"some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses."
"Those who died are justified; by wearing the badge, they're your chosen whites"
These problems have been seen forever. Everyone is comfortable working through controlled opposition so we just chill on the ratchet. Its only going to get worse until people grow a spine and stop being tolerant, which is never going to happen.
Man, I know. Too many people didnt understand the point of these events or the cultural icons that spoke about them, and instead chose sides of an imagined political spectrum in North America. Abbie Hoffman and Fred Hampton are rolling in their graves.
The demand from it does make car manufacturers to produce more cars. It also floods the market with newer cars, causing older ones being phased out from use earlier
It's more about what happens after it stops running. If used cars are scarce and prices are high it makes a lot more sense to do that expensive engine repair. If used cars are cheap, you get more repairable cars going to the wrecker.
Not doing that either, but from what I understand after two years cars get you the most bang for buck. So economically it makes most sense to trade it in after two years for a new one. But of course you'll need to keep doing so to keep that *advantage "...
from what I understand after two years cars get you the most bang for buck
If you mean buying a two year old car, maybe. If you mean buying a new car every two years as implied by the previous commenter, absolutely not. Cars lose a ton of value in the first couple years.
It only works if you paid for the very first new vehicle in cash. Save up for 2 years and cash out the subsequent vehicles as well. Then the numbers pencil out.
If you to take a loan out it's fucking stupid.
After 2 years at 10k miles per year, historically you have lost 20% or so of the value of the car. With a 5 year loan you have paid the principle down to around 63-64% of the original value.
This means you can trade in the car for more than what you owe on the loan. The difference is a partial or total down payment on a new vehicle.
Lenders strongly encourage this behavior. Due to the amortization schedule 2/3rds of the interest is paid during the first 2 years. So people who do this with loans are always paying the highest intereston their vehicle.
The best thing to do finacially is to buy a car with 20-30k then run it for as long as possible. Once the cost of a common major repair is more than the value of the car, get another low mileage used one.
What if, bear with me here, what if people just don't have as much disposable income after the dramatic transfer of wealth to the rich class we've been seeing?
The economy is collapsing and the lower classes are feeling it already. The rich investor class isn't seeing it because the tech industry has been propping up the market with their investments going all-in with unrealistic expectations for AI technology. We are currently experiencing a K-shaped recovery where the richest are on a spending spree while the poorest are cutting back their expenses. How much more obvious must it be that this is what's going on?
You want the general population to start wasting their money on useless crap again, you'll have to give them more money to work with.
I agree, but I gotta point out the area you're wrong. It's the internet after all. So don't take my hyper-focus to heart.
The investors are absolutely aware. They don't care if AI has any material value. They will happily invest in a bubble and inflate far beyond what anyone believes is possible. The capitalist system has only evolved to be BETTER for capitalist when the bubble pops. They know this. They literally have lobbies dedicated to ensuring their wealth is protected.
I think we confuse the "irrationality of the market" with the investors being irrational themselves. They are doing exactly what any rational investor would do in an economic system that has been built to favor them.
I'm sure you're aware of this given your perspective. But I think it's important to use the right vocabulary to describe this. The problem is not a "broken system" with irrational actors. The system is working EXACTLY as intended and the investors are acting completely rationally within the economic system that has been created for their benefit. This isn't "bad capitalism" that needs regulation. This is just capitalism.
Bubbles and crashes are not something that investors are working hard to avoid. They are a feature of the contradictions of capitalism. Capitalist are very much aware of them and have ensured they can benefit from them while the working class takes the losses.
I have never thought in terms of this before but now that you explain it, why wouldn't they do exactly that when no one was held accountable after the 2008 financial crash, the big firms that fucked the market got bailed out, and the ones who had enough money when the dust settled could buy everything for cheap and increase their ownership?
I straight up laughed when people started talking about "skipping Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals" to "stick it to the Oligarchs," just like... must be nice to actually have enough disposable income to have been thinking about making leisure purchases during this. Some of us are broke enough that we've been putting off replacing things we need that are barely functional because we can't really afford it and sales like these are the only time we can.
They can pry my Galaxy S4 with removable battery and IR blaster out of my cold dead hands. (Thank you LineageOS, because Samsung dropped updates for it a decade ago.)
To be honest I'm surprised too... official builds are done, but there's still unofficial ones floating around. I expected everyone to give up on this thing by now, but the last update was Nov 16th (https://updater.oddsolutions.us/devices/jflteatt/builds)
I'm happy they are though. The phone may not be very powerful by today's standards but it does what I need it to.
Sitting on the same phone, i don't know what to do when it dies, really low spec ones got sd slots and a 1500 euro xperia..and thats it. But i like my local files so much
I miss my Galaxy S4... I had a blast running CyanogenMod on it. Ended up replacing it after ~3 years because I dropped it in the ocean (it mostly worked after I opened the back and cleaned it, all except the network card). Such a great device!
I'm really pissed that my current phone (S23) now has a locked bootloader because of the newest OneUI update. Damn it, Samsung.
I'm not in the market for a new phone at the moment, but that one does look awesome. I like phones that are a little bulkier rather than those super thin things you usually see nowadays that feel like they're gonna snap in half if you forget it in your back pocket.
Too bad the battery isn't removable though, that's the only bad thing I see with it. ( I know that's a rare thing to find a phone that does, but one can dream lol)
It is built for repairability and has accessible screws. I havent tried taking the back off yet tho. The right to repair attitude of the company is what drew me in too!
Ok that's pretty cool! I just saw in the specs that the battery wasn't removable, but that's sort of misleading I guess if you can pop it open with a simple screwdriver.
My daughter might be getting a new phone this spring, I'm gonna have to talk to her about something like this one. Thanks!
Nah, the 12 dead laptops undef my bed I use for hardware salvage and experiments are device hoarding. The multiple disassembled game consoles in my closet is device hoarding. None of it is sorted, the retro stuff isn't sorted, the new stuff isn't sorted.
I'm device hoarding. The average consumer is absolutely not.
The MSP I briefly worked at kept a bunch of notable obsolete computers in the main entry way as a kind of "museum" but they didn't really have the vision to make it look like actual displays, so it kinda almost looks like it's warm storage for hardware that could be pressed into service any day now
My pallet of used office PCs I got for $200 but have barely handed off any is device hoarding, keeping your phone for 2-4 years before upgrading is just being financially prudent
Thankfully wealth hoarders aka. billionaires pouring money into offshore bank accounts, unaffordable real estate, government bonds, and inflated stocks are all in our benefit. Only us peasants are being selfish.
But they are so generous because they are protecting the rainforest in subsuharen Africa or something. Case closed, no need for tax reform, they know better and are better.
Seriously, the belittling nature of some these billionaires borders on perverse, Bezos mentioned something about how he likes to be looked at like a daddy to his employees.
Don't know if it was serious or not but someone did a calculation of Smaug's wealth and he's on the lower end of the billionaire class. Like single digits compared to Bezos, Musk, and Gates. A literal mountain of gold is less money than they have acquired.
Better yet, let's get the heads of those bazillionaires and put them on pikes, and then run headlines about the excellent new trend of beheading the rich and putting their heads on pikes.
They all have a severe case of OCD, manifesting itself in hoarding behavior. If they hoarded cats as intensely as they hoard money, we would take ALL their cats away, redistribute them to more responsible owners, and hospitalize the OCD victim until their medication kicked in, and they can contribute to society in a positive manner.
They don't hoard cats, they hoard money, but the solution is the same - confiscate their stolen treasure, redistribute it to the people they stole it from, and incarcerate them until they learn to behave positively among society.
i refuse to upgrade, because newer phones are objectively a worse experience than older ones. They keep removing features in the name of "innovation" while putting more stuff in there that the market is actively telling them they don't want.
I miss the 90s early 2000s, where every 2 years the new products were much better, not only specs wise but categorically so. and a new phone did not cost a month of rent.
I have a 2020's phone, and besides battery life being weaker now. I see absolutely no reason to upgrade for a marginal spec bump.
When was the last time a new feature was added? like something that would make want to have it? they are afraid of any risk and so there is absolutely no innovation. the closest thing to any risk they took is when they removed the headphone jack to sell 300$ headphones.
You might even change the phone because of the battery and find out that your new device has an absolute power hog of a screen with no battery upgrade to match and your battery life is even worse now
Spec bumps are pretty irrelevant now anyways. Phones are currently in the land of diminishing returns for performance. They've been 'fast enough' for some time now, and the only thing that breaks them is software, not hardware. Newer hardware is marginally more efficient, so that's the only real world benefit.
I miss the old days of android where they were trying all manner of wild ideas. I want variety where one company has an eink screen protector. Put a laser pointer on a phone because... Because. Where are the projector phones? Maybe some crazy transformer phone with modules that all clip together to turn into a robot. Sure, they never sold well, but they were cool to see.
