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Comment by onli | Hacker News Reader

1. No enterprise will withdraw from the EU market because of this. There are too many customers with too much money in the EU. It's a bigger market than the US.

2. That would actually be good, the amount of models aims at confusing customers. But also: Why would that happen? Many models can (and do) share the same spare parts.

3. Prices are already as high as they can be. They do not get lowered because production gets less expensive, they get lowered because of competition. This might have an effect on prices if the competition was very high and profit span very thin - which might be the case for the cheapest budget phones. For something like an iPhone? To my knowledge they are already utterly overpriced, as is tradition (https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2017/11/08/apple-iph...), then it will have no effect there.

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So, the price rises hit the poorest. Fantastic.....

The question is, would it lower the total cost of ownership? A phone that lasts twice as long will cost roughly half as much (perhaps a bit more if repairs are needed).

There is also no good reason for the cost of security fixes to vastly increase the cost for manufacturers if they slow down the release cycle for hardware and software. This isn't 2010 after all. The pace of meaningful improvements is considerably slower.

Most iPhones hit the second user market whether gifted or sold on.

They have a far higher trade in or resale value than any other brand.

It actually causes a bigger second hand market of phones if they have a longer life. Plenty of users still want the latest or there abouts. While others will happily go for the nearly new.

People don't change phones, especially cheap phones, because they stop getting security updates.

The result of this law would be that cheap phones will get more expensive for no benefit at all and expensive phones will cost the same.

The benefit is receiving security updates. People may not choose to update their phones with security in mind, which is all the more reason to do it. Security updates is a place where consumers can be shortchanged simply because they are invisible, the consumer may not be aware that the security of their phone has been breached, and it is the sort of thing that consumers rarely think of until something bad has happened.

As for cost, I don't see why it would have to go up all that much. Apps are already upgradable on phones and much of the OS is hardware independent. So the only real pressure point is with the kernel and other hardware dependent code.

Expensive phones don’t necessarily have much more long term software support than cheap ones and the cost is typically shared across the full product line. Yes Apple provides longer support than Android phones, but a high end iPhone and a low end iPhone get the same term of updates, just as a high end Samsung and a low end Samsung get the same term of updates. A highend Samsung absolutely could have longer support which would improve its value. At the point where this is being built for high end phones, the marginal cost of including support for low end models is very low.

Users of low-end phones would still benefit from the extended support lifecycle because their device and data would remain secure for a longer period of time.

Have you asked them if they are in agreement of that in exchange for a more expensive phone?

They're free to purchase second-hand phones, if they want to buy an even cheaper device. When most phones are supported for 7 years instead of 2-3, the market of second-hand phones that are still supported will expand greatly.

I'm not sure that any significant number of people have switched phones due to lack of updates. It usually comes down to:

(1) Battery stops holding a charge

(2) The device gets damaged

(3) Cameras get a lot better

Beyond just battery flash slowly wears out over time, degrading performance. Based on my Nexus 6 I would love it if the EU dictated batteries must be replaceable, but you need an overabundance of flash so a few years in there are still cells left to balance wear across.

The Nexus 6 automatically throttled performance based on battery left, but at some point the battery wore out to the point that less than 1/2 an hour of use got you below that threshold. After that the phone was very laggy and frustrating to use. No way anyone would want 5 years of that experience, updates or not.

Second-hand phones will massively go up in price if this happens. Not a solution.

Not even going into the problems with second-hand phones and that poor people de-factor have zero legal rights as they don't have the money to take sellers to court.

Instead of buying a 1-2 year old phone with 1 remaining year of support, the legislation would allow users to choose to buy a 6 year old phone with 1 remaining year of support. Since new phone releases apply downward price pressure on older phone models each year, the 6 year old model would most likely be much cheaper under the new legislation than the 1-2 year old model is currently. Budget-conscious users would appreciate having the 6 year old model available as a more affordable and equally viable choice.

Many used phone sellers/marketplaces offer extended warranties on second-hand phones, which risk-averse buyers should purchase.

> Not even going into the problems with second-hand phones and that poor people de-factor have zero legal rights as they don't have the money to take sellers to court.

This thread is about EU law.

In EU you don't have to take sellers to court, you just have to nag customer protection authorities until they do.

It might take some time: Google still hasn't gotten a massive fine for abusing its position in search and ads to kill competing browsers despite my reports but I will not be surprised when it happpens.

PS: come on guys and gals and do write to your local competition authorities. The sooner we can get this sorted the better.

Buying a phone that lasts you seven years may still be cheaper than buying two.

Your average person breaks devices before than and you expect people to have access to a load of money at once?

A very capable smartphone currently costs ~200€, so if prices rise by 50% (an unbelievable amount), that would be 300€. Certainly not nothing, but car repairs or a new dishwasher are much more expensive.

I expect the poorest to benefit the most from extended longevity, since more affluent people "need" the better camera or a more fashionable design the most.

I know quite a few people with >3 year old smartphones, but mostly with custom roms, since stock firmware isn't usable anymore.

1. 100 euros is a lot of money to the poorest people in society. Many of them can't afford a car or dishwasher.

2. "longevity" means nothing when most people keep dropping their phone. Even used phones that appear perfect can start bootlooping months after buying because of damage caused by the first owner and the eBay seller won't accept returns by than, even if you could prove it was not caused by you.

Most people I know get a phone case to limit damage to their phone. A case is an inexpensive investment that usually pays for itself many times over.

Someone who is really clumsy or in a situation where they are much more likely than average to drop their phone should purchase phone insurance.

And for uninsured people who happen to break their phone, it would still be cheaper to repair it than to get a new one. Repaired phones still benefit from longer support lifecycles, and the proposed legislation would ensure that spare parts are affordable and available.

A case is fantastic at protecting the outer areas of the phone by being a layer that comes in contact with the ground. They do fuck all to protect the internals as the forces still exist and can break a phone months down the road from the drop.

That contrasts sharply with my experiences, having dropped phones that were adequately protected by cheap cases on many occasions. These phones were still working fine years later, with no internal or external damage. Users who are more concerned about phone damage can buy tougher multi-layer cases, which are still great investments.

The former is why right to repair is so important.

The latter may be a problem but you could still buy an older (mid-cycle) model instead of the latest one and still get updates for years.

Right to repair is nearly meaningless on the budget-end as a repair guy will charge £50 to £100 for the labour plus parts with their own mark-up.

Does everyone on hackernews get paid £100k a year and spend over £1,000 on a phone?

A repair in Romania (EU, unlike UK) has a labor cost of 10-20EUR depending on the complexity; in most cases the "repair" is just replacing a component that has connectors, so it takes minutes, or swapping a new battery. A £100 fee sounds like science-fiction or lack of common sense.

A fee of 100-120 euros is not unusual in a part of the EU that isn't dirt poor, nothing science fiction about it.

If a person can’t afford expected repair expenses during the useful lifetime of a product, then they can’t afford that product.

You wouldn’t buy a car either without planning for repair costs.

You've described most EU policies.

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