9 ms·

We Need a Revolution

78 points by mgd 3y ago

shafyy 3y ago
It's hard to believe that this is genuine. I believe that Fairphone is better than many other companies when it comes to pushing consumerism, but in the end their business model is also producing and selling stuff. Companies might start out with the right motivation, but as long as their financial and social incentives are not aligned, the financial incentives will win every time. Another good example is Patagonia, a brand I personally love and buy. They are better than many other brands that don't give a shit about the environment, but in the end they exist because a lot of people buy their stuff. Sure, it's great now that they donate the profits, I guess. But in the end, convincing people to just not buy stuff would be the best thing to do. Companies that are trying to play both sides are suspect to me.
- luplex 3y ago
  I tend to agree. For-profit companies can only argue against consumerism as a marketing strategy. But Fairphone has been consistently putting this topic on the table and raising awareness anyways, and they have created more sustainable supply chain options that other companies could now also use.
  - shafyy 3y ago
    For sure. There are better and there are worse companies in this regard. But would Fairphone stop their customers from buying a new Fairphone every few years? And what about themselves releasing a new model every years, just like the critize others to do in this post? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairphone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairphone
    - richiebful1 3y ago
      The fairphone has had a lot of catching up to do on feature-parity with other smartphones. If they have to iterate to expand the market for sustainable phones, that's understandable
      - shafyy 3y ago
        Of course it's understandable and it's good that they exist and expand. My only criticism is that they shouldn't act as if they don't also profit from customers buying a new phone every other year.
- fsflover 3y ago
  > Companies might start out with the right motivation, but as long as their financial and social incentives are not aligned, the financial incentives will win every time. Maybe you could be interested in Purism, which is a Social Purpose Corporation: https://puri.sm/about https://puri.sm/about.
- projektfu 3y ago
  Of course that's true, but it is also a tautology. Lada existed because there was demand for cars in the Soviet Union and they met some of that demand. With more efficient production and advertising to juice demand, it could have been as big as GM. However, it also functioned with its lower production level. Patagonia existed when they made mostly pitons and they existed when they were a niche brand and they exist as a major brand. It's hard sometimes, especially with financing schemes, to shrink after growth, but many businesses function fine with a satisfactory market size to keep operations running. As an investor, I might not put money in a company that declared it wanted to slow down replacement of its products because of the environment by building longer-lasting products. But as a consumer, I would definitely consider buying them.
- mekoka 3y ago
  > But in the end, convincing people to just not buy stuff would be the best thing to do. Companies that are trying to play both sides are suspect to me. I sort of agreed with you, but only up to your conclusion. Imo, this kind of all or nothing outlook tends to let the dogmatic be the enemy of the pragmatic. I find it unrealistic and impractical. I also disagree with the notion that there might be a "side" that has some kind of monopoly on being genuine, because it claims some sort of purity of ideals. That's not the color of reality and you'll have to kill a lot of people to create that utopia, either before or after. Mobile phones are here to stay. If out of two companies, one spends its resources trying to convince people to stop using them, while the other just acknowledges the need and settles for nudging the culture toward repair rather than replace, I think the latter is the one being "real". As for the company's financial and social incentives, I don't know Fairphone enough to know if what you implied would be true about them. I'd say that a company can aim for profitability and self-sustainability, and still hit all their other targets, including the environmental ones. Generally, it's when you aim for growth at all cost (e.g. you took some vc money) that all other objectives take a backseat or go the way of the door.
foobarian 3y ago
Let's make less money y'all! Everybody give up half your revenue this black Friday season, who's with me? *crickets*
HissingMachine 3y ago
I like to buy products that I'm fairly confident I can use for a long time and/or repair, for example I bought a Dissim lighter just because of that reason even if I don't need a lighter that much. And I would like to buy a phone like the Nokia ones that have good repairability and replacement parts you can buy. But the problem with gadgets like phones is that they always are middle range models, which doesn't gel well with the assumption that you are going to use them for a long time, preferably longer than the average phone. In this regard, it's actually better to buy the flagship phone because they are often good quality and remain usable for the longest period of time if they aren't accidentally broken. So this angle really doesn't make sense to me, they either have to start offering products that compete with the flagship models, or try something like Framework is doing with laptops?
