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Comment by jraph | Hacker News Reader

Environmentally speaking, (re)using existing hardware / buying second hand probably beats everything.

Absolutely. If you want to even pretend to care about the environment, the very first step is starting to buy almost everything over $100 second hand. The added benefit is that it has lots of other societally positive effects! It has one of the very highest "sacrifices made vs. societal benefit" ratios there is. Please stop buying "environmentally friendly" gadgets and equipment and start buying "unfriendly" ones second-hand. There are very few categories of products where the efficiency gains made over the last decade mean you should buy new. Certainly less than 1% of purchases we make.

I do that but I also feel kinda bad since I feel I’m taking it instead of someone else who’s more budget constrained than me

You shouldn't, really. I don't think there's shortage in the second hand market. We probably need more people reusing stuff.

You're providing income to someone whose almost definitely more constrained than you. Without you, no one may have bought it. And the other comment is right - it's a buyers market, we need more buyers, there's a surplus of sellers. Another thing - if sellers more quickly and more easily get to sell their stuff second hand thanks to you, they're more incentivized to sell more in the future as well instead of keeping it in a drawer or throwing it in the trash.

You're doing great for everyone involved!

What matters is how long devices are used, not how often the owner changes.

That's right, and buying new and taking very good care of your stuff + using to the point of being unusable probably beats serial-buying second hand devices you mistreat.

There has to be second hand users tough, otherwise the second hand devices that, for a reason or another, are not used to the end by their original buyer never get used again.

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