, thus you could (should) feel a moral obligation to repay them first.
Many thanks for the reply.