- catherd 3y ago
  Any phone will lose software support pretty fast, but on the hardware side a mid-low end android device will last 4-5 years of daily use (n=3). Are you speaking from experience or is higher cost devices lasting longer something that just seems correct?
  - HissingMachine 3y ago
    Yeah it's true that the software support is a limiting factor also, but some manufacturers are better with it than others, like Nokia (HMD Global) which is why I use their phones. I change phones every five years, my current one is about to get to that so I'm on the market for replacement so it's on the top of my mind. My current one is a 250 euro model and I have been happy with it, but I don't game or do any heavy tasks with it so my experience is different, but I'm pretty sure that if I did game or do other tasks I would have had to change my phone way earlier, maybe even three years is pushing in this price bracket. And I'm not making a blanket statement that higher price is equal to longer lasting, I'm fairly sure the foldable phones lose in average situations to non foldable ones just out of differences in usage and construction, and gaming phones with active cooling I guess too.
  - fsflover 3y ago
bluescrn 3y ago
Non-user-replaceable batteries in phones+laptops should be banned outright. While people generally won't admit to replacing an entire phone/laptop due to a degraded battery, it's a significant nudge to get people to do just that, with battery replacement being made inconvenient and/or costly.
- bradstewart 3y ago
  I will completely admit that is the main reason I ever replace my phone. It usually ends up being more expensive to replace the battery (even doing it myself with an iFixit kit) than to get a new one with carrier subsidies and whatnot.
  - appplication 3y ago
    It seems like an alternative option could be available then: if you sell phones without user replaceable batteries, it could be mandated that the manufacturer is responsible for subsidizing costs such that replacing the battery is comparably priced to the cost of a replaceable battery. That seems a lot more reasonable to me. There are a lot of legitimate technical and design reasons for why batteries are not user replaceable today.
- jmull 3y ago
  Please don't try to force your own personal preferences on everyone else in the entire world. Why don't you buy a phone that has a user-replaceable battery, if that's what you want, and let me buy the phone I want to buy?
  - uoaei 3y ago
    Those who choose non-user replaceable batteries are prioritizing some socially valueless sense of aesthetics over the real negative social value incurred by e-waste. Different choices have different externalities and sometimes certain choices have net-negative outcomes no matter how well-intentioned the chooser or how much they insist on recasting the question as one of personal choice.
VyseofArcadia 3y ago
I just want to chime in and say that I'm extremely happy with my Fairphone 4.
lagniappe 3y ago
I challenge the person(s) reading this to not buy a phone this year, or to forgo phone ownership all together. Return your resources to your priorities.
- IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
  I have family members with major health issues. The ability for them to reach me or medical care is more important to them and me and IS a priority.
mhb 3y ago
Reading this on my original Thinkpad X220 with my iPhone SE Gen 1 next to it.
marras 3y ago
The modular design presented by Fairphone is great for ecology and easy repairs (I own a FP 3+) but, as a downside, it also makes your phone more fragile. In particular, the phone is very susceptible to water. Having carried it for 1.5h in my pocket during rain caused permanent damage to the camera and charging module - something to keep in mind if you're an outdoor type of person. On a plus side, the customer service was excellent and the repairs were straightforward, but with a better sealed phone I might not have had to perform them at all.
- osigurdson 3y ago
  >> the phone is very susceptible to water. Wow, that is a horrible trade-off!
narinxas 3y ago
I've been thinking about the longer term impact of modern user interfaces hiding how the computer works it will become more difficult to teach how to build computers going forwards... then again, it has always required a special kind of curiosity to learn about computer internals.. what I'm corncerned about is that we will continue to punish that kind of curiosity as computer technology has become critical infrastructure.
onli 3y ago
Big words for a company that got rid of the headphone jack in their phones the moment they had bluetooth earphones to sell, without a user-replaceable battery that is.
- stcg 3y ago