If you want people to buy a new phone every year "for the economy", the $1800 phone must be reduced to $50, and the quality stays at flagship levels.
The citizens are not here to make the oligarchs wealthy.
Fuck your economy.
For real... "device hoarding". Lol. What about "saving", "environmentally friendly", NOT wasting resources for nothing"? No, we need a negative term for that!
I had to buy a new phone for work. My current jailbroken one was rejecting the auth app I needed to logon suddenly after an update.
I tried using an older phone using a newer (lineage) OS, no root, but the App kept saying no. I was beginning to lose quite a few working hours on this, and my work said "no" when I asked them for a phone.
So I bought a Fairphone6. Unnecessarily. I'm certain it's a good phone, with great repairability, and I will probably switch to it at some point in the future if my current phone ever stops working.
But it exists to log me in to work. That's its sole purpose. I dread to think what I'll have to buy next if the logon app gets too old on this phone.
Buying an old galaxy s7/s8/s9, oneplus 3/5 or something like that would have cost 90% less and saved a phone from the landfill. Or one with a cracked (but working) screen for 95% less. If all you need is the login process, an old phone with stock firmware would have been good enough.
I have two of those old phones, I flashed the stock but the Android was too low, I flashed the lineage with Android 13, re-locked the bootloader, and the App still fucking said no. Once you've opened the bootloader even once, a flag is set in the gsettings.
At that point I wasn't even sure if my boss was going to let me keep this job, so I just went out and bought a new phone that I knew would be delivered the very next day
Fairphone seemed like a good longterm purchase. Im tired of collecting phones from family members and ex's and repurposing them ala lineage or postmarket.
Nokia N900 was the last phone I truly felt anything for. Fairphone seems to have a modular design that might accomodate a similar experience in the future
Same, I remember one long wonderful car trip with my parents through scenic europe where I was staring affixedly at my screen as I learned to write a game in python ncurses for the first time
Same thing happened to me ounce. I downloaded older version of the app and was able to keep using it.
Also, I've checked recently and in my country the employer can't legally force you to buy devices you need for work. If job requires a device they have to provide it. So it's worth checking the regulation.
Currently I'm forced to use MS Authenticator app but it works fine with Graphene OS.
All that being said, I also have two phones because my car has Android Auto and I only recently was made available on Graphene. EU has a big issue with dependency on US tech but I think we're seeing some progress here. They should really focus on Android and force AOSP compatibility on everyone.
Why in the hell are you buying a phone for your job? My company was trying to get us to download some app to make us all more "connected" and I told my boss that there was absolutely no reason for the company to "connect" with me unless I am on the production floor and then he can walk out of the air conditioned office and talk to me directly. Your work should not be on your personal devices.
My company recently took away text-message as a way to 2FA and wanted us to download their app. I told them (politely) that I had an authorization app already that I trusted because it was Open Source (Bitwarden) and could I use that instead of installing a corporate app on my device.
They said no.
Never install your work's corporate spyware on your own personal device. Rule #1. If they want me to install their shit, they can provide the phone for me to do it.
Seriously, I remember the days when buying the newest model of phone every year was seen as near parody levels of hyper-consumerism. It was lambasted, mocked, looked down on.
Not just phones. Except for PC hardware that's the approach I take with everything. Why would I throw away clothing if it isn't full of holes or doesn't fit at all? And even then, there might be other alternative than just throwing them away.
There just can't be endless growth with limited resources.
I have an iPhone 10, which is now locked to iOS 18.7.
I still won’t upgrade it, because fuck planned obsolescence. This device works and works very well. If I face any software/security issues in the future I will jailbreak it. Haven’t done so thus far only for the sake of banking apps.
This is my last bastion and the phone I’ll be using for the rest of my life, or until it decays to crumbs between my fingers.
Edit: FUCK. The screen just broke. Did I just jinx it? <instant_regret.jpg>
When this whole smart phone thing started, smart phones sucked. They ate a lot of power, so the battery didn't last, they were slow, both in computation, and loading data, the screens were pretty trash (dim, low res, huge bezels).... Everything needed improvements.
Now-a-days, my phone, whether new, or a couple years old, has an all day battery life, it's pretty quick and snappy, apps load quickly, data appears almost instantly on it, the screen is bright, with minimal bezel area.... Nothing I care about changes.
So why am I upgrading? Slightly better camera? Slightly better everything else? Stuff I don't perceive has been "improved" and I don't actually give a shit.
My reason to upgrade isn't there. Currently, my reason to upgrade is: this phone will no longer get upgrades, I should get something that will.... For security. That's it.
So why in the actual fuck, would I bother doing it if I don't have to? AI? No thanks.
Nothing wrong with that. I might get a pixel 9 second hand to replace my 7 when it finally goes.
Why would I need more? The 9 has what? 5+ years of updates that Google has committed to... So I'll still have ~4 years of security updates if I switch right now.
Brick phone plus tablet is the combination I am using currently, the tablet was £15 second hand. I could consider spending a bit if I got a significant upgrade out of it but probably not/can't be bothered to.
I had to buy a new phone recently. There were 4 or 5 different AI bullshit things trying to hassle me, I managed to remove most but one or two I couldn't uninstall.
I haven't intentionally got a phone to upgrade in well over a decade. I get a new phone because the last one no longer works in some way that matters enough that I will go and get a new one to replace it. The most expensive phone I have ever bought is a Pinephone.
I'm the same. Went from the Nexus 5x to the pixel, to the pixel 4, to the pixel 7.
I didn't really like the 5x, they screwed up on that one. Went to the 4 because the pixel wouldn't get updates anymore, went to the 7 because the 4 lost battery capacity and the local shop I usually use to replace my pixel batteries got bought out by dickheads... They refused to ship a battery in for me, I couldn't find another shop that would do it, so I just got the 7.
The 7 is still going strong. We'll see how much longer it lasts though. I expect to replace it sometime next year, but I might go with a used 9 rather than a new 10/11 or something.
I love it when people are called "Luddites" for hating the enshittified tech because guess what? The OG Luddites weren't actually "Luddites", either. They weren't afraid of progress per se, but its use against the average person. Unfortunately, the propaganda against them worked too well.
I've learned so much about the Luddites in the past couple of years. I've found it super useful to connect our current struggles to historical analogues.
It makes me think of the writings of philosopher and political theorist Frederic Jameson. He argues that one of the best ways we can resist the cultural logic of late stage capitalism is by making these connections to history — a quote he's known for is "always historicize". By reclaiming and reconnecting to our history, it's easier to understand it as a dialectical process.^[1]
[1]: this isn't the best summary of Jameson's points. He's a pretty dense writer, and I'm still working through his stuff. If you're someone who enjoys videos, Michael Burns is an ex-philosophy professor who has a few good videos on Jameson
Oh, man...they must absolutely love my Dad. He buys a new phone every 6-9 months. He has dementia and thinks every new phone is "broken" because he doesn't remember how they work anymore.
Photographers are the worse. They are still buying lenses from 1930 and all the decades between then and now. Just because glass still works regardless of how old it is.
So it's got some fongus dirt...opens it up, washes the glass and puts it back together!
So its got a scratch or the fongus ate the surfaces... No problem! Now it has character! Need more character? Add jelly! Its great for porn! Oh, I guess its good for porn in many ways. Jelly.
Kind of - 800$ is somewhere in a reasonable range that can be accomplished with small batch sizes. Unfortunately, privacy-focused devices are niche products because the majority of phone users are actual sheeple and only care about price for the megapixels.
At least I can no longer find the upcharge for customers abroad in their shop, that was in the order of a ridiculous 25% with no explanation given.
Still, I mostly wouldn't buy a phone from another country because warranty cases suck to handle with customs even when the vendor is cooperating.
My main interest in this phone was because it can be used instead of a laptop, with USB-C monitor and keyboard/mouse hooked up. Unfortunately they only support their own, overpriced monitor.
Pinephone has a "convergence package" (adapter, think KVM switch), but unfortunately with postmarketOS, the pinephone battery drained so fast that it has been collecting dust in a drawer since a week after I got it :(
Unfortunately, I do need a phone that can run apps. I can argue all day about how coercive and how much it sucks that so much services that I have to use regularly need only run on mainstream OS phones.
Try to boycott all non-standard interfaces whenever you can. If not boycotting means becoming complicit in establishing totalitarian regimes world-wide (and if you consequently think this through, this is the unavoidable outcome of surrendering all our data to truly empathyless and greedy billionaires), then the hoops you have to jump through to make a boycott work do not seem such a bad trade-off after all.
Using corporately configured smartphones is a very strong support of totalitarian monsters, if not outright fascists.
Jokes on you, the reason im not upgrading is that I cant disable it. So im holding out on my current devices until they die of natural causes (last smart phone lived 8 years and my FP4 should last 10), or I find a replacment I fully control.
