Device hoarding is costing the economy.

Nah, the 12 dead laptops undef my bed I use for hardware salvage and experiments are device hoarding. The multiple disassembled game consoles in my closet is device hoarding. None of it is sorted, the retro stuff isn't sorted, the new stuff isn't sorted.

I'm device hoarding. The average consumer is absolutely not.

Godspeed, you future museum contributor!
- The hope is to eventually open a repair cafe/lounge with the ~~carcasses~~ disassembled dead retro units as display pieces
Is it hoarding or simply a step of Reduce, Reuse Recycle?
My pallet of used office PCs I got for $200 but have barely handed off any is device hoarding, keeping your phone for 2-4 years before upgrading is just being financially prudent

Money hoarding by billionaires is literally destroying the entire world

blaming the consumer again?

Instead of the billion/trillionaires that are hoarding wealth that they'll NEVER be able to spend?

how fucking sad is it that there are people sleeping on the street, worried about their next meal will come from, meanwhile gaben has a billion$ worth of megayachts

Why attack steam? Why not any other billionair? Or is epic paying you
- You're right, he definitely needed to buy another new yacht last month. Oh, and the company that makes the yachts, because why not.
  That's real, btw.
- There is no such thing as a good billionaire.
- why not gaben? He gets a pass for some reason, so why not attack him. Why did you ask why i attacked him and not some other billionaire? is gaben paying you?
- What, is Gaben a "good one"? Please. He deserves the criticism as much as any other. Steam is the most unethical platform of its kind.
We need to keep spending money, so that billionaires continue spending on mega yachts, so that mega yacht companies do not start firing their work force due to lack of sales

The poverty caused by funneling money to the top in the kleptocracy we have will cause most people to "hoard" their devices.

i refuse to upgrade, because newer phones are objectively a worse experience than older ones. They keep removing features in the name of "innovation" while putting more stuff in there that the market is actively telling them they don't want.

I miss the 90s early 2000s, where every 2 years the new products were much better, not only specs wise but categorically so. and a new phone did not cost a month of rent.
I have a 2020's phone, and besides battery life being weaker now. I see absolutely no reason to upgrade for a marginal spec bump.
When was the last time a new feature was added? like something that would make want to have it? they are afraid of any risk and so there is absolutely no innovation. the closest thing to any risk they took is when they removed the headphone jack to sell 300$ headphones.
The whole industry is being enshitified.
- You might even change the phone because of the battery and find out that your new device has an absolute power hog of a screen with no battery upgrade to match and your battery life is even worse now
- Spec bumps are pretty irrelevant now anyways. Phones are currently in the land of diminishing returns for performance. They've been 'fast enough' for some time now, and the only thing that breaks them is software, not hardware. Newer hardware is marginally more efficient, so that's the only real world benefit.
  I miss the old days of android where they were trying all manner of wild ideas. I want variety where one company has an eink screen protector. Put a laser pointer on a phone because... Because. Where are the projector phones? Maybe some crazy transformer phone with modules that all clip together to turn into a robot. Sure, they never sold well, but they were cool to see.
- I love my flip open smartphone. That was a new feature worth paying for. It's so small in my pocket.
They keep removing features in the name of "innovation" while putting more stuff in there that the market is actively telling them they don't want.
I always put off buying a new phone for this exact reason. It feels like every iteration further strips users of the ability to remove telemetry, AI bullshit, or bloatware. I'm not paying out hundreds of dollars for a dedicated advertisement displayer that spies on me.

Brought to you by rich boomers who bought a new car every 2 years. True story.

I never know what kind of car my dad drives because he seemingly always has a new one.
If my new car don’t last me 10 years I’m going be petty pissed off.
To be fair, those cars don't just get set on fire when they're done with them. They're supplying the used car market.
It's a terrible idea financially, but it isn't actually wasteful.

Yes, these people are truly insane. I recently read the following headline:

Rheinmetall shares: Fear of peace shocks investors

(Translated from German, source | Rheinmetall is an arms manufacturer)

wtf
- This world is fucked.

