Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it’s costing the economy
6mon 24d ago by lemmy.world/u/MicroWave in news from www.cnbc.com
The average American now holds onto their smartphone for 29 months, according to a recent survey by Reviews.org, and that cycle is getting longer. The average was around 22 months in 2016.
While squeezing as much life out of your device as possible may save money in the short run, especially amid widespread fears about the strength of the consumer and job market, it might cost the economy in the long run, especially when device hoarding occurs at the level of corporations.
Research released by the Federal Reserve last month concludes that each additional year companies delay upgrading equipment results in a productivity decline of about one-third of a percent, with investment patterns accounting for approximately 55% of productivity gaps between advanced economies. The good news: businesses in the U.S. are generally quicker to reinvest in replacing aging equipment. The Federal Reserve report shows that if European productivity had matched U.S. investment patterns starting in 2000, the productivity gap between the U.S and European economic heavyweights would have been reduced by 29 percent for the U.K., 35 percent for France, and 101% for Germany.
Holy shit keeping a device longer than 2 years is "device hoarding" now? Thats fucking nuts.
How do you invest so much money in a device like that and not make it last? I've got one phone I use for work calls thats 10 years old. People are still shocked I dont even have a case on it.
This is blaming consumers for companies not doing a better job at planned obsolescence.
My last phone up until a couple months ago was from 2017, apparently I am just a mega hoarder. Don't look at the pile of miscellaneous bits of tech, the Omnisiah demands I collect the shinnies.
Honestly, if I could just upgrade the CPU and replace the battery every once in a while, is still be using a Note 3 or nexus 5. Those first few generations of notes were awesome.
I still miss my Note 3 and Note 5. I'm using the Note 9 now, and even that is starting to become unbearably slow. Thankfully the battery is still good enough for me, but even Firefox constantly freezing is ridiculous
When every single business is slowly getting to the point where they need you to be a consumer whore just to survive, yes.
...hands up anyone using laptops or desktops older than 15 years?.. ...right here, bitches...lol...
I got laptops from 2008 and 2013, still work just fine 😁
Yup got that too. Flipped it to Bazzite, and setting up an old laptop on Mint now too.
I've got a "refurbished" Dell laptop that's about 15yrs old. Some ex-corp model. 4C/8T, 16" 1900x1200-ish display, Nvidia GPU, 20G RAM, and it's still going strong except for the battery which stopped holding a charge. I could get a new battery but I use the system rarely and just for browsing/email so running it off the AC brick is fine. It's been running Linux Mint for as long as I can remember. My phone is a cheapo model from 2021 and it is also fine. The only reason I might replace it is if the battery tanks like with my other phones (planned obsolescence) or if I finally decide it's mandatory to up my security/privacy game and need a phone that runs GrapheneOS, which means a Pixel. An old used one.
It's because economists haven't got the memo yet that informs them that smartphones have been recategorized as, "durable goods".
Yeah, fuck that. I'll keep my device as long as possible because of course I would! Try for five years.
"Hording"... The fucking nerve to say that... I am actually offended. Whatever happened to "recycle, reduce, reuse"? What could possible be more irresponsible than constantly replacing your devices?
When you have some free time, you might find it interesting to read about Edward Bernays.
I've always been aware of propaganda, but had never heard of him. Thanks for that. Was an interesting and somewhat horrifying read.
I do everything in my power to avoid ads and develop an informed opinion but there is no escaping the influence of at least some social manipulations. I suppose its easy for me to forget sometimes how much others are influenced by that too.
“device hoarding”
The article about generational wealth is right around the corner I'm sure!
Maybe don’t base the economy on e-waste?
Sacrifice yourselves for the economy
And the planet.
What kind of twatwaffle writes this crap. Fuck your planned obsolescence.
...i believe only one country has "planned obsolescence" as an illegal business practice...
Bhutan?
After a quick search, it seems to be France. I wouldn't have guessed that in a thousand years, judging their car industry...
Lol shots fired.
Accurate, correct shots...