(Just got rid of my last windows device a few weeks ago, still got the one for work, but it can be done).
My wife's Samsung Note10 is still going fine. Koodo is offering me a Pixel10 for free (no tab) if I choose direct banking withdraw option for my $50 phone plan instead of using my credit card monthly. They seem desperate.
We need to keep spending money, so that billionaires continue spending on mega yachts, so that mega yacht companies do not start firing their work force due to lack of sales
Frankly there is a way to get me to upgrade my phone from my current one but I can garuntee that there ain't many companies making phones to my upgrade standards. But here's a list.
-Easy to swap battery where I can just pop the lid and put a new one in.
-Aux jack because I want it.
-MicroSD card slot.
-Solid CPU, Ram, Storage, Et cetera.
-Give me actual buttons at the bottom you fucken cretins, I like my textile response you lousy motherfuckers.
-If you put the button on the back I'm breaking your back.
That's all I need, ideally it'd also be modular and upgradable but I severely doubt I'm getting that anytime soon. A lot of the problem with phones is that you can't really customize them to your needs, if I could I'd have a smartphone that'd look like it's from mid 90s scifi where it'd have a big fuck you battery on it and a host of controls along the side for quick use, but noooo it all has to be overly generic hyper standardized crap. Fucken hate modern phones.
So we aren't spending our minimum wages on $2000 phones often enough, because we're wasting it on steadily rising costs for food, housing, utilities, and health care?
I read that article before and it just felt kinda strange to me. Like, obviously, thats an attention grabbing headline, and yeah, it goes on to talk about how, Amercian consumers are holding on to their devices longer than before, but then I think what they really wanted to talk about when they say "costing the economy" was more focused on companies not upgrading their hardware as often.
Like, they go on to say that there's productivity being left on the table because the computer your job gives you is too slow to run heavy modern programs.
They should see my 2001 car. I gotta say I'm impressed with how issue-free it is. Never left me stranded and all it asks for are oil changes and proper washing in certain rust-prone spots.
I have never heard of persistent, weird, or expensive mechanical issues with an NC750.
Vietnam is full of poorly maintained Honda Waves (Groms in the US), that run as long as you keep putting oil in it and never change the brake fluid as long as it does close all the way, just keep tightening the calipers+handle and the squishier they get, adding more fluid after the 4th time the drum brakes need to be changed early because theyre full of brake fluid.
Ill raise your 2001 car with my pedal bike, and I do all the maintenance myself. Cars contribute far too much towards the economy, a bike may actually be the cheapest form of transport. Even compared to walking. Last time I looked at it, typically walking wears through shoes faster than cycling wears through bikes on a cost/mile basis.
Its at least possible to store a bike inside your house, I live in a UK sized house (60m²) and my bike lives inside. How much does 1 person need? For the 2 of us a weeks shopping comfortably fits in 2 standard size shopping bags, my bike has pannier bags on the back that are larger than that and you can always get a longtail or even a full cargo bike if you need more space.
Yeah, the title (from the CNBC article) is completely wrong. Device hoarding means that they are buying many phones and hoards all those phones in their place.
Whoppsie-doodle, that's one's actually how bad actors farm shitloads fraudulent clicks to boost spurious news articles, manipulate search results, and spam political propaganda at social networking sites. My mistake!
"Buy the new Google Pixel T1000!" "okay, why" (advert shows the camera, and some "Ok google do this" feature) "so nothing new since the last 5 phones, eh?"
They last increase in the Federal Minimum Wage was in 2009, when it was raised to $7.25. it's only been raised twice since 1997, for a total of $2.10.
The original iPhone was released in 2007. So while smart phones have become so ubiquitous that every person requires a phone just to navigate modern society, the wages required to afford both the phone and a monthly plan have not kept up.
We now have to purchase and carry a device that did not exist 20 years ago, and yet even minimum wage workers are expected to have a cell phone to communicate with work, get their schedules, etc.
And now they're complaining that we aren't coughing up an extra $2000 every year?
I got a battery replacement last year and it’s been great since. It’s even outlived the leather case I bought with it, but now I can’t find any new cases.
I went to Linux out of techie obstinance, but looking at the insane number of "Backup to OneDrive", "Ask Copilot" poison-patterns Windows is constantly adding to 11, I'm really starting to consider whether to suggest Mint to my parents.
I want them to have an experience as close as possible to Windows as they're used to it - and that may not come from Windows anymore.
Do it, got my parents on mint and I daily mint. Other than the occasional trouble shooting, and command prompt work that I do for them when needed, they have been loving it.
And of course pixels for the whole family, as always ;)
Linux mint is great. Even if they need to use the console, there are only so many basic commands they need (and you can write them down in a text file) that they copy-paste that it is a trivia process.
Add a reminder-listing of those commands and what they do at the end of the .bashrc file in their home directory and it will pop up that reminder list automatically whenever they start the terminal.
It’s also wrong that this has a negative effect on the economy. If people consume less and save more, those savings will be invested by banks in businesses.
Interesting thought experiment. but if hypothetically, we all stopped buying apple products, but instead using that money to buy apple shares (what a bank would do). Would that be better or worse for Apple? could they still pay their staff (ignoring the fact that apple would fire everyone and rake in the money).
Well, the way I understand this, if we did it for reasons related to their prices and quality, yes. They could use the money to make their production cheaper or quality better.
But this ignores the fact that they might not be able to lower the prices or increase the quality enough for any of us to return to them because we are all doing it for other reasons. If we do it because they are rent seeking to make us hooked by locking us into systems, having proprietary features, and exploiting child labor or whatever they do, then they might stop doing these things if there is enough pressure. Then we might return to buying. But a company cannot will not gain much from stocks if there is no chance to have revenues in the future. But the stocks would also become worthless. I think as consumers we should choose more ethically, to force companies to improve their practices. And not treat it as a cancel culture (I believe boycitting a practice work better than boycotting a company politically). For this to work consumers have to accept lower quality for a while. We have to be okay with not having the top proprietary features in order to use alternatives that have been kept from catching up with the big ones.
Our car is over 10 years old and things are starting to play up. A door sensor here, and a car seatbelt weight sensing module there. The little shitty things that were not needed for literally decades, but are now an integral part of the MOT certificate we need to pass every year in the UK to keep our cars on the road.
I'm thinking about and doing research on older cars that are reliable... but not full of sensors that will shit the bed at the slightest opportunity.
I understand, and agree totally, that cars need to be safe. I'm just sick of enshittification. Being beeped at and nannied into things. Mostly I'm annoyed at the planned obsolescence of shitty sensors and modules put in cars just to fuck up.
The last (used) srs module I had to buy was the size of a sandwich yet cost nearly a third of what the car is worth in total.
I agree that cars need to be safe, I'm just not willing to do any effort to help towards safety and will complain about features that remind me of my unsafe behavior.
I have a much newer car, with even more sensors, "alertness detection" and all that. As long as I'm wearing my seatbelt, respecting speed limits and security distances and not looking at my phone, there's nothing beeping at me. Which is what I am supposed to be doing while operating heavy machinery, anyway.
This just means they made good enough products. People save some money, can use that money to buy something else they need, maybe just not from the same company. It saves the planet a little bit.
The "use that money to buy something else" part means the premise of the title is not just misguided for all the reasons others point out, but it's wrong even from a pure "capitalism must go up" view. The people who are keeping phones longer are spending money on other things, driving the economy just as much or potentially more. The extreme rich people and corporations who are hoarding wealth (thus withdrawing it from the economy) are still buying new phones every year as a status symbol.
Apple is gonna make a new campaign about how only poor and dumb people are holding on to their phones for more than a year and americans will camp in front of apple stores again.
When I saw the title, I thought this was talking about like keeping old devices and never using them again after buying new ones. How is continuing to use an old device instead of buying more eventual waste "hoarding" smh...
By their logic, I’m hoarding Thanksgiving leftovers by planning to eat them over the next couple days. How dare I not go out and buy new food when I already have good food to eat!
Not to be a buzzkill but the article is kind of about productivity lost because businesses don't upgrade their equipment.
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.
Buddy of mine made a point of walking and chatting around the office. When his boss got fed up with that and called him out, he pointed to the PC where you saw the progress bar slooowly creeping upwards. Those old PCs were replaced in record time.
I absolutely fall into this category. I kept my Galaxy S10 going for as long as I possibly could. New screen. New battery. Three new back shells. New camera module. Hell, I would probably still be using it if the USB-C port didn't break. That was where I drew the line. Like when my 16 year old Pontiac G6 needed a second catalytic converter.
The hell do you folks do to phones? I've got an S10e. Bought it the day it launched. I've gone through a case and a couple screen protectors but the phone is 100% original. Battery's a little tired, USB port needs to be held at a 4.38652 degree angle to work, I charge it wirelessly. I'm going to hang onto it for another month or two and then switch to something that can run GrapheneOS.
