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.
Also 1k or more? Fuck that. I usually get 1 to 2 year old phones. My pixel 6 pro is still doing well.
I’d start questioning an economy that relied on getting rid of perfectly good things.
Maybe if any of the good features coming out today wasn’t paired with the monkey’s paw that is:
- it’s behind an app
- it’s a subscription service
- it’s planned obsolescence
- I can actually fix it with third party vendors
- it’s selling your data
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.
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.
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 their complaining that we aren’t coughing up an extra $2000 every year?
Can we get a headline about bazillionaires hoarding wealth?
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.
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
That’s full-on Newspeak, is what that is.
I guess when companies buy enough ad time that a mainstream media company’s number going up is dependent on said company’s number going up, that company gets “partner” status with complimentary services like this. The ads really are the least of what they’re buying. I suppose this is the second-best option to billionaires just outright buying their own media companies.
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.
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)
🐧
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
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…
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
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?”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