  Their headphones called Fairbuds XL do have a replaceable battery.
  - onli 3y ago
    That's correct, their earphones were released first though and do not. My issue is more with the completely unnecessary and never explained by the project removal of the headphone jack. Well, and that the timing was pretty obvious profit maximisation.
- mgd 3y ago
  They did cover why the headphone jack was removed in the FP4 https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/9836188988049-Audio-jack-3-5mm https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/983618898804...
  - onli 3y ago
    Thanks for the link! Completely unacceptable explanation to me, but at least there is a writeup of their position.
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
      > Completely unacceptable explanation to me How and why?
      - onli 3y ago
        A couple thoughts > Part of that strategy is ... not including those that are becoming less pervasive, such as the headphone jack. For a phone with a mission like the Fairphone, the headphone jack will not become less pervasive. An audio standard that has existed for over 100 years will not vanish in 5, especially not without a valid alternative. On the contrary, it's a must have feature to support their mission. So this whole line of reasoning is just wrong. > To support maximum longevity and because of the IP rating, Fairphone 4 does not feature a headphone jack If you look at other phones with a good IP rating, they can come with a headphone jack and be fine. The Sony Xperia line has some modern examples. > Including the headphone jack would have made the phone longer and thicker. Given how big the phone already is, and how small phones with the headphone jack are and have been, I do not believe this. I believe that it made their job easier and changing nothing else, it would have made the phone bigger. I refuse to believe there was no alternative method to fit it in. To note there that other vendors made the same claim, sometimes specifically for phones where there then was empty space where the headphone jack would have been. So there is a history of lies in this area, which makes this claim not trustworthy, regardless the different source. Apple lied about this with the iPhone 7, the most prominent example.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
taraparo 3y ago
Make a waterproof small phone in the style of Galaxy S10e with Audio Jack, SDCard and be done with it. I am still on my S10e because there simply is no meaningful successor.
akasakahakada 3y ago
What about unrepairable wireless earphones? I wouldn't trust a company that decided to reverse revolutionize to cancel highly repairable wired earphones. I wish their usb-c to 3.5mm dongles can be repaired. By the way Sharp still making IP7/8 MIL-STD-801 flagship phones with 3.5mm headphone jack and microSD card slot in case you don't know. Don't say bs like 3.5mm jack lose waterproof.
- UtopiaPunk 3y ago
  Yeah, wireless Bluetooth are expected to be replaced after only a few years. A good pair of wired headphones can last decades (if you can easily swap out the wire every now and then).
  - akasakahakada 3y ago
    Basically any wired earphone/headphone other than Apple' s glued stuff are repairable. There are real business running out there to repair and modify those.
no_wizard 3y ago
I know everyone is thinking about the phone part of Fair Phone, but their headphones are far more interesting to me. Something that I regularly fret over is my headphones batteries dying. Thankfully, both allow me to ue a wire (though I lose noise canceling), but that is becoming increasingly harder to do without an adapter. With the headphones they advertise, if they're any good at all, they could last me a decade or more since I can easily replace the battery when they start degrading to the point they're unusable. That is, I think, for most consumers, something people would be willing to get into easier and faster than their phone buying preference.
taylodl 3y ago
People have been saying this for the past 50 years. We're becoming a "throw-away" society they've always said. Yes. We are. Modern design now optimizes for quick and cheap manufacture for products lasting under 10 years. People would shit bricks if they had to pay the prices we paid 50 years ago for items "built to last" or at least "be reparable." Let's face it, they had to be repairable because you'd be working on them. When was the last time the average US consumer has fixed their TV? Washer? Dishwasher? When I was growing up those items frequently required repair. You bought brands that you knew would have parts available for several years to come (that's one of the reasons everybody bought from Sears). I have no desire to return to those "good old days." No, the real issue isn't continually buying new and shiny things - it's the fact we can't recycle the material from those once new and shiny things to make new things. That is the actual problem. If I can trade in my iPhone and Apple can recycle the majority of the material into a newer iPhone then we've eliminated a lot of waste and I get a new and shiny phone. That is the revolution we actually need.