The battery, I'm pretty sure, is from rapid charging. The screen was from falling out of my car onto the pavement. Two of the backs and the camera were from having it in my pocket and leaning on/being hit by things. The 3rd back is because one broke while replacing the camera. The back shell was curved glass, and was very easy to break.
I have a Samsung S23, and it is going to be the first time my phone WON'T either be destroyed or stolen before it is fully paid off. I won't be getting another phone until something like Cape phone is fully functional in my area and I can have a GrapheneOS compatiable device. I will not be allowing any more bullshit be spying on me more than I need to (which ideally should be zero, but that is basically impossible).
It's the same trend as desktops then laptops then phones then now on small smartwatches, they get good enough and standardized enough that they didn't really change much anymore. And the mature technology means that as long as the old one works people won't upgrade it until it breaks.
For me personally the last three phones I got were destroyed, stolen, destroyed... in that order. Ironically I didn't armor up the last two phones due to the fact that the first phone was cased pretty strongly and was broken BECAUSE of that .
However it seems that my current phone is armored up and it is lasting well. Btw my previous phone was a Motorola G5 Power. Meaning it was grapheneOS compatible... Just my rotten luck.
Lol "hoarding"... If they were truly that concerned about a stagnant economy they could sell product at cost and not inflated retail. That would incentivize moving a lot more product while turning all the gears in the supply chain and satisfying a ton of jobs throughout.
But they don't really care the economy itself, just that it can be harnessed to make a rich guy richer as a byproduct. An economy that isn't making the rich richer is worthless to them, so they come up with articles like this to shame people.
Let me see how long my 23-year BMW E46 could live :) My phone has more than 5 years and I am going to squeeze as much as possible from it. I am very happy when I don't need to buy a thing.
Other than serious gaming I can't imagine why you'd need a top of the line device, and when it comes down to it, who tf is doing serious phone gaming? And if you're doing work on your phone and you need to have a lot of computing power to have like 10 programs open that you're constantly switching between, wouldn't a tiny screen be frustrating?
Basically it's my contention that new phones are stupid. In this 3 hour video I'll argue that...
Stepping down in tech myself. My next phone when this one gives out is going to be a dumb flip phone. No smart device appliances, the IoT is a bad idea. No thermostat the local municipality can control remotely. If I were to put in a video surveillance system it's be old coaxial cable cameras with a DVR.
But there it was…the network who some right wingers will say is a leftist cesspool…engaged in full-blown end-stage capitalism.
I mean…it still seems like satire. The article talking about how using your phone for 22 months puts strain on the network because it has to become backwards compatible…or how the repair market is unregulated (ie a black market) and therefore damages the economy.
As in, I get the latest and greatest, and then use it for a minimum of 5 years or until it can no longer take the currently released OS.
And because I run with Apple, that usually means 6-7 years between phones.
Android would have cost me a hell of a lot more over the years with the same upgrade pattern. Even now, most Android phones see only 3 or so years of full OS updates (if that!!), leaving their arses flapping in the wind for every remote exploit and malware under the sun once they’re abandoned.
That movie always wilds me out because it was so much better back then for this shit, and it was still recognized that it’s insane we live like this.
"some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses."
"Those who died are justified; by wearing the badge, they're your chosen whites"
These problems have been seen forever. Everyone is comfortable working through controlled opposition so we just chill on the ratchet. Its only going to get worse until people grow a spine and stop being tolerant, which is never going to happen.
Man, I know. Too many people didnt understand the point of these events or the cultural icons that spoke about them, and instead chose sides of an imagined political spectrum in North America. Abbie Hoffman and Fred Hampton are rolling in their graves.
...hindsight, for some reason, always appears in 20/20...
What is this from?
They Live.
Yes, but what’s the name of the movie?
No, What's on second.
Third base!
Brought to you by rich boomers who bought a new car every 2 years. True story.
I never know what kind of car my dad drives because he seemingly always has a new one.
If my new car don’t last me 10 years I’m going be petty pissed off.
To be fair, those cars don't just get set on fire when they're done with them. They're supplying the used car market.
It's a terrible idea financially, but it isn't actually wasteful.
The demand from it does make car manufacturers to produce more cars. It also floods the market with newer cars, causing older ones being phased out from use earlier
Any car that runs will be driven until it no longer runs
It's more about what happens after it stops running. If used cars are scarce and prices are high it makes a lot more sense to do that expensive engine repair. If used cars are cheap, you get more repairable cars going to the wrecker.
I question how well someone who knows they won't keep their care for long takes care of it over the limited time of ownership.
Had an uncle who did that, learned it from his dad. I never understood that.
Not doing that either, but from what I understand after two years cars get you the most bang for buck. So economically it makes most sense to trade it in after two years for a new one. But of course you'll need to keep doing so to keep that *advantage "...
If you mean buying a two year old car, maybe. If you mean buying a new car every two years as implied by the previous commenter, absolutely not. Cars lose a ton of value in the first couple years.
Pretty sure he means after 2 years it gets a lot harder to sell. So they're selling at the moment when they've had a "new car" longest.
Not saying it's a good idea, just that there's a logic to it.
It only works if you paid for the very first new vehicle in cash. Save up for 2 years and cash out the subsequent vehicles as well. Then the numbers pencil out.
If you to take a loan out it's fucking stupid.
After 2 years at 10k miles per year, historically you have lost 20% or so of the value of the car. With a 5 year loan you have paid the principle down to around 63-64% of the original value.
This means you can trade in the car for more than what you owe on the loan. The difference is a partial or total down payment on a new vehicle.
Lenders strongly encourage this behavior. Due to the amortization schedule 2/3rds of the interest is paid during the first 2 years. So people who do this with loans are always paying the highest intereston their vehicle.
The best thing to do finacially is to buy a car with 20-30k then run it for as long as possible. Once the cost of a common major repair is more than the value of the car, get another low mileage used one.
What if, bear with me here, what if people just don't have as much disposable income after the dramatic transfer of wealth to the rich class we've been seeing?
The economy is collapsing and the lower classes are feeling it already. The rich investor class isn't seeing it because the tech industry has been propping up the market with their investments going all-in with unrealistic expectations for AI technology. We are currently experiencing a K-shaped recovery where the richest are on a spending spree while the poorest are cutting back their expenses. How much more obvious must it be that this is what's going on?
You want the general population to start wasting their money on useless crap again, you'll have to give them more money to work with.
They've also been propping up the market with some sketchy circular deals, swearing up and down they're not like Enron.
I agree, but I gotta point out the area you're wrong. It's the internet after all. So don't take my hyper-focus to heart.
The investors are absolutely aware. They don't care if AI has any material value. They will happily invest in a bubble and inflate far beyond what anyone believes is possible. The capitalist system has only evolved to be BETTER for capitalist when the bubble pops. They know this. They literally have lobbies dedicated to ensuring their wealth is protected.
I think we confuse the "irrationality of the market" with the investors being irrational themselves. They are doing exactly what any rational investor would do in an economic system that has been built to favor them.
I'm sure you're aware of this given your perspective. But I think it's important to use the right vocabulary to describe this. The problem is not a "broken system" with irrational actors. The system is working EXACTLY as intended and the investors are acting completely rationally within the economic system that has been created for their benefit. This isn't "bad capitalism" that needs regulation. This is just capitalism.
Bubbles and crashes are not something that investors are working hard to avoid. They are a feature of the contradictions of capitalism. Capitalist are very much aware of them and have ensured they can benefit from them while the working class takes the losses.
I have never thought in terms of this before but now that you explain it, why wouldn't they do exactly that when no one was held accountable after the 2008 financial crash, the big firms that fucked the market got bailed out, and the ones who had enough money when the dust settled could buy everything for cheap and increase their ownership?
I agree with Frank Herberts take on the "power corrupts": its not power that corrupts people, corrupt systems attract corrupt people.
yeah but the culture war demands that every problem is attributed to the woke and the weak minorities /s
...you need to add the /s... otherwise, you are just an ass
will do
those people have nothing else left to cut back on.
I straight up laughed when people started talking about "skipping Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals" to "stick it to the Oligarchs," just like... must be nice to actually have enough disposable income to have been thinking about making leisure purchases during this. Some of us are broke enough that we've been putting off replacing things we need that are barely functional because we can't really afford it and sales like these are the only time we can.
Yes, these people are truly insane. I recently read the following headline:
(Translated from German, source | Rheinmetall is an arms manufacturer)
wtf
This world is fucked.
They can pry my Galaxy S4 with removable battery and IR blaster out of my cold dead hands. (Thank you LineageOS, because Samsung dropped updates for it a decade ago.)
