An Obamaphone is typically an old refurbished android phone. It’s provided by private companies who require you to fill out the paperwork that allows them to qualify for the subsidy to make the phone free. The max income threshold is super low. You get a predetermined number of free calling minutes each month for a year and then you have to recertify.

As your income rises, it quickly becomes cheaper to spend less than $50 on a Tracfone from Walmart and load the minutes as needed. If you are unemployed, don’t have an phone, are looking for a job, and taking calls from employers is the only thing you’ll use it for, it is indeed free and can be a pretty nice thing.

But the people who designed the program made damn sure people weren’t gonna be “abusing” the program to make a bunch of personal calls for free. The phones are capable of running WhatsApp and Messenger, though, so I do know people who have them, didn’t recertify, but will bum people’s WiFi to keep in touch with people. I’ve had several people stay at my house overnight because they didn’t have a place to go for the night and on two separate occasions people have booted up my PS4 and installed Messenger on it to talk to people. It’s definitely a thing.