78 points by mgd 3y ago

It's hard to believe that this is genuine. I believe that Fairphone is better than many other companies when it comes to pushing consumerism, but in the end their business model is also producing and selling stuff. Companies might start out with the right motivation, but as long as their financial and social incentives are not aligned, the financial incentives will win every time. Another good example is Patagonia, a brand I personally love and buy. They are better than many other brands that don't give a shit about the environment, but in the end they exist because a lot of people buy their stuff. Sure, it's great now that they donate the profits, I guess. But in the end, convincing people to just not buy stuff would be the best thing to do. Companies that are trying to play both sides are suspect to me.

luplex 3y ago
I tend to agree. For-profit companies can only argue against consumerism as a marketing strategy. But Fairphone has been consistently putting this topic on the table and raising awareness anyways, and they have created more sustainable supply chain options that other companies could now also use.
- shafyy 3y ago
  For sure. There are better and there are worse companies in this regard. But would Fairphone stop their customers from buying a new Fairphone every few years? And what about themselves releasing a new model every years, just like the critize others to do in this post? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairphone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairphone
  - richiebful1 3y ago
    The fairphone has had a lot of catching up to do on feature-parity with other smartphones. If they have to iterate to expand the market for sustainable phones, that's understandable
    - shafyy 3y ago
      Of course it's understandable and it's good that they exist and expand. My only criticism is that they shouldn't act as if they don't also profit from customers buying a new phone every other year.
fsflover 3y ago
> Companies might start out with the right motivation, but as long as their financial and social incentives are not aligned, the financial incentives will win every time. Maybe you could be interested in Purism, which is a Social Purpose Corporation: https://puri.sm/about https://puri.sm/about.
projektfu 3y ago
Of course that's true, but it is also a tautology. Lada existed because there was demand for cars in the Soviet Union and they met some of that demand. With more efficient production and advertising to juice demand, it could have been as big as GM. However, it also functioned with its lower production level. Patagonia existed when they made mostly pitons and they existed when they were a niche brand and they exist as a major brand. It's hard sometimes, especially with financing schemes, to shrink after growth, but many businesses function fine with a satisfactory market size to keep operations running. As an investor, I might not put money in a company that declared it wanted to slow down replacement of its products because of the environment by building longer-lasting products. But as a consumer, I would definitely consider buying them.
mekoka 3y ago
> But in the end, convincing people to just not buy stuff would be the best thing to do. Companies that are trying to play both sides are suspect to me. I sort of agreed with you, but only up to your conclusion. Imo, this kind of all or nothing outlook tends to let the dogmatic be the enemy of the pragmatic. I find it unrealistic and impractical. I also disagree with the notion that there might be a "side" that has some kind of monopoly on being genuine, because it claims some sort of purity of ideals. That's not the color of reality and you'll have to kill a lot of people to create that utopia, either before or after. Mobile phones are here to stay. If out of two companies, one spends its resources trying to convince people to stop using them, while the other just acknowledges the need and settles for nudging the culture toward repair rather than replace, I think the latter is the one being "real". As for the company's financial and social incentives, I don't know Fairphone enough to know if what you implied would be true about them. I'd say that a company can aim for profitability and self-sustainability, and still hit all their other targets, including the environmental ones. Generally, it's when you aim for growth at all cost (e.g. you took some vc money) that all other objectives take a backseat or go the way of the door.

foobarian 3y ago

Let's make less money y'all! Everybody give up half your revenue this black Friday season, who's with me? *crickets*

HissingMachine 3y ago

I like to buy products that I'm fairly confident I can use for a long time and/or repair, for example I bought a Dissim lighter just because of that reason even if I don't need a lighter that much. And I would like to buy a phone like the Nokia ones that have good repairability and replacement parts you can buy. But the problem with gadgets like phones is that they always are middle range models, which doesn't gel well with the assumption that you are going to use them for a long time, preferably longer than the average phone. In this regard, it's actually better to buy the flagship phone because they are often good quality and remain usable for the longest period of time if they aren't accidentally broken. So this angle really doesn't make sense to me, they either have to start offering products that compete with the flagship models, or try something like Framework is doing with laptops?