What if, bear with me here, what if people just don't have as much disposable income after the dramatic transfer of wealth to the rich class we've been seeing?

The economy is collapsing and the lower classes are feeling it already. The rich investor class isn't seeing it because the tech industry has been propping up the market with their investments going all-in with unrealistic expectations for AI technology. We are currently experiencing a K-shaped recovery where the richest are on a spending spree while the poorest are cutting back their expenses. How much more obvious must it be that this is what's going on?

You want the general population to start wasting their money on useless crap again, you'll have to give them more money to work with.

I agree, but I gotta point out the area you're wrong. It's the internet after all. So don't take my hyper-focus to heart.
The investors are absolutely aware. They don't care if AI has any material value. They will happily invest in a bubble and inflate far beyond what anyone believes is possible. The capitalist system has only evolved to be BETTER for capitalist when the bubble pops. They know this. They literally have lobbies dedicated to ensuring their wealth is protected.
I think we confuse the "irrationality of the market" with the investors being irrational themselves. They are doing exactly what any rational investor would do in an economic system that has been built to favor them.
I'm sure you're aware of this given your perspective. But I think it's important to use the right vocabulary to describe this. The problem is not a "broken system" with irrational actors. The system is working EXACTLY as intended and the investors are acting completely rationally within the economic system that has been created for their benefit. This isn't "bad capitalism" that needs regulation. This is just capitalism.
Bubbles and crashes are not something that investors are working hard to avoid. They are a feature of the contradictions of capitalism. Capitalist are very much aware of them and have ensured they can benefit from them while the working class takes the losses.
- I have never thought in terms of this before but now that you explain it, why wouldn't they do exactly that when no one was held accountable after the 2008 financial crash, the big firms that fucked the market got bailed out, and the ones who had enough money when the dust settled could buy everything for cheap and increase their ownership?
- I agree with Frank Herberts take on the "power corrupts": its not power that corrupts people, corrupt systems attract corrupt people.
yeah but the culture war demands that every problem is attributed to the woke and the weak minorities /s
- ...you need to add the /s... otherwise, you are just an ass
the poorest are cutting back their expenses
those people have nothing else left to cut back on.
- I straight up laughed when people started talking about "skipping Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals" to "stick it to the Oligarchs," just like... must be nice to actually have enough disposable income to have been thinking about making leisure purchases during this. Some of us are broke enough that we've been putting off replacing things we need that are barely functional because we can't really afford it and sales like these are the only time we can.

If you want people to buy a new phone every year "for the economy", the $1800 phone must be reduced to $50, and the quality stays at flagship levels. The citizens are not here to make the oligarchs wealthy. Fuck your economy.

For real... "device hoarding". Lol. What about "saving", "environmentally friendly", NOT wasting resources for nothing"? No, we need a negative term for that!

It's funny how thrift and frugality will ruin the economy for everyone but gambling with other people's homes and retirement funds is good business sense.

Can we get a headline about bazillionaires hoarding wealth?

Some journalist should start calling them all Smaug. The problem is a bunch of us asshats would then be like "Smaug did nothing wrong!"
- Why should dragons pay tax. He earned that gold fair and square!
  #temporarilyembarrasseddragons
Better yet, let's get the heads of those bazillionaires and put them on pikes, and then run headlines about the excellent new trend of beheading the rich and putting their heads on pikes.
They all have a severe case of OCD, manifesting itself in hoarding behavior. If they hoarded cats as intensely as they hoard money, we would take ALL their cats away, redistribute them to more responsible owners, and hospitalize the OCD victim until their medication kicked in, and they can contribute to society in a positive manner.
They don't hoard cats, they hoard money, but the solution is the same - confiscate their stolen treasure, redistribute it to the people they stole it from, and incarcerate them until they learn to behave positively among society.

Capitalism is a cult. Must produce for the sake of production. Must consume for the sake of consumption.

If no need for something exists, it must be created. Solutions in search of problems.

