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Comment by Scandiravian | Hacker News Reader

I understand why some people don't want to pay this amount of money upfront based on the specs alone. From a "per year" cost I still think it's competitive

If they really manage to support this device for 10 years, that's $75 per year, which I think is relatively cheap

My use-case for a phone does not need a lot of processing power. I use it for messaging, checking emails, watch a bit of YouTube, and catch up on the news. I feel reasonably confident that it will be able to perform those tasks 8-10 years down the line

On top of that I also appreciate that I can buy a device that is sourced with consideration for workers and the environment. It's never good for the environment to produce new devices, but the option to limit the impact is important to me

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It would be even cheaper comparatively if we were properly taxed for the downstream effects of our waste.

Agreed. Though I'm personally more in favour of adding the cost at the other end. I think companies should be taxed for the cost of restoring the damage their products cause to the environment, as this would encourage competition towards more sustainable practices

Philosophically, I agree with you completely. But practically, how would we measure that let alone enforce it?

I think it's still hard to say which policies would be effective. I think CO2-equivalent emission taxes are a good starting point

It might also be possible to put a recycling fee on each produced device based on the retail price and the amount of damage it would cause to the environment if the device was dumped in the environment

When a device is then handed in for recycling the company is refunded the fee minus the cost of to handle it at the recycling facility

On the downside that could also encourage companies to create products that are replaced before they are no longer usable, though honestly we already have that problem. It could maybe be prevented by lowering the fee based on how long the company commit to supporting the model with software and replacement parts

If we can measure the near infinitesimal gravitational waves from black holes colliding across the universe, surely we can at least get close to measuring this.

Nobody loses money when you measure infinitesimal gravitational waves from black holes colliding across the universe. If it affected climate change, it would be a different story - the conspiracy of astrophysicists who also traffic baby goats, Einstein was a hoax, black holes aren't settled science, why don't we measure gravity waves in America/UK rather than foreign gravity waves, etc.

It only makes sense to treat it as "10 years" if it's actually useable for 10. For me, the specs make it a non-starter on day 1.

Sure, if your use-case requires a lot of computational power it might be a bad fit, but as I also wrote in my post, my requirements are pretty light, in which case this phone is closer to perfect than any other I've come across

If your needs are that light, how do justify spending that much on a phone? Why not just get whatever shitty android is on sale for $free.50?

- Price wise it's still competitive if looking at the cost per year

- I don't want to spend time and energy having to figure out which phone I should replace it with when the shitty phone dies after 12 months

- I care about the working conditions for the people actually assembling my phone

- I care about the impact my consumption has on the environment

Giving Fairphone money has a much higher chance of turning the whole industry than supporting shitty companies. If it's shit you're probably going to buy another one next year anyway, and in the end spend a similar amount over 10 years

How does that compare with a used/refurbished iPhone?

>that's $75 per year, I still think it's competitive

It's more than what it would be for an iphone

The lowest cost iPhone SE 3rd gen I can find on Apple's website is €549 with 7 years of software updates

The fp5 on Fairphones website is €529 with at least 8 years of software updates

Even if iPhones were marginally cheaper, they carry with them vendor lock-in, poor repairability, and a track record of horrendous working conditions for the workers assembling them

To me it would still be worth a small premium to avoid those drawbacks even if the fp5 was more expensive per year

The FP5 costs 699€ on the Fairphone website, so the premium is not that small

For that price you also get 4x the storage of the cheapest iPhone SE. For comparable storage the iPhone is €749

Comparing the cheapest iPhone with the FP5, the latter is still cheaper per year, even if I never have to replace anything (such as the battery)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37756346

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