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You don’t need to pay $500 to $2000 for a phone. I don’t think I have ever paid that much.
by Always42 2y ago
You don’t need to pay $500 to $2000 for a phone. I don’t think I have ever paid that much.
- Symbiote 2y agoAs you are probably aware, popular phones like the iPhone 15 and Samsung Galaxy S24 (#1 and #2 in the USA) are in that range, costing $700 and $1300 for the 'basic' models.
- throwaway48476 2y agoSomehow the rest of the world gets by with much cheaper phones.
- givinguflac 2y agoI love this take- Sure, let’s just ignore the disastrous adware, bloatware etc that also “subsidize” these cheaper phones, to say nothing of the actual capabilities or user experience of said devices.
- ahartmetz 2y agoNo such crap on Motorola phones. Posting from a five years old Moto One Vision. It's... a smartphone. It has a decent CPU, screen, camera, storage, NFC, etc. I couldn't say what's missing. The only thing I'd get excited about in a new phone is a faster CPU.
- refurb 2y agoMuch of the world “gets by” on outdoor toilets, but we put value on indoor plumbing don’t we?
- jazzyjackson 2y agoPopular or not they are luxury goods, and a modern iphone can be had for a couple hundred bucks used (SE 2nd gen)
- nothercastle 2y agoThat’s because subsidized plans don’t encourage shopping for the lowest price. Consumers just see free phone and optimize to buy the most expensive free phone available.
- gruez 2y agoI find it hard to believe that consumers are that dumb that they can't do an addition and multiplication to find the actual TCO.
- throwaway48476 2y agoCheaper phones have a way higher value/$ ratio. Instead of financializing expensive phones the market should encourage cheaper phones through increased demand.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoWho will fund R&D into new innovations then? Cheaper phones by definition have slimmer margins.
- throwaway48476 2y agoI'm not saying all phones should be cheap. The market for premium phones has and will continue to exist. And who's to say finding ways to reduce the cost to produce phones isn't innovation? I find that markets that are financialized where the price of the good is obfuscated are less efficient. This is because efficient markets rely on price discovery. Healthcare is an excellent example of this.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoI think it's impossible to buy a phone from any of the major carriers online without seeing the full upfront price at least a few times on screen. And in store there's clearly the price tag right beside the demo model. So hard to see how its obsfucated like healthcare.
- throwaway48476 2y agoI buy cheap phones for projects so have experienced exactly this. If you go on any prepaid WISP site and look at their device selection ordered by lowest price there's always an asterisk and the quoted price is based on some kind of contract.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoThe prepaid phone models available are usually the cheaper phones? Or is there some carrier that sells the expensive $1000+ phones on prepaid plans?
- brewdad 2y agoI used to buy $200 Android phones. I never had one last more than 18 months. I'm talking dead, not just annoyingly slow. I now have a 3.5 year old iPhone that I expect to get at least another 1.5 years out of. $200/yr compared to $133/yr but I'm generating less waste and getting a better overall experience the entire time I own the phone. For me it was absolutely worth it.
- sangnoir 2y agoI bet you weren't buying midrange Motorolas. I bought a Moto G for $179 (forgot the model: may have been G1/G2, and that may have been promo pricing for an unlocked phone) and used it for close to 5 years. I only stopped using it because the camera quality was showing it's age relative to the flagships of the day.
- gruez 2y agoYou must be doing something wrong. I bought a few cheap mototola and xiaomi android phones over the years and they've lasted years and continue to work to this day.