Better to produce something and throw it away than to miss out on a sale, or heaven forbid give it away.

They can pry my Galaxy S4 with removable battery and IR blaster out of my cold dead hands. (Thank you LineageOS, because Samsung dropped updates for it a decade ago.)

You're still getting Lineage updates for the S4?! That one maintainer keeping your phone alive:
- To be honest I'm surprised too... official builds are done, but there's still unofficial ones floating around. I expected everyone to give up on this thing by now, but the last update was Nov 16th (https://updater.oddsolutions.us/devices/jflteatt/builds)
  I'm happy they are though. The phone may not be very powerful by today's standards but it does what I need it to.
This guy gets it.
Samsung s20 fe with microsd slot for me. I got comics and audoobooks to download! Let me use expandable storage!
- Sitting on the same phone, i don't know what to do when it dies, really low spec ones got sd slots and a 1500 euro xperia..and thats it. But i like my local files so much
- You would need a lifetime of comics to fill even a few dozen gigabytes...
I miss my Galaxy S4... I had a blast running CyanogenMod on it. Ended up replacing it after ~3 years because I dropped it in the ocean (it mostly worked after I opened the back and cleaned it, all except the network card). Such a great device!
I'm really pissed that my current phone (S23) now has a locked bootloader because of the newest OneUI update. Damn it, Samsung.
Unihertz titan has an ir blaster and headphone jack for under 300 bucks, just sayin. Love mine
- I'm not in the market for a new phone at the moment, but that one does look awesome. I like phones that are a little bulkier rather than those super thin things you usually see nowadays that feel like they're gonna snap in half if you forget it in your back pocket.
  Too bad the battery isn't removable though, that's the only bad thing I see with it. ( I know that's a rare thing to find a phone that does, but one can dream lol)

“Costing the economy”

Thankfully wealth horders aka. billionaires pouring money into offshore bank accounts, unaffordable real estate, government bonds, and inflated stocks are all in our benefit. Only us peasants are being selfish.

If those billionaires wanted to increase the GDP they should pay more so more money circulates.
- But they are so generous because they are protecting the rainforest in subsuharen Africa or something. Case closed, no need for tax reform, they know better and are better.
  Seriously, the belittling nature of some these billionaires borders on perverse, Bezos mentioned something about how he likes to be looked at like a daddy to his employees.

Hoard cool cars in a secret garage never to see the light of day ever again? Collecting.

Keep your phone for 5 years until you're forced to upgrade? Hoarding.

Rough housing with your cousins at Thanksgiving? Horsing.

Having hobo sex in a brand new Prius? Soup kitchen.
- Goddamn Dirty Mike and the Boys

Weren’t these the same people saying that we should stop buying new iPhones and avocado toast?

In the meantime EU is forcing manufactures to use replaceable batteries, provide updates for 5 years and spare parts for 7 years.

I had to buy a new phone for work. My current jailbroken one was rejecting the auth app I needed to logon suddenly after an update.
I tried using an older phone using a newer (lineage) OS, no root, but the App kept saying no. I was beginning to lose quite a few working hours on this, and my work said "no" when I asked them for a phone.
So I bought a Fairphone6. Unnecessarily. I'm certain it's a good phone, with great repairability, and I will probably switch to it at some point in the future if my current phone ever stops working.
But it exists to log me in to work. That's its sole purpose. I dread to think what I'll have to buy next if the logon app gets too old on this phone.
- My company recently took away text-message as a way to 2FA and wanted us to download their app. I told them (politely) that I had an authorization app already that I trusted because it was Open Source (Bitwarden) and could I use that instead of installing a corporate app on my device.
  They said no.
  Never install your work's corporate spyware on your own personal device. Rule #1. If they want me to install their shit, they can provide the phone for me to do it.
- Why in the hell are you buying a phone for your job? My company was trying to get us to download some app to make us all more "connected" and I told my boss that there was absolutely no reason for the company to "connect" with me unless I am on the production floor and then he can walk out of the air conditioned office and talk to me directly. Your work should not be on your personal devices.
- Same thing happened to me ounce. I downloaded older version of the app and was able to keep using it.
  Also, I've checked recently and in my country the employer can't legally force you to buy devices you need for work. If job requires a device they have to provide it. So it's worth checking the regulation.
  Currently I'm forced to use MS Authenticator app but it works fine with Graphene OS.
  All that being said, I also have two phones because my car has Android Auto and I only recently was made available on Graphene. EU has a big issue with dependency on US tech but I think we're seeing some progress here. They should really focus on Android and force AOSP compatibility on everyone.
- Buying an old galaxy s7/s8/s9, oneplus 3/5 or something like that would have cost 90% less and saved a phone from the landfill. Or one with a cracked (but working) screen for 95% less. If all you need is the login process, an old phone with stock firmware would have been good enough.