catherd 3y ago
Any phone will lose software support pretty fast, but on the hardware side a mid-low end android device will last 4-5 years of daily use (n=3). Are you speaking from experience or is higher cost devices lasting longer something that just seems correct?
- HissingMachine 3y ago
  Yeah it's true that the software support is a limiting factor also, but some manufacturers are better with it than others, like Nokia (HMD Global) which is why I use their phones. I change phones every five years, my current one is about to get to that so I'm on the market for replacement so it's on the top of my mind. My current one is a 250 euro model and I have been happy with it, but I don't game or do any heavy tasks with it so my experience is different, but I'm pretty sure that if I did game or do other tasks I would have had to change my phone way earlier, maybe even three years is pushing in this price bracket. And I'm not making a blanket statement that higher price is equal to longer lasting, I'm fairly sure the foldable phones lose in average situations to non foldable ones just out of differences in usage and construction, and gaming phones with active cooling I guess too.
- fsflover 3y ago

bluescrn 3y ago

Non-user-replaceable batteries in phones+laptops should be banned outright. While people generally won't admit to replacing an entire phone/laptop due to a degraded battery, it's a significant nudge to get people to do just that, with battery replacement being made inconvenient and/or costly.

bradstewart 3y ago
I will completely admit that is the main reason I ever replace my phone. It usually ends up being more expensive to replace the battery (even doing it myself with an iFixit kit) than to get a new one with carrier subsidies and whatnot.
- appplication 3y ago
  It seems like an alternative option could be available then: if you sell phones without user replaceable batteries, it could be mandated that the manufacturer is responsible for subsidizing costs such that replacing the battery is comparably priced to the cost of a replaceable battery. That seems a lot more reasonable to me. There are a lot of legitimate technical and design reasons for why batteries are not user replaceable today.
jmull 3y ago
Please don't try to force your own personal preferences on everyone else in the entire world. Why don't you buy a phone that has a user-replaceable battery, if that's what you want, and let me buy the phone I want to buy?
- uoaei 3y ago
  Those who choose non-user replaceable batteries are prioritizing some socially valueless sense of aesthetics over the real negative social value incurred by e-waste. Different choices have different externalities and sometimes certain choices have net-negative outcomes no matter how well-intentioned the chooser or how much they insist on recasting the question as one of personal choice.

VyseofArcadia 3y ago

I just want to chime in and say that I'm extremely happy with my Fairphone 4.

lagniappe 3y ago

I challenge the person(s) reading this to not buy a phone this year, or to forgo phone ownership all together. Return your resources to your priorities.

IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
I have family members with major health issues. The ability for them to reach me or medical care is more important to them and me and IS a priority.

mhb 3y ago

Reading this on my original Thinkpad X220 with my iPhone SE Gen 1 next to it.

marras 3y ago

The modular design presented by Fairphone is great for ecology and easy repairs (I own a FP 3+) but, as a downside, it also makes your phone more fragile. In particular, the phone is very susceptible to water. Having carried it for 1.5h in my pocket during rain caused permanent damage to the camera and charging module - something to keep in mind if you're an outdoor type of person. On a plus side, the customer service was excellent and the repairs were straightforward, but with a better sealed phone I might not have had to perform them at all.

osigurdson 3y ago
>> the phone is very susceptible to water. Wow, that is a horrible trade-off!

narinxas 3y ago

I've been thinking about the longer term impact of modern user interfaces hiding how the computer works it will become more difficult to teach how to build computers going forwards... then again, it has always required a special kind of curiosity to learn about computer internals.. what I'm corncerned about is that we will continue to punish that kind of curiosity as computer technology has become critical infrastructure.

onli 3y ago

Big words for a company that got rid of the headphone jack in their phones the moment they had bluetooth earphones to sell, without a user-replaceable battery that is.

