Technology

Costing the economy..... hahahahahaha

Smartphone companies are trying to push phones with planned-obsolescence on people sothat people buy new phones more frequently, and that's a bad thing for the consumers because they have to spend more money.

The best way to respond to that is if consumers prefer buying smartphones from companies who have produced long-lived smartphones in the past. That means if company A produces shitty, short-lived smartphones, people indeed buy a new smartphone after a short while but from another company B who is willing to develop better quality.

I got a new phone about a week ago. My old one was wildly overpowered for my use case, but ... I accidentally sat on it briefly, and the screen was never the same. I went from a Pixel 6 Pro to a 9a, and ... yeah, the screen seemed slightly smaller for a couple of days, but otherwise, it's faster than a device twice the price in 2021.

As with computers, we've hit "good enough" with phones for the most part. If you know why you need GPU cycles, that of course is another story, but for basic compute, we've nailed it. Hell, I'd still be running my i7-3770K -- a processor I bought in 2012 -- had my motherboard not died.

Things get shitty in terms of margins at the top of any technological S-curve.

I spent $500 on a phone that will get nearly seven years of updates, as I didn't buy it release day. Assuming I don't sit on it, that's a remaining 78 months at $6.41/month. My service is $15/month.

There's no money here anymore.

Think about how many additional phones you could buy each year if you cancelled your Netflix subscription and didn't eat as much avocado on toast.

this sounds like the housing market stuff. you want folks to spend then get them jobs that provide for food and shelter and utilities and health insurance and then enough extra to spend on stuff.

Our devices don't change all that much to be honest. And the battery degregation is the only real reason to get a new phone. Some companies are even making it easy again to fix phones again.

Plus people can't afford 1000$ phones full stop.

lol nice economy

From a macroeconomics perspective, the best way forward is to give people money (handouts) so they can buy more stuff. More consumerism -> hotter economy.

When flagships cost $500 I would keep them for 2 years. Now they cost $1000 I expect them to last twice as long. 🤷‍♂️ "The market" isn't only dictated by supply, it's supply and demand. It cuts both ways.

What is to upgrade? Smartphones/phablets were always going to reach a peak, where the innovations that can be made are small. Screens look amazing, cameras are incredible, it's all at a point where phones do everything we want them to really well. Upgrades now are just iterative, battery improvements are welcome, improved camera sensors would be cool, but we dont need any of it, even faster SoCs, brighter or higher resolution screens are pointless now.

They can't really do much more, we dont need thinner, they are worse. Folding could be a potential avenue, but it's not there yet, they are far too fragile. There's going to have to be some new breakthrough tech to make a lot of people buy new phones, until then, they will have to keep trying to sell AI and some other bullshit features.

Damn Edward Bernays and his consumerism. Maybe it would have happened anyway, but he pushed the idea of throwaway, buying the latest, trashing what works or could be repaired. So much waste for the sake of the economy.

I'm at 3 years with my current phone and it still does everything I need it to. No need to replace.

Hmm... I wonder if this could be a factor here...

7 years now.