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.
I am not an economist. I am not an expert on anything consumer. It is, however, plainly obvious that companies are trying to squeeze blood from a stone at this point. They can’t make money anymore with pay to own and innovation like they used to for a variety of reasons. From greed to enshitification. If you look at it with a different view, everyone is poorer because they are greedy, they’ve ruined everyone’s lives but must make numbers go up. So they find new and terrifying ways of screwing you over for diminishing returns. Like this. Relying on turnover sales and nothing else.
From greed to enshitification. If you look at it with a different view, everyone is poorer because they are greedy, they’ve ruined everyone’s lives but must make numbers go up…
This is the leading concept behind Capitalism. It’s a self-devouring system. Every. Single. Time.
Yeah. I’d even say we went beyond late stage capitalism. We are now on the cusp of a feudalistic society more akin to the corporate dominance in Blade Runner or Eve Online, maybe The Expanse, then anything resembling capitalism. Corporations are more powerful than nation states, many people are indentured to their workplace via healthcare needs or non competes, etc. So there’s that. This is an entirely new thread though so I’ll stop it there. TL;DR - This shit sucks.
29 months is too long??? I consider that the absolute minimum.
If my device doesn’t last at least 36 months I look for a new company. I aim for at least 48 months.
I refuse to buy Samsung or Google devices anymore, since they definitely did not meet my 36 month criteria. They didn’t even make it to 24. Google did at first with my Nexus 4 and I loved it but they shit the bed real quick after that.
I bought an older Samsung and only use it for doom scrolling, 2FA, and podcasts. Its fine stripped down to nothingness. My next purchase, once the cracks from me dropping it spread, will be an older Pixel so I can run GraphineOS. I’m hopeful that like my Linux experience, it’ll extend the devices life given my use case. Like buying old laptops and kicking windows to the curb in favor of Linux buys you tons of time and product life.
While it may seem to be a smart money move, it can result in a costly productivity and innovation lag for the economy.
For the love of god! Won’t somebody think of the economy?!
Oh my bad, I need to consume more to increase shareholder value. Almost forgot
Hmm… I wonder if this could be a factor here…
Good.
29 months is a long time?
I’ve had this one since 2019
My wife finally upgraded after 5 years, and I’m on year 4 of my Pixel 6 and its still going strong, will probably go another 1-2 years with it.
The big given example was gigabit throughput. Most consumers in the US, businesses included, don’t have access to internet infrastructure capable of multigig because of regulatory capture. Those that do are already using multigig hardware which, unsurprisingly, hasn’t really changed much.
Kevin Williams, the author of this article is a very special breed of stupid.
Kevin, if thats even a real person at this point in media, is just pushing stories and discourse aligned with corporate speak. Let’s consider it less stupid and more complicit, which I argue, is even worse.
yeah…his previous article just before this one was “Americans are heating their homes with bitcoin this winter”
you’re a couple years late to that hype cycle, Kevin.
I dislike having the comma of direct address thrown at me. At least close the aside!
Oh look, it’s the consumers who threaten the economy, not the fucking ghouls in the C suite, killing jobs and cutting wages. How dare they not having enough money? How DARE they?
Why would that hurt the economy? If you want people to spend money, make things affordable and useful. They make things shittier and more expensive and then wonder why people aren’t buying
Whoa, whoa, whoa … expecting utility out of a product? That’s socialism!
People are returning to normal device lifecycles and the greed can’t cope
“Companies aren’t innovating anymore and it’s costing the economy” is what it should say. When late stage capitalism leads to consolidation and cost cutting, stock buybacks, and other short term profit when competition is no longer necessary, that’s what kills the economy. That’s why monopolies and anticompetitive behaviors are bad, but the US doesn’t punish that anymore.
Don’t forget aggressive rent-seeking behavior.
have had my phone for close to 5 years now. it could use a battery replacement, but other than that it’s perfectly fine, so im gonna keep it for as long as i can
and if that makes tim cook cry… so be it lol
Oh no, we’re being so selfish. Why not buy a 10% performance upgrade every two years for $1000 while wages stagnate? Oh, and carriers don’t subsidize the cost at all anymore. They call it “free” then lock you into their most expensive plan so you spend thousands more on the plan than if you could have afforded to just buy the phone outright.
Fuck this out of touch reporting.
It’s all over the place. In the middle of the article they suddenly talk about how software updates, modularity and repairability is important so that old devices can be made to keep up with contemporary demands, blaming the fact that this is an issue on big tech.
Then again, other parts are completely nuts.
Noticing some em dashes in there, so at least some of this is AI.
The parts about corporate infrastructure sound like a c suite dipshit trying to sound like they know what they’re talking about.
“Our networks run slower because we have to be compatible with older devices!”
No, Judith, your IT department just keeps 2.4ghz wifi available for the old devices while also running 5ghz. Those devices stay slow, but it doesn’t impact anyone else.
“Back in 2010, 100Mb internet was the fastest! No one could imagine gigabit becoming widely available! Stuff needs to be upgraded to handle it!” Judy, tons of businesses were running gigabit in 2010, and common network gear has had gigabit ports for years. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Not saying you’re wrong (pretty sure you’re not) but important to remember that the reason LLMs use a lot of em dashes is because it features so prominently in journalism.
I would have little respect for a journalist who didn’t know how to use an em-dash, so I don’t think that proves anything. But I agree that there is a lack of coherent thought throughout, though that’s something humans are also fully capable of.
But yeah, fully agree. Never mind that network connection speed is not really the relevant bottleneck for most office situations these days. If Germans are less productive due to technology it’s because they still use freaking fax machines over there, not because employees are stuck with five year old smartphones.
I – to a certain extent – know how to use an em-dash.
(Source: Former journalist.)
Confirmed—only journalists would have the audacity to place spaces around an otherwise fine em-dash.
Let’s not get audio editing involved!
Those look like en-dashes.
Most word processors will auto-format to em dashes when they detect regular dashes in context of a sentence with a space on either side
That’s great with AP Style. MLA goes in a different direction regarding spaces.
Can we please stop with the em-dash bullshit? That’s a literary tool, not a sign of an LLM in play. That people did not encounter them ahead of ChatGPT speaks more to their news diet than the ability to be a literary critic.
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I’m not sure whence your animosity comes. I’ve been a columnist since the '90s, and I assure you: Em-dashes are on the menu.
To claim proof of LLMs is to say it was never done until then. It most assuredly was.
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Hold on, you can simply tack on 10-50 dollars to your cell plan and get a “free” upgrade every year instead!