Good old French engineering. Calculations say we need at least a 9mm bolt to hold on this widget, every other bolt on the car is 10mm or 16mm. 9mm bolt it is.
There's something weirdly seductive about French cars though, they somehow manage to be extremely good at some specific niche feature and look nice and be just quality enough that you seem to talk yourself round to them.
Misha (ring youtuber/racer) recently drove a Xantia with the active suspension and said it was the best handling ever. And he has driven some exotics..
The French have a great history of hot hatches too,
205gti
Clio Williams
Clio 172/182
Clio V6
Megane Sport
Saxo Vts
Stellantis in shambles, or at least their manufacturing quality is
Maybe I’m old but it feels like the days of meaningful improvements have passed. Now it’s just a slightly different design for the sake of the annual release schedule. Why change when this 4 year old device is still supported and functions just fine?
I have a 6 year old iphone. And the literal only enticing feature of the new ones is that the base models have 4x the storage space lol
Phones are where PCs were ~20 years ago. We're getting past the stage where it's a piece of outdated crap after 6 months and the improvements now are incremental.
This is it, really. I used to upgrade every year or two and flash the latest and greatest ROM to be on the bleeding edge.
Now, none of that really seems like a huge difference anymore other than GrapheneOS for privacy and security.
It's just incremental improvements and none of the reparability I want, so I wait until it's really necessary to upgrade now.
Mine is now 3.5 years old. I bought a new flagship model with the idea it'd last a long time. Only now are new 'features' and updates coming out on new models, and even those are minor. Plus mine still has company support.
A new phone can cost over $1000 and the old one still works
I know, and I can't believe they sell......No way i'm gonna pay that much for a phone !
When I was young, a phone cost $20 and lasted… well, until I replaced my land line with a smartphone.
“6G” will take care of that. The carriers will force you to upgrade and then charge you higher rates because for some reason they have to replace all their infrastructure every few years.
The infra replacement at least makes sense though, the bandwidth they have is limited and consumers want to squeeze more out of it (higher quality video, bigger files, high quality calls) so they need to repurpose the spectrum or use different parts of the spectrum.
Maybe the economy shouldn’t be so dependent upon disposable devices.
Yeah, my reaction was less about economics and more wondering why this wouldn't be celebrated.
Yeah, no shit. No one wants to buy a new $1200 phone that does the exact same shit as the last $1200 phone.
Phones peaked around 2012. Now they are more cameras. If they had user replaceable batteries like 20 years ago no one would need to replace them.
Institutions and businesses need to stop the 2 year cycle on phones.
Phones peaked around 2012. Now they are more cameras.
Folding phones only came out about 5 years ago, but I bought it used and true to the article my current folding phone is over 24 months with no plans on it being replaced.
Flip phones folded first. NEXT!
If they had user replaceable batteries like 20 years ago no one would need to replace them.
I've only had 1 without a removable battery and decided never again. Can recommend Fairphone, or maybe Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro.
The Fairphone is particularly repairable and more sustainably and ethically produced than pretty much any other phone FWIW. Almost any component can be replaced in minutes, including the screen and camera($106), as well as microphones, speakers, usb ports, etc ($20~40). It uses de-Googled android and has a variety of built in security and privacy features other phones lack. They're a good company trying to improve the industry, so I think more people should be aware of them.
The Galaxy XCover Pro is the best of the very limited number of removable battery phones from major well known brands, IMO.
I'm all for replaceable batt but it is usually at the expense of being more costly and/or less water proof.
"The economy" can once again be replaced with "rich people's yacht money"
"The economy" is code for rich people's profits.
They could've also said CEOs are hoarding more wealth than ever and it's costing the economy.
Also, phone manufacturers, for one, took my headphone jack, removable storage, removable battery, crammed in more crapware, made rooting even harder, and keep aggravating my RSI with bigger and bigger screens. Why the hell would I look forward to an upgrade?
Then the "economy" should make more repair shops and sell more replacement items if it can't convince people to throw away still useful items anymore.
Sounds like phone companies need to innovate a bit more to me. Why the hell would anyone blame consumers for deciding that they don't need to replace something if the replacement is almost the exact same?
So more AI? Heard.
They "innovated" more and then people "complained" that forcing the old phone to break quicker doesn't count, so what now!!?? 😂
Where’s that cartoon about financial news stories making much more sense if you replace the words “the economy” with “rich people’s boat money”?
This sounds a lot like something Richard Denniss would say. He wrote a book named Econobabble that explains a lot of this sort of thing.
It doesn't cost the economy at all; great efficiency frees up resources for other purposes. The only downside is to the companies that make the devices and rely on planned obsolescence for profitability. The stock market and "the economy" are NOT synonyms.
I remember in the 00's when you'd upgrade your phone every year because the service providers would give you a new phone. And it would be leaps and bounds better than your previous phone with tons of new features.
Now, Samsung wants to kvetch because I won't spend $1,500 on their new whatever that is functionally identical to the one I have from 2020? Feh! Rot!
Edit: Come to think of it, my old phone has more features than the new one since they got rid of the stylus. Maybe one day they'll figure out "AI" isn't a feature, it's bloatware.
They never "gave" it to you, it was always priced into the contract.
I got a new phone from Visible when they upgraded their network and my old one supposedly wasn't compatible.
My bill was always the same.
This article is framed from a capitalist CEO, and while it touches on reality, feels incredibly lost in it's point.
Cassandra Cummings, CEO of New Jersey-based electronics design company Thomas Instrumentation. ...
Both the cellular and internet infrastructure has to operate to be backwards compatible in order to support the older, slower devices. Networks often have to throttle back their speeds in order to accommodate the slowest device
I'd Boohoo, if they actually were thinking about rebuilding the network stack to consider something like MultiPathTCP and reframed the devices to actually use all the networks they were on rather than a single one... But no they want you to by a single provider and depend on that plan... For the economy.
Further Telecoms choose not to upgrade towers (to save costs). In 2023, AT&T/Verizon spent $10B less on network upgrades than projected. Because they were being profit-driven underinvestment.
She does go on to say:
To ease the transition to new technologies, she says there should be designs that are repairable or modular rather than the constant purge and replace cycles. “So perhaps future devices can have a partial upgrade in say ethernet communications rather than forcing someone to purchase an entirely new computer or device,” Cummings said. “I’m not a fan of the throw-away culture we have these days. It may help the economy to spend more and force upgrades, but does it really help people who are already struggling to pay bills?” she said.
So slightly redeeming.
The article also makes note of repairing:
He adds that when people hold onto their phones or laptops for five or six years, the repair and refurbishment market becomes an active part of the economy. But right now, in both European, American, and global markets, too much of that happens in the shadows.
But this attempt to point out that productivity is lost on old devices:
The price to the organization is then paid in lack of productivity, inability to multitask and innovate, and needless, additional hours of work that stack up. Workplace research conducted by Diversified last year found that 24% of employees work late or overtime due to aging technology issues, while 88% of employees report that inadequate workplace technology stifles innovation. Kornweiss says he doesn’t expect there’s been any improvement in those numbers over the past year.
There’s a disconnect between the numbers and behavior. Many workers report that aging devices stifle productivity, but like a favorite pair of shoes or an old sweater, they don’t want to give them up to learn the intricacies of a new device (which they’ll learn and then have to replace with another). Familiarity can trump productivity for many workers. But the result of that IT clinginess is felt in the bottom line.
Fails to point out the waste of resources and it's impact on climate, health, and the economy; loss of privacy and it's impact on democracy, health, and yes the economy; and also how often new things don't actually help productivity...
Some how the "Upgrade to help the economy" falls flat when you consider Windows 11 and it's non-upgrade upgrade. Or MS Office which is still producing Word/Excel/PowerPoint/etc decades later with the same shortcuts. Your ‘productivity lag’ is your boss refusing to train you not your laptop
I mean if upgrade = economy, why does Apple sit on $165B in cash? They should spend it — not you!