its in response to planned obsolescence.

You see, here's the thing.

When this whole smart phone thing started, smart phones sucked. They ate a lot of power, so the battery didn't last, they were slow, both in computation, and loading data, the screens were pretty trash (dim, low res, huge bezels).... Everything needed improvements.

Now-a-days, my phone, whether new, or a couple years old, has an all day battery life, it's pretty quick and snappy, apps load quickly, data appears almost instantly on it, the screen is bright, with minimal bezel area.... Nothing I care about changes.

So why am I upgrading? Slightly better camera? Slightly better everything else? Stuff I don't perceive has been "improved" and I don't actually give a shit.

My reason to upgrade isn't there. Currently, my reason to upgrade is: this phone will no longer get upgrades, I should get something that will.... For security. That's it.

So why in the actual fuck, would I bother doing it if I don't have to? AI? No thanks.

I'd start questioning an economy that relied on getting rid of perfectly good things.
- As is right.
  The ability to repair your stuff has been all but eliminated. Just throw it away and buy a new one so some billionaire can make more money.
Also 1k or more? Fuck that. I usually get 1 to 2 year old phones. My pixel 6 pro is still doing well.
- Same. Plus you're upcycling.
- Nothing wrong with that. I might get a pixel 9 second hand to replace my 7 when it finally goes.
  Why would I need more? The 9 has what? 5+ years of updates that Google has committed to... So I'll still have ~4 years of security updates if I switch right now.
If you turn your phone off at night and just leave it unplugged the majority of the time, it will last for many, many years.
So why in the actual fuck, would I bother doing it if I don’t have to? AI? No thanks.
Hell yes.
- Brick phone plus tablet is the combination I am using currently, the tablet was £15 second hand. I could consider spending a bit if I got a significant upgrade out of it but probably not/can't be bothered to.
I had to buy a new phone recently. There were 4 or 5 different AI bullshit things trying to hassle me, I managed to remove most but one or two I couldn't uninstall.
I haven't intentionally got a phone to upgrade in well over a decade. I get a new phone because the last one no longer works in some way that matters enough that I will go and get a new one to replace it. The most expensive phone I have ever bought is a Pinephone.
It's been that way for a long time. I went Nexus 6P -> Pixel 2 -> Pixel 6
I don't break my phones, so I basically buy the device with the longest software support and keep them as long as support lasts.
- I'm the same. Went from the Nexus 5x to the pixel, to the pixel 4, to the pixel 7.
  I didn't really like the 5x, they screwed up on that one. Went to the 4 because the pixel wouldn't get updates anymore, went to the 7 because the 4 lost battery capacity and the local shop I usually use to replace my pixel batteries got bought out by dickheads... They refused to ship a battery in for me, I couldn't find another shop that would do it, so I just got the 7.
  The 7 is still going strong. We'll see how much longer it lasts though. I expect to replace it sometime next year, but I might go with a used 9 rather than a new 10/11 or something.

Seriously, I remember the days when buying the newest model of phone every year was seen as near parody levels of hyper-consumerism. It was lambasted, mocked, looked down on.

I just thought it was some rich people shit, when I was a kid
- Hollywood movies made people feel like they were the rich, important ones.

