Technology

People are returning to normal device lifecycles and the greed can't cope

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.

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?

Jesus Christ what a dumb take. But at least they didn't say that millennials are killing the cell phone industry. I guess that doesn't make for good clickbait anymore.

Reminds me if the parable of the broken window, in which French economist Frédéric Bastiat explains the painfully-obvious truth that breaking windows is generally a bad thing, even though it drums up business for the glass maker.

But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.

"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.

please continue to "device hoard" folks

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?!

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

At this point my phone from 2022 is way overpowered for every use case I have for it. So why upgrade? It was a bit different years ago, when new phones actually did exciting new things older phones couldn't do. But now the technology has pretty much matured, and upgrades are incremental at best.

That's not even 3 years, gotta get those rookie numbers up

This is almost a textbook example of the broken window fallacy.

Kevin Williams, the author of this article is a very special breed of stupid.

capitalist propaganda

The person who wrote this must be absolutely insane. How I'd it a bad thing for the world that people are holding on to their devices? Less e-waste and people don't spend impulsively. It's also very logical: smartphones reached a plateau and people aren't exactly swimming in money with the rising price of everything.

Good.

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.

Oh my bad, I need to consume more to increase shareholder value. Almost forgot

I don't like to comment twice, but holy fuck ... what the hell did I just read?

The framing here puts the Louvre to shame (they've currently got their own problems). Perhaps the purest perversion of capitalism is the idea that sufficient is never enough.

Look: Phones are commodities at this point. You only need a new one when the old one breaks. You don't call a plumber to replace your pipes every two years; it's generally because something shitty happens. Sometimes literally.

This feels like the pendulum swinging back, to the alarm of capital. I'm old enough to remember appliances being expected to last 20 years. Fridge, oven, TV, washer and dryer: All were expected to be single-time replacements over the course of a 30-year mortgage.

Hence growing up with a fridge in almond and a Kenmore set of laundry machines in mustard yellow. And a console Sony TV that made it through my entire console gaming time.

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.

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

29 months is a long time?

I've had this one since 2019

What a load of bullshit. Maybe I misread it but it says that German companies would be 101% more productive if they bought newer laptops and phones (American ones no doubt). They also claim that businesses are trying to use old hardware for modern workloads. Apparently a six year old laptop can’t handle Outlook and Word.

The nerve of CNBC to use the word "hoarding" and and not mention the actual cause of the problem being the declining wealth of the median household relative to wealth hoarders.

Yeah, well, what has the economy done for me lately?

Costing the economy..... hahahahahaha

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.

Edit: Archive of the page

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

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

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

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

There's no money here anymore.

X to doubt.

About the "hurting the economy" part. Replacing more stuff = more economy is a well-known economics fallacy and they should know better.

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

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

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

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