stcg 3y ago
Their headphones called Fairbuds XL do have a replaceable battery.
- onli 3y ago
  That's correct, their earphones were released first though and do not. My issue is more with the completely unnecessary and never explained by the project removal of the headphone jack. Well, and that the timing was pretty obvious profit maximisation.
mgd 3y ago
They did cover why the headphone jack was removed in the FP4 https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/9836188988049-Audio-jack-3-5mm https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/983618898804...
- onli 3y ago
  Thanks for the link! Completely unacceptable explanation to me, but at least there is a writeup of their position.
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    > Completely unacceptable explanation to me How and why?
    - onli 3y ago
      A couple thoughts > Part of that strategy is ... not including those that are becoming less pervasive, such as the headphone jack. For a phone with a mission like the Fairphone, the headphone jack will not become less pervasive. An audio standard that has existed for over 100 years will not vanish in 5, especially not without a valid alternative. On the contrary, it's a must have feature to support their mission. So this whole line of reasoning is just wrong. > To support maximum longevity and because of the IP rating, Fairphone 4 does not feature a headphone jack If you look at other phones with a good IP rating, they can come with a headphone jack and be fine. The Sony Xperia line has some modern examples. > Including the headphone jack would have made the phone longer and thicker. Given how big the phone already is, and how small phones with the headphone jack are and have been, I do not believe this. I believe that it made their job easier and changing nothing else, it would have made the phone bigger. I refuse to believe there was no alternative method to fit it in. To note there that other vendors made the same claim, sometimes specifically for phones where there then was empty space where the headphone jack would have been. So there is a history of lies in this area, which makes this claim not trustworthy, regardless the different source. Apple lied about this with the iPhone 7, the most prominent example.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

taraparo 3y ago

Make a waterproof small phone in the style of Galaxy S10e with Audio Jack, SDCard and be done with it. I am still on my S10e because there simply is no meaningful successor.

akasakahakada 3y ago

What about unrepairable wireless earphones? I wouldn't trust a company that decided to reverse revolutionize to cancel highly repairable wired earphones. I wish their usb-c to 3.5mm dongles can be repaired. By the way Sharp still making IP7/8 MIL-STD-801 flagship phones with 3.5mm headphone jack and microSD card slot in case you don't know. Don't say bs like 3.5mm jack lose waterproof.

UtopiaPunk 3y ago
Yeah, wireless Bluetooth are expected to be replaced after only a few years. A good pair of wired headphones can last decades (if you can easily swap out the wire every now and then).
- akasakahakada 3y ago
  Basically any wired earphone/headphone other than Apple' s glued stuff are repairable. There are real business running out there to repair and modify those.

no_wizard 3y ago

I know everyone is thinking about the phone part of Fair Phone, but their headphones are far more interesting to me. Something that I regularly fret over is my headphones batteries dying. Thankfully, both allow me to ue a wire (though I lose noise canceling), but that is becoming increasingly harder to do without an adapter. With the headphones they advertise, if they're any good at all, they could last me a decade or more since I can easily replace the battery when they start degrading to the point they're unusable. That is, I think, for most consumers, something people would be willing to get into easier and faster than their phone buying preference.

taylodl 3y ago

People have been saying this for the past 50 years. We're becoming a "throw-away" society they've always said. Yes. We are. Modern design now optimizes for quick and cheap manufacture for products lasting under 10 years. People would shit bricks if they had to pay the prices we paid 50 years ago for items "built to last" or at least "be reparable." Let's face it, they had to be repairable because you'd be working on them. When was the last time the average US consumer has fixed their TV? Washer? Dishwasher? When I was growing up those items frequently required repair. You bought brands that you knew would have parts available for several years to come (that's one of the reasons everybody bought from Sears). I have no desire to return to those "good old days." No, the real issue isn't continually buying new and shiny things - it's the fact we can't recycle the material from those once new and shiny things to make new things. That is the actual problem. If I can trade in my iPhone and Apple can recycle the majority of the material into a newer iPhone then we've eliminated a lot of waste and I get a new and shiny phone. That is the revolution we actually need.