You're still getting Lineage updates for the S4?! That one maintainer keeping your phone alive:
To be honest I'm surprised too... official builds are done, but there's still unofficial ones floating around. I expected everyone to give up on this thing by now, but the last update was Nov 16th (https://updater.oddsolutions.us/devices/jflteatt/builds)
I'm happy they are though. The phone may not be very powerful by today's standards but it does what I need it to.
This guy gets it.
Samsung s20 fe with microsd slot for me. I got comics and audoobooks to download! Let me use expandable storage!
Sitting on the same phone, i don't know what to do when it dies, really low spec ones got sd slots and a 1500 euro xperia..and thats it. But i like my local files so much
You would need a lifetime of comics to fill even a few dozen gigabytes...
Nope! The power rangers year 1 omnibus is over a gig.
I miss my Galaxy S4... I had a blast running CyanogenMod on it. Ended up replacing it after ~3 years because I dropped it in the ocean (it mostly worked after I opened the back and cleaned it, all except the network card). Such a great device!
I'm really pissed that my current phone (S23) now has a locked bootloader because of the newest OneUI update. Damn it, Samsung.
Unihertz titan has an ir blaster and headphone jack for under 300 bucks, just sayin. Love mine
I'm not in the market for a new phone at the moment, but that one does look awesome. I like phones that are a little bulkier rather than those super thin things you usually see nowadays that feel like they're gonna snap in half if you forget it in your back pocket.
Too bad the battery isn't removable though, that's the only bad thing I see with it. ( I know that's a rare thing to find a phone that does, but one can dream lol)
It is built for repairability and has accessible screws. I havent tried taking the back off yet tho. The right to repair attitude of the company is what drew me in too!
Ok that's pretty cool! I just saw in the specs that the battery wasn't removable, but that's sort of misleading I guess if you can pop it open with a simple screwdriver.
My daughter might be getting a new phone this spring, I'm gonna have to talk to her about something like this one. Thanks!
Nah, the 12 dead laptops undef my bed I use for hardware salvage and experiments are device hoarding. The multiple disassembled game consoles in my closet is device hoarding. None of it is sorted, the retro stuff isn't sorted, the new stuff isn't sorted.
I'm device hoarding. The average consumer is absolutely not.
Is it hoarding or simply a step of Reduce, Reuse Recycle?
Godspeed, you future museum contributor!
The hope is to eventually open a repair cafe/lounge with the
carcassesdisassembled dead retro units as display piecesMy sibling in Aiyuna, that is a museum with extra steps <3
If you make it there and happen to recall this interaction, I would be glad to hear of it!
In a heartbeat, friend!
The MSP I briefly worked at kept a bunch of notable obsolete computers in the main entry way as a kind of "museum" but they didn't really have the vision to make it look like actual displays, so it kinda almost looks like it's warm storage for hardware that could be pressed into service any day now
My pallet of used office PCs I got for $200 but have barely handed off any is device hoarding, keeping your phone for 2-4 years before upgrading is just being financially prudent
“Costing the economy”
Thankfully wealth hoarders aka. billionaires pouring money into offshore bank accounts, unaffordable real estate, government bonds, and inflated stocks are all in our benefit. Only us peasants are being selfish.
If those billionaires wanted to increase the GDP they should pay more so more money circulates.
But they are so generous because they are protecting the rainforest in subsuharen Africa or something. Case closed, no need for tax reform, they know better and are better.
Seriously, the belittling nature of some these billionaires borders on perverse, Bezos mentioned something about how he likes to be looked at like a daddy to his employees.
Can we get a headline about bazillionaires hoarding wealth?
Some journalist should start calling them all Smaug. The problem is a bunch of us asshats would then be like "Smaug did nothing wrong!"
Why should dragons pay tax. He earned that gold fair and square!
#temporarilyembarrasseddragons
Don't know if it was serious or not but someone did a calculation of Smaug's wealth and he's on the lower end of the billionaire class. Like single digits compared to Bezos, Musk, and Gates. A literal mountain of gold is less money than they have acquired.
Better yet, let's get the heads of those bazillionaires and put them on pikes, and then run headlines about the excellent new trend of beheading the rich and putting their heads on pikes.
They all have a severe case of OCD, manifesting itself in hoarding behavior. If they hoarded cats as intensely as they hoard money, we would take ALL their cats away, redistribute them to more responsible owners, and hospitalize the OCD victim until their medication kicked in, and they can contribute to society in a positive manner.
They don't hoard cats, they hoard money, but the solution is the same - confiscate their stolen treasure, redistribute it to the people they stole it from, and incarcerate them until they learn to behave positively among society.
i refuse to upgrade, because newer phones are objectively a worse experience than older ones. They keep removing features in the name of "innovation" while putting more stuff in there that the market is actively telling them they don't want.
I miss the 90s early 2000s, where every 2 years the new products were much better, not only specs wise but categorically so. and a new phone did not cost a month of rent.
I have a 2020's phone, and besides battery life being weaker now. I see absolutely no reason to upgrade for a marginal spec bump.
When was the last time a new feature was added? like something that would make want to have it? they are afraid of any risk and so there is absolutely no innovation. the closest thing to any risk they took is when they removed the headphone jack to sell 300$ headphones.
The whole industry is being enshitified.
You might even change the phone because of the battery and find out that your new device has an absolute power hog of a screen with no battery upgrade to match and your battery life is even worse now
Hey now, they saved half a millimeter of thickness with that smaller battery. You should be thanking them.
Spec bumps are pretty irrelevant now anyways. Phones are currently in the land of diminishing returns for performance. They've been 'fast enough' for some time now, and the only thing that breaks them is software, not hardware. Newer hardware is marginally more efficient, so that's the only real world benefit.
I miss the old days of android where they were trying all manner of wild ideas. I want variety where one company has an eink screen protector. Put a laser pointer on a phone because... Because. Where are the projector phones? Maybe some crazy transformer phone with modules that all clip together to turn into a robot. Sure, they never sold well, but they were cool to see.
I love my flip open smartphone. That was a new feature worth paying for. It's so small in my pocket.
Or if you go for the "full-size", a tablet that folds into a standard phone size.
Foldable are nice either direction you want to go.
If you want people to buy a new phone every year "for the economy", the $1800 phone must be reduced to $50, and the quality stays at flagship levels. The citizens are not here to make the oligarchs wealthy. Fuck your economy.
For real... "device hoarding". Lol. What about "saving", "environmentally friendly", NOT wasting resources for nothing"? No, we need a negative term for that!
In the meantime EU is forcing manufactures to use replaceable batteries, provide updates for 5 years and spare parts for 7 years.
I had to buy a new phone for work. My current jailbroken one was rejecting the auth app I needed to logon suddenly after an update.
I tried using an older phone using a newer (lineage) OS, no root, but the App kept saying no. I was beginning to lose quite a few working hours on this, and my work said "no" when I asked them for a phone.
So I bought a Fairphone6. Unnecessarily. I'm certain it's a good phone, with great repairability, and I will probably switch to it at some point in the future if my current phone ever stops working.
But it exists to log me in to work. That's its sole purpose. I dread to think what I'll have to buy next if the logon app gets too old on this phone.
Buying an old galaxy s7/s8/s9, oneplus 3/5 or something like that would have cost 90% less and saved a phone from the landfill. Or one with a cracked (but working) screen for 95% less. If all you need is the login process, an old phone with stock firmware would have been good enough.
I have two of those old phones, I flashed the stock but the Android was too low, I flashed the lineage with Android 13, re-locked the bootloader, and the App still fucking said no. Once you've opened the bootloader even once, a flag is set in the gsettings.
At that point I wasn't even sure if my boss was going to let me keep this job, so I just went out and bought a new phone that I knew would be delivered the very next day
If it was a work requirement, it should have been provided by work. Employers passing their own costs down to employees needs to stop.
Agreed, but welcome to the US where people are fearful of losing their health insurance because they got fired after pushing back at their job.
OP is on feddit.uk, so probably not USian.
Well, then a S20 or something, still around 100 bucks/pounds/euro and new enough. Not 90% but 75%,still a good deal.
Fairphone seemed like a good longterm purchase. Im tired of collecting phones from family members and ex's and repurposing them ala lineage or postmarket.
Nokia N900 was the last phone I truly felt anything for. Fairphone seems to have a modular design that might accomodate a similar experience in the future
The Nokia N900 is the only phone I actually have been excited about. Still have the muscle memory.
Same, I remember one long wonderful car trip with my parents through scenic europe where I was staring affixedly at my screen as I learned to write a game in python ncurses for the first time
Same thing happened to me ounce. I downloaded older version of the app and was able to keep using it.
Also, I've checked recently and in my country the employer can't legally force you to buy devices you need for work. If job requires a device they have to provide it. So it's worth checking the regulation.
Currently I'm forced to use MS Authenticator app but it works fine with Graphene OS.
All that being said, I also have two phones because my car has Android Auto and I only recently was made available on Graphene. EU has a big issue with dependency on US tech but I think we're seeing some progress here. They should really focus on Android and force AOSP compatibility on everyone.
