Holy shit keeping a device longer than 2 years is "device hoarding" now? Thats fucking nuts.

How do you invest so much money in a device like that and not make it last? I've got one phone I use for work calls thats 10 years old. People are still shocked I dont even have a case on it.

Maybe don’t base the economy on e-waste?

What kind of twatwaffle writes this crap. Fuck your planned obsolescence.

Sacrifice yourselves for the economy

Maybe I’m old but it feels like the days of meaningful improvements have passed. Now it’s just a slightly different design for the sake of the annual release schedule. Why change when this 4 year old device is still supported and functions just fine?

A new phone can cost over $1000 and the old one still works

Maybe the economy shouldn’t be so dependent upon disposable devices.

Yeah, no shit. No one wants to buy a new $1200 phone that does the exact same shit as the last $1200 phone.

"The economy" can once again be replaced with "rich people's yacht money"

"The economy" is code for rich people's profits.

Then the "economy" should make more repair shops and sell more replacement items if it can't convince people to throw away still useful items anymore.

Sounds like phone companies need to innovate a bit more to me. Why the hell would anyone blame consumers for deciding that they don't need to replace something if the replacement is almost the exact same?

It doesn't cost the economy at all; great efficiency frees up resources for other purposes. The only downside is to the companies that make the devices and rely on planned obsolescence for profitability. The stock market and "the economy" are NOT synonyms.

I remember in the 00's when you'd upgrade your phone every year because the service providers would give you a new phone. And it would be leaps and bounds better than your previous phone with tons of new features.

Now, Samsung wants to kvetch because I won't spend $1,500 on their new whatever that is functionally identical to the one I have from 2020? Feh! Rot!

Edit: Come to think of it, my old phone has more features than the new one since they got rid of the stylus. Maybe one day they'll figure out "AI" isn't a feature, it's bloatware.

Where’s that cartoon about financial news stories making much more sense if you replace the words “the economy” with “rich people’s boat money”?

This article is framed from a capitalist CEO, and while it touches on reality, feels incredibly lost in it's point.

Cassandra Cummings, CEO of New Jersey-based electronics design company Thomas Instrumentation. ...

Both the cellular and internet infrastructure has to operate to be backwards compatible in order to support the older, slower devices. Networks often have to throttle back their speeds in order to accommodate the slowest device

I'd Boohoo, if they actually were thinking about rebuilding the network stack to consider something like MultiPathTCP and reframed the devices to actually use all the networks they were on rather than a single one... But no they want you to by a single provider and depend on that plan... For the economy.

Further Telecoms choose not to upgrade towers (to save costs). In 2023, AT&T/Verizon spent $10B less on network upgrades than projected. Because they were being profit-driven underinvestment.

She does go on to say:

To ease the transition to new technologies, she says there should be designs that are repairable or modular rather than the constant purge and replace cycles. “So perhaps future devices can have a partial upgrade in say ethernet communications rather than forcing someone to purchase an entirely new computer or device,” Cummings said. “I’m not a fan of the throw-away culture we have these days. It may help the economy to spend more and force upgrades, but does it really help people who are already struggling to pay bills?” she said.

So slightly redeeming.

The article also makes note of repairing:

He adds that when people hold onto their phones or laptops for five or six years, the repair and refurbishment market becomes an active part of the economy. But right now, in both European, American, and global markets, too much of that happens in the shadows.

But this attempt to point out that productivity is lost on old devices:

The price to the organization is then paid in lack of productivity, inability to multitask and innovate, and needless, additional hours of work that stack up. Workplace research conducted by Diversified last year found that 24% of employees work late or overtime due to aging technology issues, while 88% of employees report that inadequate workplace technology stifles innovation. Kornweiss says he doesn’t expect there’s been any improvement in those numbers over the past year.

There’s a disconnect between the numbers and behavior. Many workers report that aging devices stifle productivity, but like a favorite pair of shoes or an old sweater, they don’t want to give them up to learn the intricacies of a new device (which they’ll learn and then have to replace with another). Familiarity can trump productivity for many workers. But the result of that IT clinginess is felt in the bottom line.

Fails to point out the waste of resources and it's impact on climate, health, and the economy; loss of privacy and it's impact on democracy, health, and yes the economy; and also how often new things don't actually help productivity...

Some how the "Upgrade to help the economy" falls flat when you consider Windows 11 and it's non-upgrade upgrade. Or MS Office which is still producing Word/Excel/PowerPoint/etc decades later with the same shortcuts. Your ‘productivity lag’ is your boss refusing to train you not your laptop

I mean if upgrade = economy, why does Apple sit on $165B in cash? They should spend it — not you!

Profit-driven innovation that wants to sell us the same iPhone with a new camera, is not helping the economy. We need real innovation that disrupts big tech as much as it disrupts everything.

Oh and that 'business equipment investment' from the fed was about factory robots and large capital investments, not phones.

Omg the poor economy, how could those selfish Americans do that

Man. What a shitty headline. This is actually impressive.

Good, fuck the economy

PEOPLE AREN'T GIVING US MORE MONEY!

This is a good thing and CNBC centers on the poor shareholders. Reduction of ewaste in this small area is positive.

Maybe "the economy" should give some more money back to working class people, ya dingdongs

29 months

squeezing as much life out of your device as possible

FUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUU

Last phone I had for 7 years, through a screen replacement, 2 battery replacements, and a switch to LineageOS.

And I would not even call that "squeezing as much life out of your device as possible".

Now I want to hold my devices longer so the economy destroys even faster

device hoarding

That is not what this is called.

"A population with skyrocketing costs of living and stagnant wages cutting unnecessary spending, and that's a problem"

wHy ArE mIlLeNnIaLs DeStRoYiNg ThE pRiCe Of ____?!#1

Because we don't have any fucking money, idiot.

Proper headline: Economy sucks, inflation is higher than ever, so people have to hold onto their devices longer.

Maybe if more of "the economy" went into the pockets of consumers they'd have money to buy phones as often as they used to.

C O N S U M E

They could've also said CEOs are hoarding more wealth than ever and it's costing the economy.

Also, phone manufacturers, for one, took my headphone jack, removable storage, removable battery, crammed in more crapware, made rooting even harder, and keep aggravating my RSI with bigger and bigger screens. Why the hell would I look forward to an upgrade?

Fuck this shit. Pay us more.

29 months?! I don't get rid of my device until it doesn't hold a charge for longer than 10 minutes and no longer has security updates provided...My last phone was 7 years old.

Fuck the economy. It can eat my ass.

Also with moore's law's death, why the fuck would anybody believe this productivity bullshit? Any device from 5 years ago can do what a device today can.

One more thing, wtf is this entitlement from electronics importers. Apple, google, samsung, etc can all fuck off until they move manufacturing back to north america.