People talk a lot about how phones are built with "planned obsolescence," but different people mean wildly different things when they say that. On one end of t

People talk a lot about how phones are built with "planned obsolescence," but different people mean wildly different things when they say that. On one end of the spectrum are people who insist that the reason phones only last as long as they do is a 100% deliberate decision on the part of smartphone manufacturers to hamstring their own hardware, often going all the way into full conspiracy-theory-level thinking, with timed kill switches and the like. Frankly, I find this line of thought to be bullshit. On the other end are the people who are talking about smartphone manufacturers using components that are chosen for being small, light, and/or cheap, rather than being durable and user-repairable, purely for reasons of design, practicality, and cost savings. Personally, I know which side of this I come down on; Hanlon's Razor[0] applies here, as well as the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, no actual timed kill switches in hardware or software—nor anything in the same general vein—have ever been proven to exist. And if not even the lowest-grade independent Android phone manufacturers are putting those things in their phones, why on earth would the likes of Samsung, Xiaomi, or Apple feel the need to do so? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor