A new smartphone again? Rethink unhealthy culture of frequent upgrades

fne8w2ah@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 601 points –
A new smartphone again? Rethink unhealthy culture of frequent upgrades
straitstimes.com

SO. MUCH. THIS.

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Phones have to easily repairable before you can blame consumers for upgrading. Cell phones are pretty essential for modern life and most of us don’t want to be without them for long. The upgrade allows for people to not have to worry about what to do when something out of warranty breaks. It is like fixing your car. In warranty, the manufacturer or dealer takes care of things. Out of warranty, you have to find a repair shop. Finding a repair shop is difficult. Trying to get a second or third quote on a broken car is difficult and costly.

The alternative is to make repair shops have transparent prices and make it easy for them to get oem parts. The other option is to force companies to warranty their phones for longer. Until the government does one of those you can’t blame consumers.

It is possible to find phones that are easy to repair in Europe. I think they are going to hit the American market in a few months.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/5/23783714/murena-fairphone-4-us-release-date-price-sustainability-repair

So now that people have options, it is really on the consumer side.

I know about the fairphone. It just now became available for sell in the US No one except maybe IT people know about it. Consumers have to know about the choice to make it. It is also ridiculous to point to one choice that isn’t available yet and blame the consumers.

I meant now that there will be an option. Plus, I'm not blaming, that would make no sense because I thought the phone wasn't out yet.