Obviously no company is providing a phone actually for free because that wouldn’t make sense, but how it works in other places is that they provide the handset at a discounted rate spread over the contract term because then they have you as a regular customer paying money each month. Paying pretty much the full phone price while being locked into a contract for four years doesn’t seem like a great deal to me, even if the phone company presents it as one.
You’re basing this on what you were already paying (which I think was already not particularly cheap, though obviously it depends on usage), but I think it would be reasonable to expect some kind of discount for being a loyal customer and staying with the same company multiple years.
I just think that NT$1k is a fair chunk of money to be paying each month, especially if someone is often struggling to pay rent. Also, does the contract include some kind of insurance, or if you lose or break the phone are you stuck paying the full amount for the remainder of the contract term?
I don’t find Taiwan particularly cheap compared with other places I’ve lived, at least at the rates you’re discussing (what I’m paying is fine). There are at least a couple of other threads discussing this though:
I don’t think the comparison with T-mobile in the U.S. is useful - we’re not in the U.S., and neither of us are American. Typical salaries are also considerably lower here.