Maybe if any of the good features coming out today wasn't paired with the monkey's paw that is:

it's behind an app
it's a subscription service
it's planned obsolescence
I can actually fix it with third party vendors
it's selling your data

Maybe then consumers would actually get excited by new developments. All these trends are doing is turning the new generations into luddites.

I love it when people are called "Luddites" for hating the enshittified tech because guess what? The OG Luddites weren't actually "Luddites", either. They weren't afraid of progress per se, but its use against the average person. Unfortunately, the propaganda against them worked too well.
- I've learned so much about the Luddites in the past couple of years. I've found it super useful to connect our current struggles to historical analogues.
  It makes me think of the writings of philosopher and political theorist Frederic Jameson. He argues that one of the best ways we can resist the cultural logic of late stage capitalism is by making these connections to history — a quote he's known for is "always historicize". By reclaiming and reconnecting to our history, it's easier to understand it as a dialectical process.^[1]
  [1]: this isn't the best summary of Jameson's points. He's a pretty dense writer, and I'm still working through his stuff. If you're someone who enjoys videos, Michael Burns is an ex-philosophy professor who has a few good videos on Jameson

This just means they made good enough products. People save some money, can use that money to buy something else they need, maybe just not from the same company. It saves the planet a little bit.

The "use that money to buy something else" part means the premise of the title is not just misguided for all the reasons others point out, but it's wrong even from a pure "capitalism must go up" view. The people who are keeping phones longer are spending money on other things, driving the economy just as much or potentially more. The extreme rich people and corporations who are hoarding wealth (thus withdrawing it from the economy) are still buying new phones every year as a status symbol.
It means the economy is in bad shape

Will someone sell me one that is secure, doesn't resell my data, isn't preloaded with useless AI "features", and doesn't have Israeli Spyware on it?

I'm waiting for Canada to allow some of the Chinese models in Huawei looks great. They may still collect data, but not for the US tech oligarchs.

IDK about Israeli spyware, but I'm running e/OS on a Fairphone, and it's decent.
- I want to get one, but it is over twice the price in the US
also don't forget unlockable and relockable bootloader and the possibility to install your own OS on it.
You can't get Huawei in Canada then? I've had good experiences with them, also had a oppo that was great for its price.
- Just had a look and turns out I can! Though I'm pretty sure I can squeeze a few more years out of this one - I'm in no rush to drop another $1000.

Hey, it was thanks to these kinds of people that I was able to buy a literally new Galaxy S24 for $300 like a month after release.

In an age where phones get seven or more years of software support theres very little reason not to use your phone until it breaks

Not just phones. Except for PC hardware that's the approach I take with everything. Why would I throw away clothing if it isn't full of holes or doesn't fit at all? And even then, there might be other alternative than just throwing them away.
There just can't be endless growth with limited resources.
I have an iPhone 10, which is now locked to iOS 18.7.
I still won’t upgrade it, because fuck planned obsolescence. This device works and works very well. If I face any software/security issues in the future I will jailbreak it. Haven’t done so thus far only for the sake of banking apps.
This is my last bastion and the phone I’ll be using for the rest of my life, or until it decays to crumbs between my fingers.
Edit: FUCK. The screen just broke. Did I just jinx it? <instant_regret.jpg>

I saw the phrase the other day and thought the same thing. They should be complaining about the manufacturers "feature hoarding".

Frankly there is a way to get me to upgrade my phone from my current one but I can garuntee that there ain't many companies making phones to my upgrade standards. But here's a list.

-Easy to swap battery where I can just pop the lid and put a new one in.

-Aux jack because I want it.

-MicroSD card slot.

-Solid CPU, Ram, Storage, Et cetera.

-Give me actual buttons at the bottom you fucken cretins, I like my textile response you lousy motherfuckers.

-If you put the button on the back I'm breaking your back.

