I just thought the same thing. Most of them cost double what my refurbished iPhone cost. To be fair there is a category for fairly cheap ones too: https://slowerliving.club/phones/?category=Cheap+entry+point...

But why would someone pay $675 to $1,235 plus $18/mo membership for a locked down iPhone without browser and apps - surely there is a way to lock them down yourself if you really want to.

edit: reading a bit further I find the LLM-prose on the website really jarring. Maybe I'm unfair here but it just reads like written by a machine.

I have the same response. In mind a dumb phone is sub $100. More feels like virtue signaling some tech stoicism.

For that money and less you can get an older smartphone and strip it down yourself if you are inclined.

Or use accessibility settings (on iOS) to make it much less appealing to stare at.

Yeah, it's nuts, these are significantly more expensive than a low-end smartphone. I hope by the time my kid's a preteen there will be enough of a market for dumb phones that there will be cheaper options. I would think almost any parent would want one for their kid at some point.