Why in the hell are you buying a phone for your job? My company was trying to get us to download some app to make us all more "connected" and I told my boss that there was absolutely no reason for the company to "connect" with me unless I am on the production floor and then he can walk out of the air conditioned office and talk to me directly. Your work should not be on your personal devices.
Yep. I asked, they said "no", and something along the lines of "if we make an exception for you then blah blah blah". I need the job, I swallowed it.
That sucks and I hate it for you. I hope you can find a better job eventually.
Tbh they're a pretty good company, and treat their employees pretty well on the whole. It's just this one pain point, which I think I can live with
My company recently took away text-message as a way to 2FA and wanted us to download their app. I told them (politely) that I had an authorization app already that I trusted because it was Open Source (Bitwarden) and could I use that instead of installing a corporate app on my device.
They said no.
Never install your work's corporate spyware on your own personal device. Rule #1. If they want me to install their shit, they can provide the phone for me to do it.
Seriously, I remember the days when buying the newest model of phone every year was seen as near parody levels of hyper-consumerism. It was lambasted, mocked, looked down on.
I just thought it was some rich people shit, when I was a kid
Hollywood movies made people feel like they were the rich, important ones.
Work productivity? That's a strange way to say "shareholder value".
In an age where phones get seven or more years of software support theres very little reason not to use your phone until it breaks
Not just phones. Except for PC hardware that's the approach I take with everything. Why would I throw away clothing if it isn't full of holes or doesn't fit at all? And even then, there might be other alternative than just throwing them away.
There just can't be endless growth with limited resources.
I have an iPhone 10, which is now locked to iOS 18.7.
I still won’t upgrade it, because fuck planned obsolescence. This device works and works very well. If I face any software/security issues in the future I will jailbreak it. Haven’t done so thus far only for the sake of banking apps.
This is my last bastion and the phone I’ll be using for the rest of my life, or until it decays to crumbs between my fingers.
Edit: FUCK. The screen just broke. Did I just jinx it? <instant_regret.jpg>
Money hoarding by billionaires is literally destroying the entire world
You see, here's the thing.
When this whole smart phone thing started, smart phones sucked. They ate a lot of power, so the battery didn't last, they were slow, both in computation, and loading data, the screens were pretty trash (dim, low res, huge bezels).... Everything needed improvements.
Now-a-days, my phone, whether new, or a couple years old, has an all day battery life, it's pretty quick and snappy, apps load quickly, data appears almost instantly on it, the screen is bright, with minimal bezel area.... Nothing I care about changes.
So why am I upgrading? Slightly better camera? Slightly better everything else? Stuff I don't perceive has been "improved" and I don't actually give a shit.
My reason to upgrade isn't there. Currently, my reason to upgrade is: this phone will no longer get upgrades, I should get something that will.... For security. That's it.
So why in the actual fuck, would I bother doing it if I don't have to? AI? No thanks.
I'd start questioning an economy that relied on getting rid of perfectly good things.
As is right.
The ability to repair your stuff has been all but eliminated. Just throw it away and buy a new one so some billionaire can make more money.
Also 1k or more? Fuck that. I usually get 1 to 2 year old phones. My pixel 6 pro is still doing well.
Nothing wrong with that. I might get a pixel 9 second hand to replace my 7 when it finally goes.
Why would I need more? The 9 has what? 5+ years of updates that Google has committed to... So I'll still have ~4 years of security updates if I switch right now.
Same. Plus you're upcycling.
If you turn your phone off at night and just leave it unplugged the majority of the time, it will last for many, many years.
Hell yes.
Brick phone plus tablet is the combination I am using currently, the tablet was £15 second hand. I could consider spending a bit if I got a significant upgrade out of it but probably not/can't be bothered to.
Yeah, I only use my tablet to read e-books and stream video, so it's pretty cheap too. No need for anything more.
I had to buy a new phone recently. There were 4 or 5 different AI bullshit things trying to hassle me, I managed to remove most but one or two I couldn't uninstall.
I haven't intentionally got a phone to upgrade in well over a decade. I get a new phone because the last one no longer works in some way that matters enough that I will go and get a new one to replace it. The most expensive phone I have ever bought is a Pinephone.
It's been that way for a long time. I went Nexus 6P -> Pixel 2 -> Pixel 6
I don't break my phones, so I basically buy the device with the longest software support and keep them as long as support lasts.
I'm the same. Went from the Nexus 5x to the pixel, to the pixel 4, to the pixel 7.
I didn't really like the 5x, they screwed up on that one. Went to the 4 because the pixel wouldn't get updates anymore, went to the 7 because the 4 lost battery capacity and the local shop I usually use to replace my pixel batteries got bought out by dickheads... They refused to ship a battery in for me, I couldn't find another shop that would do it, so I just got the 7.
The 7 is still going strong. We'll see how much longer it lasts though. I expect to replace it sometime next year, but I might go with a used 9 rather than a new 10/11 or something.
Hoarding - i do no think this word means what you think it means. This is the opposite of hoarding, this is reducing the amount of objects you possess
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hoarding
I did think this would be about people like me — I still have my acer phone from 2009
Weren’t these the same people saying that we should stop buying new iPhones and avocado toast?
Maybe if any of the good features coming out today wasn't paired with the monkey's paw that is:
Maybe then consumers would actually get excited by new developments. All these trends are doing is turning the new generations into luddites.
I love it when people are called "Luddites" for hating the enshittified tech because guess what? The OG Luddites weren't actually "Luddites", either. They weren't afraid of progress per se, but its use against the average person. Unfortunately, the propaganda against them worked too well.
I've learned so much about the Luddites in the past couple of years. I've found it super useful to connect our current struggles to historical analogues.
It makes me think of the writings of philosopher and political theorist Frederic Jameson. He argues that one of the best ways we can resist the cultural logic of late stage capitalism is by making these connections to history — a quote he's known for is "always historicize". By reclaiming and reconnecting to our history, it's easier to understand it as a dialectical process.^[1]
[1]: this isn't the best summary of Jameson's points. He's a pretty dense writer, and I'm still working through his stuff. If you're someone who enjoys videos, Michael Burns is an ex-philosophy professor who has a few good videos on Jameson
Hoard cool cars in a secret garage never to see the light of day ever again? Collecting.
Keep your phone for 5 years until you're forced to upgrade? Hoarding.
Rough housing with your cousins at Thanksgiving? Horsing.
Having hobo sex in a brand new Prius? Soup kitchen.
Goddamn Dirty Mike and the Boys
Oh, man...they must absolutely love my Dad. He buys a new phone every 6-9 months. He has dementia and thinks every new phone is "broken" because he doesn't remember how they work anymore.
Maybe it's time for a jitterbug phone instead
Sweet mother of God...I did not know that was a thing. I am going to have a serious look at that. Thank you.
Blue checkmarks fund Nazis…
...in more than 1 way...
It's TERRORISM to NOT Update your Technology every year according to Trump's NPSM-7!
I've been costing the economy for decades now
Photographers are the worse. They are still buying lenses from 1930 and all the decades between then and now. Just because glass still works regardless of how old it is.
So it's got some fongus dirt...opens it up, washes the glass and puts it back together!
So its got a scratch or the fongus ate the surfaces... No problem! Now it has character! Need more character? Add jelly! Its great for porn! Oh, I guess its good for porn in many ways. Jelly.
Light leaks? It's art!
Dude photographers are about the only ones anywhere near as bad as computer enthusiasts about scavenging treasures from other people's trash!
Fongus amongus.
Will someone sell me one that is secure, doesn't resell my data, isn't preloaded with useless AI "features", and doesn't have Israeli Spyware on it?
I'm waiting for Canada to allow some of the Chinese models in Huawei looks great. They may still collect data, but not for the US tech oligarchs.
IDK about Israeli spyware, but I'm running e/OS on a Fairphone, and it's decent.
I want to get one, but it is over twice the price in the US
I think the Librem phone might be for you
Damn, still expensive for a 2020 phone.
Kind of - 800$ is somewhere in a reasonable range that can be accomplished with small batch sizes. Unfortunately, privacy-focused devices are niche products because the majority of phone users are actual sheeple and only care about price for the megapixels. At least I can no longer find the upcharge for customers abroad in their shop, that was in the order of a ridiculous 25% with no explanation given. Still, I mostly wouldn't buy a phone from another country because warranty cases suck to handle with customs even when the vendor is cooperating.
My main interest in this phone was because it can be used instead of a laptop, with USB-C monitor and keyboard/mouse hooked up. Unfortunately they only support their own, overpriced monitor.
Pinephone has a "convergence package" (adapter, think KVM switch), but unfortunately with postmarketOS, the pinephone battery drained so fast that it has been collecting dust in a drawer since a week after I got it :(
Unfortunately, I do need a phone that can run apps. I can argue all day about how coercive and how much it sucks that so much services that I have to use regularly need only run on mainstream OS phones.
