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Comment by stickfigure | Hacker News Reader

I've been consistently upgrading every 3 years since the Nexus days and I really don't think I'm missing anything. With trade-in, it ends up being something like $50/yr (I always go for the budget versions). Unless you're already sitting on FU money, I don't understand why anyone would spend more.

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> Unless you're already sitting on FU money, I don't understand why anyone would spend more [than $50/yr on phone upgrades].

Among the people I know, there's more people living paycheck to paycheck and getting annual phone upgrades than people with FU money doing upgrades. That said, the percentage of FU money upgraders is higher than the percentage of paycheck-to-paycheck upgraders.

Google/Samsung/Apple/etc may be making more total money from the not-well-off than the well-off, at least thinking about people I know.

There's a point at which something like a new smartphone isn't a status symbol anymore. Among wealthier people, having an iPhone 11 isn't less of a signal than a day one iPhone 15.

I like to get a nice laptop and phone because I spend so much time on them. An iPhone is worth it for me, as I like a predictably good camera. Before I went iPhone, I had a Pixel 3a, and it took perfectly fine pictures. I just like the iPhone cameras more, although I’m starting to get a little jealous of the better zoom capabilities on some Samsung phone cameras I’ve seen recently. Lately I’ve been upgrading every two years, but every three would also be fine.

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