I can’t believe some of the points Linus made against the Fairphone, especially given he’s onboard with the same compromises for the Framework laptop. 🤭

  • pop@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    For a customer who wants the best phone for their money, the Fairphone is objectively worse

    Objectivity worse in performance, sure. Some people consider more things than just being a fastest bang for the buck. Unethical mining, forced labour, e-waste, data mining, and lots of other things. If you care at all, that is.

    If you want to compare that to a product made by a billion dollar company, no one is stopping anyone. There is cost associated with doing things ethically. Small companies aren’t financed to eat those costs to gain the market. It speaks more about principles than anything else.

    I don’t disagree with Linus’ suggestion at the end: even the fairest phone is environmentally costlier than rescuing an old second hand phone

    is it? The person who sold the phone is most definitely going to buy a new phone and if they sold the phone released last year they will most likely do so every year. The reason there’s a second hand market with a year old phones is because people obsessively buy new phones. How exactly is that environmentally friendly than starting to use a phone made by a company with higher ethics? Surely the later stacks higher in being environmentally and morally friendly?

    Duchebag is spouting capitalists “trickle down” economics. Rather than fix the cause, find the flex tape to hide it. Rich people buy new phones, less rich buy phones from the rich, and so on. No one needs to look past the marketing into ethics in how they were made and companies keep profiting in billions by exploitation of the poor. So so environmentally friendly.

    • accideath@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      People are going to buy new phones regardless. You not buying used phones is not going to change that.

      Buying used or refurbished keeps the devices they‘d throw away (or keep in a drawer for 10 years, then throw away), if they couldn’t sell them, from landfills.

      Also, I know plenty of people who are well off that buy second hand phones and even more people who couldn’t even afford a Fairphone (which starts at almost 500€ for a 4 and 650€ for a 5) that buy a brand new 200-300€ phone every two years.

      And those low end phones are the least environmentally friendly because they‘re definitely unethically made they most likely break more quickly than higher end options, they usually don’t get updates for very long, if at all, and there’s no noteworthy second hand market for them because people just throw them away (or into a drawer) if the phone stops working or when they feel like getting a new one, because who buys a 2 year old low end phone second hand?

      Buying used instead is a great option. You get a higher end device for cheaper without anything new having to be made for you. It‘ll still last you years and you’ll have a better experience than with a cheap new phone.

      Yes, it would be better if all phones were ethically produced, easy to repair and would last a long time. Especially if there are ethically phones in the sub 300€ market. Won’t be easy to achieve, if at all, and wouldn’t stop blind consumerism but it would make for an even better second hand market. Because, you know what’s better than a fairphone? A second hand fairphone.

    • Dark ArcA
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      9 months ago

      How exactly is that environmentally friendly than starting to use a phone made by a company with higher ethics? Surely the later stacks higher in being environmentally and morally friendly?

      The difference is you can produce only the best phones. There aren’t throw away/cheap phones. The only difference is then how old the phone is.

      It’s the difference between buying an old Lexus and a new base model Kia. They both might cost the same, and yeah the Lexus driver almost definitely got a new car, but the Lexus is probably going to outlive the Kia.