Profit-driven innovation that wants to sell us the same iPhone with a new camera, is not helping the economy. We need real innovation that disrupts big tech as much as it disrupts everything.
Oh and that 'business equipment investment' from the fed was about factory robots and large capital investments, not phones.
This is a good comment.
This comment could have be a vote.
Their comment, but worse!
It was accompanied by a vote, you silly boots.
and contributed nothing more.
What in the good gracious did your comments contribute, guy? Except a bunch of bile into the Internet, wasteland of negativity?
The intent was to shame as a method of correction to prevent / reduce the behavior of leaving useless comments, and I believe it has been minimally, but somewhat effective at that.
Although, my first comment was so vague and satirical that I didn't even upvote it.
Meh
Omg the poor economy, how could those selfish Americans do that
Maybe "the economy" should give some more money back to working class people, ya dingdongs
The consequence of squeezing every last cent from people
Man. What a shitty headline. This is actually impressive.
29 months
squeezing as much life out of your device as possible
FUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUU
Last phone I had for 7 years, through a screen replacement, 2 battery replacements, and a switch to LineageOS.
And I would not even call that "squeezing as much life out of your device as possible".
Last upgrade was forced because of a supposed upgrade to 5g. My network sent me the world's shittiest smartphone to replace my pixel which was 4g only.
Many people use cheap phones and used phones as well sometimes, and buying another one is nearly more interesting than repairing them
The phone in question was midrange. Sure, not super cheap and I can see how a cheaper one would make it less attractive to repair, but still. (Plus I paid like, 50€ for the screen repair, I think?), and batteries were 15€ from eBay plus 20 minutes of my time.
But this is kinda beside the point: as long as it runs your apps, why upgrade.
Some people want faster phones for gaming for example. Maybe more storage. Maybe better photos. Maybe better connectivity. Maybe a bigger screen.
I’m on your team honestly. If you’re happy with your current phone, don’t buy a new one. Help the planet and save some money :)
2 phones ago I kept my phone for 6 years and it became sooo slow I had to upgrade it. Had it wasn’t for that, I’d have kept the phone longer. Last was 7 and I upgraded because someone gave me a newer phone for free. Perhaps it’s just a preference for me to keep devices until they die.
I feel you.
It made me honestly mad when I switched to Lineage and not only was everything faster, my battery life tripled.
Good, fuck the economy
They already did, that's the problem. If they want more consumer spending they need to fix the wealth gap, but they don't want to do that. They want to keep the pump running that transfers wealth from the poor to the rich but it's starting to stall and they're panicking, hence pieces like this.
PEOPLE AREN'T GIVING US MORE MONEY!
Great! Now we're getting blamed for wrecking the economy because we aren't spending enough of our minimum wages on $2000 phones often enough.
Couldn't have anything to do with redistributing over a trillion dollars a year to Sociopathic Oligarchs, and not taxing them. How about forcing them to give each one of us a new phone every year. Or how about this: Just give us health care, like every other country in the world.
Not buying enough new phones? Go fuck yourself.
Buy! No money, only buy!
This is a good thing and CNBC centers on the poor shareholders. Reduction of ewaste in this small area is positive.
Proper headline: Economy sucks, inflation is higher than ever, so people have to hold onto their devices longer.
But you guys not buying new phones is reducing productivity by a third of a percent! Think of the potential losses!
"A population with skyrocketing costs of living and stagnant wages cutting unnecessary spending, and that's a problem"
wHy ArE mIlLeNnIaLs DeStRoYiNg ThE pRiCe Of ____?!#1
Because we don't have any fucking money, idiot.
device hoarding
That is not what this is called.
Consumers are being Anticapitalist! This is not a recession! We didn't fire half the country for people to spend less!! Think about our growing profits!!