Try to boycott all non-standard interfaces whenever you can. If not boycotting means becoming complicit in establishing totalitarian regimes world-wide (and if you consequently think this through, this is the unavoidable outcome of surrendering all our data to truly empathyless and greedy billionaires), then the hoops you have to jump through to make a boycott work do not seem such a bad trade-off after all. Using corporately configured smartphones is a very strong support of totalitarian monsters, if not outright fascists.
Tariffs or because of the different bands?
I'm betting tariff, but they still doesn't account for that much price increase
also don't forget unlockable and relockable bootloader and the possibility to install your own OS on it.
Pixel9 and install GrapheneOS, it is deggogled and has additional security features.
You can't get Huawei in Canada then? I've had good experiences with them, also had a oppo that was great for its price.
Just had a look and turns out I can! Though I'm pretty sure I can squeeze a few more years out of this one - I'm in no rush to drop another $1000.
"AI feature that I will eventually disable"
Jokes on you, the reason im not upgrading is that I cant disable it. So im holding out on my current devices until they die of natural causes (last smart phone lived 8 years and my FP4 should last 10), or I find a replacment I fully control.
(Just got rid of my last windows device a few weeks ago, still got the one for work, but it can be done).
Hey, it was thanks to these kinds of people that I was able to buy a literally new Galaxy S24 for $300 like a month after release.
My wife's Samsung Note10 is still going fine. Koodo is offering me a Pixel10 for free (no tab) if I choose direct banking withdraw option for my $50 phone plan instead of using my credit card monthly. They seem desperate.
We need to keep spending money, so that billionaires continue spending on mega yachts, so that mega yacht companies do not start firing their work force due to lack of sales
Why attack steam? Why not any other billionair? Or is epic paying you
There is no such thing as a good billionaire.
You're right, he definitely needed to buy another new yacht last month. Oh, and the company that makes the yachts, because why not.
That's real, btw.
What, is Gaben a "good one"? Please. He deserves the criticism as much as any other. Steam is the most unethical platform of its kind.
Capitalism is a cult. Must produce for the sake of production. Must consume for the sake of consumption.
If no need for something exists, it must be created. Solutions in search of problems.
Better to produce something and throw it away than to miss out on a sale, or heaven forbid give it away.
Frankly there is a way to get me to upgrade my phone from my current one but I can garuntee that there ain't many companies making phones to my upgrade standards. But here's a list.
-Easy to swap battery where I can just pop the lid and put a new one in.
-Aux jack because I want it.
-MicroSD card slot.
-Solid CPU, Ram, Storage, Et cetera.
-Give me actual buttons at the bottom you fucken cretins, I like my textile response you lousy motherfuckers.
-If you put the button on the back I'm breaking your back.
That's all I need, ideally it'd also be modular and upgradable but I severely doubt I'm getting that anytime soon. A lot of the problem with phones is that you can't really customize them to your needs, if I could I'd have a smartphone that'd look like it's from mid 90s scifi where it'd have a big fuck you battery on it and a host of controls along the side for quick use, but noooo it all has to be overly generic hyper standardized crap. Fucken hate modern phones.
It sounds like the fairphone would fit most of your requirements except for the buttons.
The buttons are non-negotiable.
And aux
I'm going on a micro-retirement this Saturday to get a new phone - my current one is already 6 months old.
Thank you for your service.
So we aren't spending our minimum wages on $2000 phones often enough, because we're wasting it on steadily rising costs for food, housing, utilities, and health care?
Well, they can just go fuck themselves.
From the people who brought you... https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/12/26/managing-the-e-waste-problem-will-take-a-much-bigger-commitment.html
they can also call AI companies buying every RAM stocks in the world as device hoarding. It clearly have economic impact now
I read that article before and it just felt kinda strange to me. Like, obviously, thats an attention grabbing headline, and yeah, it goes on to talk about how, Amercian consumers are holding on to their devices longer than before, but then I think what they really wanted to talk about when they say "costing the economy" was more focused on companies not upgrading their hardware as often.
Like, they go on to say that there's productivity being left on the table because the computer your job gives you is too slow to run heavy modern programs.
CNBC always feels so alien to me
They should see my 2001 car. I gotta say I'm impressed with how issue-free it is. Never left me stranded and all it asks for are oil changes and proper washing in certain rust-prone spots.
Gimme the name, model, and astrological sign, please
Golf 4 1.4l
Arguably the worst model but it never failed me, it's just got poor top speed. The 1.9l diesel can go much faster
Oh I've seen these about still, they're bulletproof
In Romania it's FULL of them. They're poorly maintained for the most part though... So they have a really undeserved reputation of being shit here.
I have never heard of persistent, weird, or expensive mechanical issues with an NC750.
Vietnam is full of poorly maintained Honda Waves (Groms in the US), that run as long as you keep putting oil in it and never change the brake fluid as long as it does close all the way, just keep tightening the calipers+handle and the squishier they get, adding more fluid after the 4th time the drum brakes need to be changed early because theyre full of brake fluid.
My 2003 car has never broken down. The maintenance cost over the last decade has been well under the depreciation of a new car.
And these are much cheaper to repair just in general, because they're much simpler, nevermind the parts are still being produced afaik
Ill raise your 2001 car with my pedal bike, and I do all the maintenance myself. Cars contribute far too much towards the economy, a bike may actually be the cheapest form of transport. Even compared to walking. Last time I looked at it, typically walking wears through shoes faster than cycling wears through bikes on a cost/mile basis.
I'd love a bike too but I don't see myself carrying gram's massive groceries with it hahaha
I'd also loke a bloody garage to store both of them but the nearest one is like 150m away from my apartment :-/
Maybe a scooter or motorcycle?
I've seen washer+dryer+refrigerator on the back of a 110cc.
Its at least possible to store a bike inside your house, I live in a UK sized house (60m²) and my bike lives inside. How much does 1 person need? For the 2 of us a weeks shopping comfortably fits in 2 standard size shopping bags, my bike has pannier bags on the back that are larger than that and you can always get a longtail or even a full cargo bike if you need more space.
Idk I like in a 40m2 apartment and we barely have space for basics :-/ there's 3 of us here.
I literally sold off a few things just because we have literally no space left.
its in response to planned obsolescence.
Using an 11 year old blackberry converted to android. Kiss my ass with that phone treadmill.
That's full-on Newspeak, is what that is.
Yeah, the title (from the CNBC article) is completely wrong. Device hoarding means that they are buying many phones and hoards all those phones in their place.
Ah. Like this?
Whoppsie-doodle, that's one's actually how bad actors farm shitloads fraudulent clicks to boost spurious news articles, manipulate search results, and spam political propaganda at social networking sites. My mistake!
Who's "hoarding" all the devices now?
It's like when RCA had to come up with new shit to sell because they knew that eventually everybody would have a radio.
I swear to god if I get one more commercial of someone dancing and taking a photo. I'll ignore it even more
"Buy the new Google Pixel T1000!"
"okay, why"
(advert shows the camera, and some "Ok google do this" feature)
"so nothing new since the last 5 phones, eh?"
More dancing!
They last increase in the Federal Minimum Wage was in 2009, when it was raised to $7.25. it's only been raised twice since 1997, for a total of $2.10.
The original iPhone was released in 2007. So while smart phones have become so ubiquitous that every person requires a phone just to navigate modern society, the wages required to afford both the phone and a monthly plan have not kept up.
We now have to purchase and carry a device that did not exist 20 years ago, and yet even minimum wage workers are expected to have a cell phone to communicate with work, get their schedules, etc.
And now they're complaining that we aren't coughing up an extra $2000 every year?
I'll buy shit when I need it, not because you put out a slightly different one every year.
I’ll buy a new phone when they make them a reasonable size again.
13 mini daily work device until it's dead-dead or they make a pixel of equivalent size. Retired pixel 7 for home fun device (revanced/metrolist).
My 12 mini is still going strong.
I got a battery replacement last year and it’s been great since. It’s even outlived the leather case I bought with it, but now I can’t find any new cases.
Gotta throw out all the old pc's. We need win11 in our lives ❤
I went to Linux out of techie obstinance, but looking at the insane number of "Backup to OneDrive", "Ask Copilot" poison-patterns Windows is constantly adding to 11, I'm really starting to consider whether to suggest Mint to my parents.
I want them to have an experience as close as possible to Windows as they're used to it - and that may not come from Windows anymore.
Do it, got my parents on mint and I daily mint. Other than the occasional trouble shooting, and command prompt work that I do for them when needed, they have been loving it.
And of course pixels for the whole family, as always ;)
Linux mint is great. Even if they need to use the console, there are only so many basic commands they need (and you can write them down in a text file) that they copy-paste that it is a trivia process.