That's all I need, ideally it'd also be modular and upgradable but I severely doubt I'm getting that anytime soon. A lot of the problem with phones is that you can't really customize them to your needs, if I could I'd have a smartphone that'd look like it's from mid 90s scifi where it'd have a big fuck you battery on it and a host of controls along the side for quick use, but noooo it all has to be overly generic hyper standardized crap. Fucken hate modern phones.

It sounds like the fairphone would fit most of your requirements except for the buttons.
- The buttons are non-negotiable.
- And aux

Work productivity? That's a strange way to say "shareholder value".

Using an 11 year old blackberry converted to android. Kiss my ass with that phone treadmill.

Oh, man...they must absolutely love my Dad. He buys a new phone every 6-9 months. He has dementia and thinks every new phone is "broken" because he doesn't remember how they work anymore.

Maybe it's time for a jitterbug phone instead
- Sweet mother of God...I did not know that was a thing. I am going to have a serious look at that. Thank you.

Gotta throw out all the old pc's. We need win11 in our lives ❤

I went to Linux out of techie obstinance, but looking at the insane number of "Backup to OneDrive", "Ask Copilot" poison-patterns Windows is constantly adding to 11, I'm really starting to consider whether to suggest Mint to my parents.
I want them to have an experience as close as possible to Windows as they're used to it - and that may not come from Windows anymore.
- Do it, got my parents on mint and I daily mint. Other than the occasional trouble shooting, and command prompt work that I do for them when needed, they have been loving it.
  And of course pixels for the whole family, as always ;)
- Linux mint is great. Even if they need to use the console, there are only so many basic commands they need (and you can write them down in a text file) that they copy-paste that it is a trivia process.
yup. Microshaft sucks big fat Oprah tiddies. Throw out a perfectly fine piece of hardware? Nah, Linux!
- Yeah, and not to mention the deals on older hardware , it's like Christmas every day! Lol

So we aren't spending our minimum wages on $2000 phones often enough, because we're wasting it on steadily rising costs for food, housing, utilities, and health care?

Well, they can just go fuck themselves.

It's TERRORISM to NOT Update your Technology every year according to Trump's NPSM-7!

I'm going on a micro-retirement this Saturday to get a new phone - my current one is already 6 months old.

Thank you for your service.

I'll buy shit when I need it, not because you put out a slightly different one every year.

I've been costing the economy for decades now

From the people who brought you... https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/12/26/managing-the-e-waste-problem-will-take-a-much-bigger-commitment.html

"AI feature that I will eventually disable"

Jokes on you, the reason im not upgrading is that I cant disable it. So im holding out on my current devices until they die of natural causes (last smart phone lived 8 years and my FP4 should last 10), or I find a replacment I fully control.

(Just got rid of my last windows device a few weeks ago, still got the one for work, but it can be done).

They should see my 2001 car. I gotta say I'm impressed with how issue-free it is. Never left me stranded and all it asks for are oil changes and proper washing in certain rust-prone spots.

Gimme the name, model, and astrological sign, please
- Golf 4 1.4l
  Arguably the worst model but it never failed me, it's just got poor top speed. The 1.9l diesel can go much faster
- I have never heard of persistent, weird, or expensive mechanical issues with an NC750.
  Vietnam is full of poorly maintained Honda Waves (Groms in the US), that run as long as you keep putting oil in it and never change the brake fluid as long as it does close all the way, just keep tightening the calipers+handle and the squishier they get, adding more fluid after the 4th time the drum brakes need to be changed early because theyre full of brake fluid.
My 2003 car has never broken down. The maintenance cost over the last decade has been well under the depreciation of a new car.
- And these are much cheaper to repair just in general, because they're much simpler, nevermind the parts are still being produced afaik
Ill raise your 2001 car with my pedal bike, and I do all the maintenance myself. Cars contribute far too much towards the economy, a bike may actually be the cheapest form of transport. Even compared to walking. Last time I looked at it, typically walking wears through shoes faster than cycling wears through bikes on a cost/mile basis.
- I'd love a bike too but I don't see myself carrying gram's massive groceries with it hahaha
  I'd also loke a bloody garage to store both of them but the nearest one is like 150m away from my apartment :-/

That's full-on Newspeak, is what that is.