C O N S U M E
Ć̶̨̢̧̨̬͍̩̳̦̭̯̘̟̥̭͈̫͈̝̹͙͂͂̽̍̄͆̿̿̀̈̋̓̊̑͊̏͐̿͝͝͝ͅ ̵̨͚̲̯͎̲̻̦̹͚͖̻͗ͅÒ̷̧̰̙̗̭̳̤̲͖̼̬̦͇̊̑͒̋̉̂̈́͜ ̶̨̡̢̹̺͙̠̭̻̩̻̦̲̱̹̜̽̏̈́̄̓̀͊̓̐͒͋̎͝ͅͅN̸̡̨̫͎̤͕͇͓̳̩͍͉͔̙̍̌ͅ ̵̢̳̹̲͕̫̮͙̇͊̐̓̎̿̎̚S̷̨̻̥̯̳̜̞͍͇̥͙͈̯̳̽́̆̈́̽̓̍͌͗̅̽̕͜͝ ̵̢̞͎̝͎̯̤̪͎̞̜̣̭̰̥̞̲͇̊̽̽̋̄̋͘̚͜U̷̢̧̖͓͎̣̰̖̟͍̗̼̭̞̳̣̠͖͈̎͗̒̈̂̍̀͌́̈́̌͛̿̊͜͠ ̵́̄͛̏̏̀͆͐̊̓̈̇̀̈́͌̔̽̾̾͋̓͝͝ͅM̴̢̛̹̙̳̰̩͙̙̦̤̞̦͙̞̦̗̈́̊̌́́̾̅̑͑͋̃͌͆͂̉̍͋͠͠ ̶̨̛̜̭̟̩̝͐̈́̓̄̂͋̓͒̄̽͑͛̑͠Ę̵̢̛͔̦̹͕̬̲̙̼̲͖̣̥͎̆͗͐̚͜ͅͅ
Now I want to hold my devices longer so the economy destroys even faster
Maybe if more of "the economy" went into the pockets of consumers they'd have money to buy phones as often as they used to.
Fuck this shit. Pay us more.
Fuck the economy. It can eat my ass.
Also with moore's law's death, why the fuck would anybody believe this productivity bullshit? Any device from 5 years ago can do what a device today can.
One more thing, wtf is this entitlement from electronics importers. Apple, google, samsung, etc can all fuck off until they move manufacturing back to north america.
29 months?! I don't get rid of my device until it doesn't hold a charge for longer than 10 minutes and no longer has security updates provided...My last phone was 7 years old.
I'm posting this from a 7 year old device.
7 year old device gang (Galaxy S9+)
S10 crew waits our turn to take up the flag.
Galaxy Note 8 here. And it still works great.
29 months is long? What good for "the economy"? New phone every year?
I kept my last phone (pixel 3A) for 6 years. Only got rid of it when it finally stopped charging.
18 months was the figure I once read somewhere. Absolutely ridiculous.
...so the joke goes... A woman comes into the store where she bought a toaster 45 years previous, she wishes to compliment the company for its many years of use and get a new toaster. The salesman is beside himself and calls his supervisor. The supervisor is also surprised and calls his boss in regional sales. Eventually, the woman is sent to the President of the company where she is thanked for her continues patronage, and is given a new toaster. The President of the company takes the old toaster to his Research and Development Department, and tells them, "Find out how this lasted so long and make sure it NEVER happens again!"
The most hilarious thing about this is that a toaster, being little more than a spring-loaded tray and heating elements, should last for decades to come. But they don't, because profits.
God forbid we sacrifice one-third of a percent of productivity to reduce our impact on nature.
Oh no, the economy!
The economic outlook is nobody having jobs and a bunch of racist sexist pedofile trillionares saying they own everything because of corruption. It’s pretty clear the consumer based economy is being dissolved for a new debt based feudal system where everything is owned and you’re allowed to live as a debtor slave or live in a for profit prison or die.
Only 29 months?! That’s a bit wasteful unless it’s being handed down…
Yeah. I've used two phones over the last 11 years, no need to waste money on getting the newest one every couple of years.
Iv used a grand total of 4 in the last 10. I upgraded and handed down my old phone once to my mother who had a 8 year old phone. Then again to my brother who had a 6 year old phone.
Then I broke mine once beyond repair...
