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+++ title = "i hate the smartphone market" summary = "profit motives means that the entire market has abandoned me" date = "2018-05-07T08:13:00-00:00" source = "https://mastodon.social/@trwnh/99987017261137486" +++
tbh like 90% of my day-to-day angst against capitalism is from how shit the smartphone market has become. if capitalism is so great then where the fuck is my <70mm-wide phone with a removable battery? fucking profit motives means that the entire market has abandoned me. I haven't been satisfied with any phone since 2010. hell, I'd buy an updated Nexus One with newer, more efficient internals.
"capitalism brought you your smartphone!" yeah, and that phone /fucking sucks/.
I wish I could build my own phone or have one built to spec, but alas, I do not own a machining and assembly factory, and I don't have the requisite circuitry knowledge... if only I could, I dunno, cooperate with some like-minded people, and we had public ownership of those factories... :thaenkin:
do you know about this company? https://www.fairphone.com/en/ . They do their best to source all their components ethically, and work with worker's organisations in the countries they are producing phones in. The fair phone also comes with root access by default, so you can install your own ROM if you want.
yeah; they're well-intentioned but still restricted to operating within the confines of capitalism. and it's still too big of a phone for my liking, personally
like, i'm using a sony xperia x compact right now because it's 4.6" and fits in one hand. the snapdragon 650 means the battery is decent, but for how long? i got it lightly used in september, and now it's may and the battery is starting to heat up and degrade after 8 months of heavy usage and all those recharge cycles.
my fair phone 1 is still working nicely after 3 years or so [...]
I feel like the same could be said about several more devices from 2013 than could be said today. my mom is still using a Nexus 7 2013 tablet just fine. our Nexus 5 could have lasted until now, if she hadn't broken it accidentally in a fit of rage. my htc one m7 is still close to the "ideal" device for me, except its battery has long gone to shit and is a nightmare to replace.
I wish there were like 400 more fairphones, because just 1 is too limited to accomplish much for my case. and part of why there's only 1, I imagine, is because they can't be profiting too much; they still rely on profit, don't they? It's not "sustainable" for companies to provide services at-cost under capitalism.
[...] it's extremely hard to "build it yourself" at sufficient scale to make a difference... and even then, you're bound by the laws of capital. you need to make money to survive, so at-cost operation is not viable without external funding