Making room for the shamefully overpriced $179.99 HTC MyTouch 3G Slide, T-Mobile is giving away the MyTouch 3G for free online when customers sign up for a 2-year contract. Inexplicably, the G1 is being listed at $99.99, but who would buy one now?

The MyTouch 3G Slide, in spite of its name, is more of a replacement for the G1, but T-Mobile should be phasing out both models anyway. The Slide represents a strange pricing structure, one which we thought was outmoded when Verizon regularly offers the lower-mid-range (where the Slide fits in) Motorola Devour for $69.99 and the high-end Droid for $99.99. Verizon has also just released the LG Ally for $99.99 (after $100 rebate). What kind of trick is T-Mobile trying to pull here? Of the four aforementioned phones, the Slide might be the least desirable.