Good. If the economy is designed to only survive with constant spending then fuck it
Perhaps it's all the cell carriers moving from 24 month device payment plans to 36 month terms. Flagship devices have become so costly that to keep the monthly device payment plan price the same the term needed to be extended.
Only two years? Seriously?
Why? It's not 2010s anymore, even 5-year-old devices still get updates these days. How are people affording to drop $1K on a new phone every two years? Or maybe the problem is that they're buying shitty cheap low-end phones that were obsolete out of the box. If you buy a good, used, last gen flagship, it'll last you many years.
They’re getting trade-in value for their old phone, hiding part of the remainder in a carrier contract, and getting loans for the rest. It’s only $1k if you’re one of those weirdos who likes to own things.
It’s not 2010s anymore, even 5-year-old devices still get updates these days.
Skill issue. Microsoft just decides when its end of life for everyone.
Oh I'm sorry AI can't buy devices, pay us bitches
I had my phone for 8 years until one day it bricked. That's the only reason i got a new one about a year ago. My wife is coming up on the two year mark and is asking for a new one and i have to keep reminding her that hers is fine.
The Galaxy S3 was the best phone they ever made. SD card, removable battery, built in IR blaster... it pains me that I can't still use it.
The S5 I believe was the last of the Samsung removable battery models, loved that phone.
I'm still rockin' my Galaxy S10 and the desktop I built in 2016. Both meet my needs just fine right now.
I'd still be using my OG Google Pixel if it hadn't suffered a sudden and unexpected death. I was using it like normal one day and it just turned off.
I honestly think we're close to the point where personal electronics are as powerful as they need to be and manufacturers are scrambling for more reasons for planned obsolescence. For example, the Windows 11 requirements are about secure boot, not processing power or memory requirements.
Won’t somebody please think of the economy?!?
The phone contracts are now all 24 or 36 months I stead of 18/24. Hence the average goes up
One of the things the article says is that "most people want newer phones" (if they could afford it). Do y'all feel that way?
I think I wouldn't switch my 4 year old device even if someone gave me a new one for free. Just the hassle of changing to a new phone is not worth it when the new phone isn't that much better. I'm just so over "tech". I don't have that excitement of new gadgets anymore.
Same. I haven't seen what I would call a new feature (or at least one worth a shit) in a decade. What the hell do I need 5 cameras for? Plus, the obsession with making devices thinner is so annoying. I'm still mad they took away my headphone jack.
Same. I cannot for the life of me understand why people have adopted phones as their computers - those shitty little screens and those shitty little fake keyboard and those shitty little toy CPUs. Why would anyone ever use one as their primary computer? For computing I use a real tricked-out desktop that I can upgrade and fix myself, with a 32" display and a real "ergonomic" keyboard. My phone is used for making phone calls, listening to music when I'm out of the house (I have a real audio system at home with real speakers and an amp and a real radio receiver), and reading websites and forums &etc when I'm at the gym. If I'm taking pictures I have a real DSLR for that as well as a couple of other casual-use digicams. Phones pretty much suck and I won't be buying another until the one I have dies or becomes too much of a privacy/security risk.
Oh, look, another example of "competition" ruining another feat of humanity
This is the new avocado toast
You know shit's bad when US media starts using the 'China bad' classic "but at what cost?" byline toward US consumers
Im guessing there's a sister article somewhere on Forbes reporting lower than anticipated earnings for US phone manufacturers
What are they even trying to say with the whole thing about Europe vs the US? If Europe had used their devices for shorter lengths of time, ie higher capital amounts spent on tech replacements, then they would have had higher productivity?
But that necessitates a level of investment that doesnt exist. Its like saying “if investments in the Congo were on parity with the US they would have increased productivity by 2 million percent”. Which is neither guaranteed to be true, as there are limitations in a smaller country, plus fairly useless to even say as there are limits on what is reasonably investable in the Congo without more risk than reward. Its literally useless econobabble arguing in favor of hypotheticals that make no sense on paper
Even the tech investments that occur already in the US make no sense on paper, consumer nor commercial. People dont need a new iphone every year. I get 5 years out of mine on average
Balls to that. You can pry my old devices from my cold dead hands.
