Personally I've needed lots of batteries replaced and lost 1 phone to water damage. It's not at all clear to me that hermetic phone designs are the right tradeo

Personally I've needed lots of batteries replaced and lost 1 phone to water damage. It's not at all clear to me that hermetic phone designs are the right tradeoff from a utilitarian perspective. On the other hand, if utilitarian phones sold better somebody would be making them. Tires have obvious engineering constraints that presumably led to the current approach. Maybe a bit of path dependence as well. It's completely incomparable.