Yeah, the title (from the CNBC article) is completely wrong. Device hoarding means that they are buying many phones and hoards all those phones in their place.
- Ah. Like this?
  Whoppsie-doodle, that's one's actually how bad actors farm shitloads fraudulent clicks to boost spurious news articles, manipulate search results, and spam political propaganda at social networking sites. My mistake!
  Who's "hoarding" all the devices now?

They last increase in the Federal Minimum Wage was in 2009, when it was raised to $7.25. it's only been raised twice since 1997, for a total of $2.10.

The original iPhone was released in 2007. So while smart phones have become so ubiquitous that every person requires a phone just to navigate modern society, the wages required to afford both the phone and a monthly plan have not kept up.

We now have to purchase and carry a device that did not exist 20 years ago, and yet even minimum wage workers are expected to have a cell phone to communicate with work, get their schedules, etc.

And now they're complaining that we aren't coughing up an extra $2000 every year?

It’s also wrong that this has a negative effect on the economy. If people consume less and save more, those savings will be invested by banks in businesses.

Interesting thought experiment. but if hypothetically, we all stopped buying apple products, but instead using that money to buy apple shares (what a bank would do). Would that be better or worse for Apple? could they still pay their staff (ignoring the fact that apple would fire everyone and rake in the money).
- Well, the way I understand this, if we did it for reasons related to their prices and quality, yes. They could use the money to make their production cheaper or quality better.
  But this ignores the fact that they might not be able to lower the prices or increase the quality enough for any of us to return to them because we are all doing it for other reasons. If we do it because they are rent seeking to make us hooked by locking us into systems, having proprietary features, and exploiting child labor or whatever they do, then they might stop doing these things if there is enough pressure. Then we might return to buying. But a company cannot will not gain much from stocks if there is no chance to have revenues in the future. But the stocks would also become worthless. I think as consumers we should choose more ethically, to force companies to improve their practices. And not treat it as a cancel culture (I believe boycitting a practice work better than boycotting a company politically). For this to work consumers have to accept lower quality for a while. We have to be okay with not having the top proprietary features in order to use alternatives that have been kept from catching up with the big ones.

they can also call AI companies buying every RAM stocks in the world as device hoarding. It clearly have economic impact now

I read that article before and it just felt kinda strange to me. Like, obviously, thats an attention grabbing headline, and yeah, it goes on to talk about how, Amercian consumers are holding on to their devices longer than before, but then I think what they really wanted to talk about when they say "costing the economy" was more focused on companies not upgrading their hardware as often.

Like, they go on to say that there's productivity being left on the table because the computer your job gives you is too slow to run heavy modern programs.

CNBC always feels so alien to me

It's like when RCA had to come up with new shit to sell because they knew that eventually everybody would have a radio.

Apple is gonna make a new campaign about how only poor and dumb people are holding on to their phones for more than a year and americans will camp in front of apple stores again.

Their phones are already a status symbols, the marginal changes in the design each year is so people know that you bought the latest one.

'Everyone disliked that."

The macroeconomics over welfare economics bias is strong.

I have a Samsung S23, and it is going to be the first time my phone WON'T either be destroyed or stolen before it is fully paid off. I won't be getting another phone until something like Cape phone is fully functional in my area and I can have a GrapheneOS compatiable device. I will not be allowing any more bullshit be spying on me more than I need to (which ideally should be zero, but that is basically impossible).

It's the same trend as desktops then laptops then phones then now on small smartwatches, they get good enough and standardized enough that they didn't really change much anymore. And the mature technology means that as long as the old one works people won't upgrade it until it breaks.
- For me personally the last three phones I got were destroyed, stolen, destroyed... in that order. Ironically I didn't armor up the last two phones due to the fact that the first phone was cased pretty strongly and was broken BECAUSE of that .
  However it seems that my current phone is armored up and it is lasting well. Btw my previous phone was a Motorola G5 Power. Meaning it was grapheneOS compatible... Just my rotten luck.