This being next to this article https://www.pcworld.com/article/2984629/ram-is-so-expensive-that-stores-are-selling-it-at-market-prices.html
Is pure real life comedy gold.
My Pixel 6a has about 18 months of support left. I doubt I will be buying any other American based phone then so I'm seriously considering not having a smart phone. I think I have an old flip phone in the closet. It may come back into play.
That means no more Lemmy on work time :(
Use a tablet or laptop?
What’s the point of switching to a dumb phone to keep a tablet? Feels counterintuitive to me but alright
About the laptop, meh. Heavy, and company probably blocks external websites
Let's all feed the "economy beast" with fake, valueless, money tokens and buy hardware, while we all starve. Earn points!
This is utter bullshit. I've not bought a new phone in 7 years and even then the economic damage causes by my purchasing habits in those 7 years is an insignificant spec in the face of the economic damages wrought by the single Walmart in my home town each month.
What do they think we all want to be influencers in the newest greatest thing. Way overrated. Fuck the economy. Id rather stop contributing to the piles of ewaste.
We should make devices lower quality to increase profits! More failures!
Why are we always expected to change our behavior to benefit the economy? I need to buy more? The economy is all made up why can't it change to meet the needs of the people?
I’m on a 3 year cycle with the iPhone, now. Last one I held on to for 3 years and the 15 Plus I have now is going to be in use until, at least, the iPhone 18.
I don’t really give a shit about the impact on the economy.
I guess I’m on a 6 year cycle. And I’m currently 4 years in on my current phone.
I’ve been at 5-7 years for technology cycles since the 1990s, so I’m probably not impacting the economy that much.
So… is the economy in a bubble, or do we need more people in the economy? Because we don’t need people buying the same thing every two years.
Fuck the economy.
My phone can fuck right off. Other than GPS and music...its really not as valuable as I may have once thought
Perfectly happy with my iPhone 14 Pro Max, which has better build quality than the current offering, and my half decade old Surface Book Pro (running Linux, naturally) -- also built like a tank. When I need extra compute or storage, my NAS and home server await. For really serious stuff, I can always fire up an EC2 instance. Propping up the economy through consumerism is not my concern. This feels like a sponsored piece, akin to all of those articles after COVOD exhorting us to go back to the office full time.
Stop releasing new devices that are worse and/or much more expensive.
I have a Skylake box that still functions perfectly.
Yes, there's more power draw then I'd prefer, but why would I upgrade when I use nix and don't game?
I always have a spare phone on hand, because I literally use my phones until they no longer turn on.
Again, I don't game, and Pixel's have an active ROM community and long-term updates, why would I upgrade any earlier than that?
capitalists hate this one thing!
Yeah, I mean, it came up from my phone company lately, and I didn't see a point in changing yet. My phone is fine, the battery is the only thing that could be a bit better.
That collar round your neck? Silicon Valley. They are the overseers. The technocrats are kings, and your friends and family won't think another second about it. You lost privacy. Your lives are surveilled and sold on the market. Your splitting hairs over minutia and stupid fights over anything but regaining civilian autonomy over your life and data pleases them. More distractions are coming everyday in the distribution channels they control.
I'm still on my iPhone 12 Pro (most up to date currently on the market is 17 pro). Updated from a 10 but probably didn't need to (someone wanted my soon to be old phone). Upgraded to 10 from a 6 Plus only because I broke the camera. I think the last time I was on 1-2 year update cycle was around iPhone 5.
For me, I think once storage got to 128+ (iphone 6 onward), it became easier to hold on to the phone since storage didn't feel as limiting. Like I can take pictures and pretty much not have to delete anything to make room to use the phone/camera.
Technology is hardly worth the bother these days. It's jumped the shark.
I think the economy has bigger problems than you not being a good little consumer.
My phone is 5 years old and I'm not giving it up until it's bricked at this point. Shit is just too expensive to upgrade anymore.
People will loosen the purse strings once Trump is gone and stability resumes. If they have any money left after Trump is gone.