Add a reminder-listing of those commands and what they do at the end of the .bashrc file in their home directory and it will pop up that reminder list automatically whenever they start the terminal.
Yeah, and not to mention the deals on older hardware , it's like Christmas every day! Lol
The poverty caused by funneling money to the top in the kleptocracy we have will cause most people to "hoard" their devices.
How propaganda by media is costing everyone.
It’s also wrong that this has a negative effect on the economy. If people consume less and save more, those savings will be invested by banks in businesses.
Interesting thought experiment. but if hypothetically, we all stopped buying apple products, but instead using that money to buy apple shares (what a bank would do). Would that be better or worse for Apple? could they still pay their staff (ignoring the fact that apple would fire everyone and rake in the money).
Well, the way I understand this, if we did it for reasons related to their prices and quality, yes. They could use the money to make their production cheaper or quality better.
But this ignores the fact that they might not be able to lower the prices or increase the quality enough for any of us to return to them because we are all doing it for other reasons. If we do it because they are rent seeking to make us hooked by locking us into systems, having proprietary features, and exploiting child labor or whatever they do, then they might stop doing these things if there is enough pressure. Then we might return to buying. But a company cannot will not gain much from stocks if there is no chance to have revenues in the future. But the stocks would also become worthless. I think as consumers we should choose more ethically, to force companies to improve their practices. And not treat it as a cancel culture (I believe boycitting a practice work better than boycotting a company politically). For this to work consumers have to accept lower quality for a while. We have to be okay with not having the top proprietary features in order to use alternatives that have been kept from catching up with the big ones.
I’m over here using the same car for 8 years now because shit still works fine. And also because newer cars have been enshittified.
Our car is over 10 years old and things are starting to play up. A door sensor here, and a car seatbelt weight sensing module there. The little shitty things that were not needed for literally decades, but are now an integral part of the MOT certificate we need to pass every year in the UK to keep our cars on the road.
I'm thinking about and doing research on older cars that are reliable... but not full of sensors that will shit the bed at the slightest opportunity.
I understand, and agree totally, that cars need to be safe. I'm just sick of enshittification. Being beeped at and nannied into things. Mostly I'm annoyed at the planned obsolescence of shitty sensors and modules put in cars just to fuck up.
The last (used) srs module I had to buy was the size of a sandwich yet cost nearly a third of what the car is worth in total.
tbf used cars in the uk are pretty undervalued, because right hand cars have a smaller local market
I have a much newer car, with even more sensors, "alertness detection" and all that. As long as I'm wearing my seatbelt, respecting speed limits and security distances and not looking at my phone, there's nothing beeping at me. Which is what I am supposed to be doing while operating heavy machinery, anyway.
This just means they made good enough products. People save some money, can use that money to buy something else they need, maybe just not from the same company. It saves the planet a little bit.
The "use that money to buy something else" part means the premise of the title is not just misguided for all the reasons others point out, but it's wrong even from a pure "capitalism must go up" view. The people who are keeping phones longer are spending money on other things, driving the economy just as much or potentially more. The extreme rich people and corporations who are hoarding wealth (thus withdrawing it from the economy) are still buying new phones every year as a status symbol.
It means the economy is in bad shape
Apple is gonna make a new campaign about how only poor and dumb people are holding on to their phones for more than a year and americans will camp in front of apple stores again.
Their phones are already a status symbols, the marginal changes in the design each year is so people know that you bought the latest one.
Names are attached to these stupid articles. They deserve to be shamed.
In most cases the person writing the headline is not writing the article. The problem in this case is the headline being horrible.
When I saw the title, I thought this was talking about like keeping old devices and never using them again after buying new ones. How is continuing to use an old device instead of buying more eventual waste "hoarding" smh...
By their logic, I’m hoarding Thanksgiving leftovers by planning to eat them over the next couple days. How dare I not go out and buy new food when I already have good food to eat!
Not to be a buzzkill but the article is kind of about productivity lost because businesses don't upgrade their equipment.
Buddy of mine made a point of walking and chatting around the office. When his boss got fed up with that and called him out, he pointed to the PC where you saw the progress bar slooowly creeping upwards. Those old PCs were replaced in record time.
something that can be easily offset by switching that in-person meeting into an email or cutting a useless middle-management position.
"Device hoarding"
The only hoarding going on is the money the C-Staff of these companies keeps hoarding.
We don't have to make a trillion iDevices if everyone is being paid good wages.
I disagree with the "eventually" part. I disable it first thing.
I absolutely fall into this category. I kept my Galaxy S10 going for as long as I possibly could. New screen. New battery. Three new back shells. New camera module. Hell, I would probably still be using it if the USB-C port didn't break. That was where I drew the line. Like when my 16 year old Pontiac G6 needed a second catalytic converter.
I still have an S10+ - works totally fine. Even the battery is doing fine.
Nice. I think I killed mine with excessive quick charging. I don't do that anymore.
The hell do you folks do to phones? I've got an S10e. Bought it the day it launched. I've gone through a case and a couple screen protectors but the phone is 100% original. Battery's a little tired, USB port needs to be held at a 4.38652 degree angle to work, I charge it wirelessly. I'm going to hang onto it for another month or two and then switch to something that can run GrapheneOS.
The battery, I'm pretty sure, is from rapid charging. The screen was from falling out of my car onto the pavement. Two of the backs and the camera were from having it in my pocket and leaning on/being hit by things. The 3rd back is because one broke while replacing the camera. The back shell was curved glass, and was very easy to break.
Oh, and the USB port is most likely from using g Android Auto on a near daily basis.
Why is anyone listening to 24/7 cable news networks? You know they stir shit all day cause that's their $$$.
The macroeconomics over welfare economics bias is strong.
I have a Samsung S23, and it is going to be the first time my phone WON'T either be destroyed or stolen before it is fully paid off. I won't be getting another phone until something like Cape phone is fully functional in my area and I can have a GrapheneOS compatiable device. I will not be allowing any more bullshit be spying on me more than I need to (which ideally should be zero, but that is basically impossible).
It's the same trend as desktops then laptops then phones then now on small smartwatches, they get good enough and standardized enough that they didn't really change much anymore. And the mature technology means that as long as the old one works people won't upgrade it until it breaks.
For me personally the last three phones I got were destroyed, stolen, destroyed... in that order. Ironically I didn't armor up the last two phones due to the fact that the first phone was cased pretty strongly and was broken BECAUSE of that .
However it seems that my current phone is armored up and it is lasting well. Btw my previous phone was a Motorola G5 Power. Meaning it was grapheneOS compatible... Just my rotten luck.
Darnest thing, I got this thinkpad from way back when and it just keeps working.
Guess I’ll have to throw more money at a newer machine until the AI decides to do the same…
(No really, cry harder assholes)
🐧
'Everyone disliked that."
Lol "hoarding"... If they were truly that concerned about a stagnant economy they could sell product at cost and not inflated retail. That would incentivize moving a lot more product while turning all the gears in the supply chain and satisfying a ton of jobs throughout.
But they don't really care the economy itself, just that it can be harnessed to make a rich guy richer as a byproduct. An economy that isn't making the rich richer is worthless to them, so they come up with articles like this to shame people.
Let me see how long my 23-year BMW E46 could live :) My phone has more than 5 years and I am going to squeeze as much as possible from it. I am very happy when I don't need to buy a thing.
Article talks about businesses not upgrading device comes at an economic cost, not individual use.
Other than serious gaming I can't imagine why you'd need a top of the line device, and when it comes down to it, who tf is doing serious phone gaming? And if you're doing work on your phone and you need to have a lot of computing power to have like 10 programs open that you're constantly switching between, wouldn't a tiny screen be frustrating?
Basically it's my contention that new phones are stupid. In this 3 hour video I'll argue that...
I just ordered some glue for the back cover of my phone. It's only 4 years old though.
Stepping down in tech myself. My next phone when this one gives out is going to be a dumb flip phone. No smart device appliances, the IoT is a bad idea. No thermostat the local municipality can control remotely. If I were to put in a video surveillance system it's be old coaxial cable cameras with a DVR.
I didn’t think it was real.
But there it was…the network who some right wingers will say is a leftist cesspool…engaged in full-blown end-stage capitalism.
I mean…it still seems like satire. The article talking about how using your phone for 22 months puts strain on the network because it has to become backwards compatible…or how the repair market is unregulated (ie a black market) and therefore damages the economy.
I already practice a 5-year cycle.
As in, I get the latest and greatest, and then use it for a minimum of 5 years or until it can no longer take the currently released OS.
And because I run with Apple, that usually means 6-7 years between phones.
Android would have cost me a hell of a lot more over the years with the same upgrade pattern. Even now, most Android phones see only 3 or so years of full OS updates (if that!!), leaving their arses flapping in the wind for every remote exploit and malware under the sun once they’re abandoned.