Why is anyone listening to 24/7 cable news networks? You know they stir shit all day cause that's their $$$.

I absolutely fall into this category. I kept my Galaxy S10 going for as long as I possibly could. New screen. New battery. Three new back shells. New camera module. Hell, I would probably still be using it if the USB-C port didn't break. That was where I drew the line. Like when my 16 year old Pontiac G6 needed a second catalytic converter.

I still have an S10+ - works totally fine. Even the battery is doing fine.
- Nice. I think I killed mine with excessive quick charging. I don't do that anymore.

I guess when companies buy enough ad time that a mainstream media company’s number going up is dependent on said company’s number going up, that company gets “partner” status with complimentary services like this. The ads really are the least of what they’re buying. I suppose this is the second-best option to billionaires just outright buying their own media companies.

Darnest thing, I got this thinkpad from way back when and it just keeps working.

Guess I’ll have to throw more money at a newer machine until the AI decides to do the same…

(No really, cry harder assholes)

🐧

I’ll buy a new phone when they make them a reasonable size again.

13 mini daily work device until it's dead-dead or they make a pixel of equivalent size. Retired pixel 7 for home fun device (revanced/metrolist).
- My 12 mini is still going strong.
  I got a battery replacement last year and it’s been great since. It’s even outlived the leather case I bought with it, but now I can’t find any new cases.

Not to be a buzzkill but the article is kind of about productivity lost because businesses don't upgrade their equipment.

Research released by the Federal Reserve last month concludes that each additional year companies delay upgrading equipment results in a productivity decline of about one-third of a percent, with investment patterns accounting for approximately 55% of productivity gaps between advanced economies.

Buddy of mine made a point of walking and chatting around the office. When his boss got fed up with that and called him out, he pointed to the PC where you saw the progress bar slooowly creeping upwards. Those old PCs were replaced in record time.
decline of about one-third of a percent
something that can be easily offset by switching that in-person meeting into an email or cutting a useless middle-management position.

When I saw the title, I thought this was talking about like keeping old devices and never using them again after buying new ones. How is continuing to use an old device instead of buying more eventual waste "hoarding" smh...

By their logic, I’m hoarding Thanksgiving leftovers by planning to eat them over the next couple days. How dare I not go out and buy new food when I already have good food to eat!

Names are attached to these stupid articles. They deserve to be shamed.

In most cases the person writing the headline is not writing the article. The problem in this case is the headline being horrible.

"Device hoarding"

The only hoarding going on is the money the C-Staff of these companies keeps hoarding.

We don't have to make a trillion iDevices if everyone is being paid good wages.

I disagree with the "eventually" part. I disable it first thing.

Lol "hoarding"... If they were truly that concerned about a stagnant economy they could sell product at cost and not inflated retail. That would incentivize moving a lot more product while turning all the gears in the supply chain and satisfying a ton of jobs throughout.

But they don't really care the economy itself, just that it can be harnessed to make a rich guy richer as a byproduct. An economy that isn't making the rich richer is worthless to them, so they come up with articles like this to shame people.

Let me see how long my 23-year BMW E46 could live :) My phone has more than 5 years and I am going to squeeze as much as possible from it. I am very happy when I don't need to buy a thing.

Other than serious gaming I can't imagine why you'd need a top of the line device, and when it comes down to it, who tf is doing serious phone gaming? And if you're doing work on your phone and you need to have a lot of computing power to have like 10 programs open that you're constantly switching between, wouldn't a tiny screen be frustrating?

Basically it's my contention that new phones are stupid. In this 3 hour video I'll argue that...

I didn’t think it was real.

But there it was…the network who some right wingers will say is a leftist cesspool…engaged in full-blown end-stage capitalism.

I mean…it still seems like satire. The article talking about how using your phone for 22 months puts strain on the network because it has to become backwards compatible…or how the repair market is unregulated (ie a black market) and therefore damages the economy.

I just ordered some glue for the back cover of my phone. It's only 4 years old though.