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Comment by JohnBooty | Hacker News Reader

> If you're already poor, then an iPhone (not a smartphone) is definitely a luxury.

It's not wrong, nor necessarily economically irresponsible, for "poor" people to have a few nice things.

Assuming a lifespan of 3 years, the cost difference between a $600 phone and a $300 phone is barely more than $0.25 per day - and probably even less, considering that iPhones have a higher resale value.

Maybe that "poor person" carrying an iPhone just forgoes $0.25 or $0.50 of other niceties per day so they can afford that iPhone and those $100 shoes - or maybe they just work in a city, because you can literally find that much money on the ground every day if you keep your eyes peeled.

If a person routinely made such purchases, to the detriment of their well-being, certainly that could be a problem. But unless we know somebody's full financial picture we should not presume to make such a judgement.

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I'm not sure if you have any perspective what being poor means.

This link : http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/

Seems quite appropriate and - I hope - illuminating.

I'm glad you posted that: everybody should read it and truly try to put themselves in those shoes.

I do not understand the fact that you seem to have posted it as a rebuttal to my post.

My post was meant as a criticism of another indignity that the poor often face: other peoples' (often baseless, and always condescending) criticisms of their financial decisions.

Their criticisms often carry the subtext that poor people are poor because they are wearing a $100 item of clothing or because they own a smartphone - in essence, those criticisms say that these people deserve to be poor and/or poor people don't deserve nice things.

I find such criticisms of poor people to be incredibly classist and devoid of empathy and my post was intended to address that. I don't know how my words could have been read otherwise.

Thanks for the clarification. I think it was mostly this statement :

  Assuming a lifespan of 3 years, the cost difference between a $600 phone and a $300 phone is barely more than $0.25 per day

that triggered my response. Rereading it: you're right. I'm still glad to have posted the link :)

What really riles me up is that a lot of people have no clue how expensive it actually is to be poor and how hard is it to break the vicious circle. That's in addition that a lot of poor people work equally hard as the rest of us.

I see what you mean. And you're right: not everybody has an extra $0.25/day or $1.75/week for a nicer phone. $1.75/week for some people is the difference between having oatmeal for breakfast and not having breakfast.

That is an excellent, excellent link. And this:

> What really riles me up is that a lot of people have no clue how expensive it actually is to be poor

Yes! This is the one thing I wish everybody could understand about being poor. Not only do you have less money, almost everything is more expensive.

"Simple" things like buying food when it's on sale and freezing it for later aren't possible if you don't have a second freezer, or even a first freezer, or if you're in danger of having your power turned off, or if you live in a terrible apartment where the power goes off for reasons not even in your control.

Heck, a lot of people can't even clip supermarket coupons because they don't have access to a supermarket. (For anybody scratching their heads at this, Google "food desert")

Or another great example:

Cost of a $150,000 home if you're rich and don't need a mortgage: $150,000 (or $0 in the long run, because you can get that money back when you sell it)

Cost of a $150,000 home if you need a mortgage: $500,000+

(Not that the truly poor can even obtain mortgages, but it's a good illustration of how much cheaper things can get as you go further and further up the income scale)

That's a heart-wrenching list. I love Scalzi's SF, but didn't know that side of him. My parents were poor by any US standard. But basically, I was trained for the Cold War, so hey.

I do recall, however, a friend who was raising two kids on her own. With some horrible history of migration etc. She did indeed know the cost of everything. And budgeted carefully, down to the penny.

It's nice that Scalzi "made it" and turned his writing into a successful career.

I really like his blog (sorry John, I guess I'm one of your freeloaders; that's because I'm just not that much into SF)

He seems to be a really decent guy and shows an ability, which is sorely missed nowadays:

Comon Sense.

I guess a should have clarified: flagship phones of any major manufacturer can last many years past a carrier's upgrade period with a little extra care from the user. Continuous upgrading to the latest flagship phone is a luxury, but owning one is not necessarily a luxury in its own right.

I try not to make judgments about anyone's spending habits unless it's affecting me.

One of my biggest issues online is forgetting that subtext is easily missed. In cases where it is missed, it can be minutes or hours before you have a chance to rectify it. Sorry about that, and thanks for the criticism.

I think people criticise these financial decisions because they feel their tax money is going to people who can afford things they either can't or have to work harder for. They might be failing to see the bigger picture, but I think it's reasonable to at least look at peoples' financial decisions if they are receiving handouts.

I find it quite annoying when people equate owning a smartphone to not being poor. Phones are regularly sold on 18 month contracts, so there are tons of 2 year old perfectly usable smartphones kicking around and probably given to the ex-owners poorer friends.

That's a good perspective for those of us living comfortable middle-class lives in the developed world currently.

But having seen the other side of the coin in the not-so-developed world, I'm sure the author could (and should) add the words "in America" to that essay's title. Being poor elsewhere is far far worse than what he describes here.

That's being poor in the first world. Being poor in the 3rd world is entirely different.

I guess that is relevant here since Apple is a company that makes products for first world only.

I don't think the OP's criticism is on the "poor person", but rather on the fact that Apple's business model and marketing scheme is premised on a false need to buy some new "revolutionary" iThing which actually offers little or no functional benefit over a perfectly fine older PC or less-powerful android.

> It's not wrong, nor necessarily economically irresponsible, for "poor" people to have a few nice things.

I strongly agree with this, but if someone does choose to buy an iPhone they should know it's a luxury. It bothers me that Apple doesn't acknowledge this.

I don't want to totally let producers of consumer goods off the hook here: they are certainly not blameless when it comes to the unhealthy consumer culture we have, and Schiller's comment was tone deaf IMHO.

But generally I feel it's appropriate for companies to tell us how awesome their products are; it's up to us to recognize which things are necessities and which are luxuries.

Other responses disagree with you, but I agree with you... and I'm rather anti-consumerist (it's difficult to pull off completely...).

In fact, I feel a bit silly having paid "only" $300 for my Samsung phone, having read your economic breakdown. I was imagining myself having an extra $200 for stuff... but I go through a lot of wasted time having "only" 16GB.. continuously moving stuff off of it... missed photos and videos I could have taken. Perhaps the pix didn't have economic value worth $200 over 3 years, but the time is probably worth it.

I've also heard the perspective on the poor that if they have to be poor, it helps to have at least one nice thing. the nice thing of choice is the phone.

The real question is, imho, how to leverage these choices to get what helps an individual. e.g. use the phone to get jobs, to shop around for the best price, to buy used things on craigslist to save money, to watch inspiring and encouraging videos, to learn new skills to get better jobs, etc.

I really appreciate your reply!

Yeah, sometimes (not always) the more expensive option is actually cheaper in the long run, or is at least a justifiable cost. Looking at the $/day or $/hour cost over the lifespan of a product is one way to get a better understanding of the "real" cost.

The danger is that it can be easy to justify too many of those "well, it's only $0.10 a day!" purchases because they can really add up.

(In fact, car salesmen will often try to sell you upgrades in a similar way. "Well, upgrading to the leather seats will only add $25 to your monthly payments...")

The reason I decided to go cheap with smartphone is because I bought a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 with the intention of using it for at least 5 years but the utter piece of junk broke stone cold dead after 2 years and 3 months. I basically got robbed for half the value of the phone because of the attitude that old hardware is bad (read unprofitable) hardware and therefore we don't build stuff to last anymore. Same with the iPhone before it but in Apples case their revolutionary new iOS update made my phone basically unusable. So I voted with my wallet and went for a mid range Android option for $250.

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