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Wow, I don’t think that’s true at all. Most people can’t afford a new phone that frequently. I know amongst my techno elite friends your estimate holds, but for

Wow, I don’t think that’s true at all. Most people can’t afford a new phone that frequently. I know amongst my techno elite friends your estimate holds, but for almost everyone else I know they rarely upgrade and it’s more about when it physically falls apart than any desire to participate in an upgrade cycle.

scarface_74 3y ago
In the US, all of the major carriers offer 0% interest payment plans. Even the MVNOs offer low end iPhones “for free” with a contract. We don’t have to limit it to people you know People upgrade their phones about once every 2.5 years https://www.refurb.me/blog/how-long-does-a-smartphone-last-replacement-cycle https://www.refurb.me/blog/how-long-does-a-smartphone-last-r...
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  My carrier offers them 0% interest, rolled into your phone plan payment. But, go figure, the sticker price is like 10-15% higher than on the Apple site. They just hid the interest in the price.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    That isn’t true for T-mobile. But even so, you can always just buy from Apple with a 0% interest payment plan
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      iPhone 14 128GB on t-mobile’s site: $829 (zero-interest roll-into-your-phone-bill financing available) Same, on Apple’s site: $699 IDK, maybe apple price-dropped today and T-Mobile hasn’t caught up, but that’s similar to what I’ve seen in the past when I’ve looked at buying through them.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  0% interest isn’t $0/m. When you live paycheck to paycheck, as most Americans do, that’s a very important detail. Most people don’t have disposable income. But even that do they don’t value phone upgrades. When I see their ancient phones I sometimes remark they can get a phone with monthly terms and they just shrug and say the sad device with cracked screens and ancient cameras and crap display resolution and brightness is good enough for them. It baffles me, but most people just use their phone for texting, occasionally a map, and a crappy camera. Only in my tech friend circle do people keep up.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Most Americans aren’t living paycheck to paycheck where $20/month is going to mean they starve. You can easily look up the average time between phone upgrades is between 2-3 years.
    - fnordpiglet 3y ago
      https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/31/share-of-americans-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-jumped-in-2022.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/31/share-of-americans-living-pa... 64% are living paycheck to paycheck, now whether they opt to get a new smartphone or not is not clear. What is clear is the statistics you linked and I could find were polls of either people buying a new phone, which would be structurally biased towards people who are buying phones make frequently and are not buying used phones, or they were surveys of people with some relationship with a mobile or tech related site or product. These don’t seem like very unbiased surveys - but they do seem like sources apple or a phone maker would care about. “Of the people we care about in our marketing, they buy every 2-3 years.” I know in my family my wife’s family inherits our old phones and would ever show up in such a poll, nor do people buying off eBay, or even used from Amazon, etc. Maybe a single mom working three jobs to raise their five children really does feel compelled to have the newest iPhones and puts her kids needs behind a high resolution screen, but I somehow believe she’s just not counted in market surveys of phone buyers. Regardless the average isn’t 99%.
      - scarface_74 3y ago

scarface_74 3y ago

In the US, all of the major carriers offer 0% interest payment plans. Even the MVNOs offer low end iPhones “for free” with a contract. We don’t have to limit it to people you know People upgrade their phones about once every 2.5 years https://www.refurb.me/blog/how-long-does-a-smartphone-last-replacement-cycle https://www.refurb.me/blog/how-long-does-a-smartphone-last-r...

hotnfresh 3y ago
My carrier offers them 0% interest, rolled into your phone plan payment. But, go figure, the sticker price is like 10-15% higher than on the Apple site. They just hid the interest in the price.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  That isn’t true for T-mobile. But even so, you can always just buy from Apple with a 0% interest payment plan
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    iPhone 14 128GB on t-mobile’s site: $829 (zero-interest roll-into-your-phone-bill financing available) Same, on Apple’s site: $699 IDK, maybe apple price-dropped today and T-Mobile hasn’t caught up, but that’s similar to what I’ve seen in the past when I’ve looked at buying through them.
fnordpiglet 3y ago
0% interest isn’t $0/m. When you live paycheck to paycheck, as most Americans do, that’s a very important detail. Most people don’t have disposable income. But even that do they don’t value phone upgrades. When I see their ancient phones I sometimes remark they can get a phone with monthly terms and they just shrug and say the sad device with cracked screens and ancient cameras and crap display resolution and brightness is good enough for them. It baffles me, but most people just use their phone for texting, occasionally a map, and a crappy camera. Only in my tech friend circle do people keep up.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Most Americans aren’t living paycheck to paycheck where $20/month is going to mean they starve. You can easily look up the average time between phone upgrades is between 2-3 years.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/31/share-of-americans-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-jumped-in-2022.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/31/share-of-americans-living-pa... 64% are living paycheck to paycheck, now whether they opt to get a new smartphone or not is not clear. What is clear is the statistics you linked and I could find were polls of either people buying a new phone, which would be structurally biased towards people who are buying phones make frequently and are not buying used phones, or they were surveys of people with some relationship with a mobile or tech related site or product. These don’t seem like very unbiased surveys - but they do seem like sources apple or a phone maker would care about. “Of the people we care about in our marketing, they buy every 2-3 years.” I know in my family my wife’s family inherits our old phones and would ever show up in such a poll, nor do people buying off eBay, or even used from Amazon, etc. Maybe a single mom working three jobs to raise their five children really does feel compelled to have the newest iPhones and puts her kids needs behind a high resolution screen, but I somehow believe she’s just not counted in market surveys of phone buyers. Regardless the average isn’t 99%.
    - scarface_74 3y ago