The big distinction is whether the lease/loan ends with the requirement to pay a lump sum or not.

Your monthly payments stopping and you own a device is a world apart from your ability to pay monthly ends, and, unless you can find $x hundred dollars, you need to roll onto a new monthly lease.

Mathematically there might not be much in it from a $in/out perspective, but for people who don’t have large disposable incomes the reality is they are vastly different