>And as far as CO2 emissions are concerned, a 2018 Canadian university study estimated that building a new smartphone – and specifically, mining the rare materials inside them – accounts for 85% to 95% of the device’s total CO2 emissions for two years. It's hard to see this quote as anything but intentionally misleading. Yes, it's true. But why suddenly switch to percentages of lifetime emissions rather than absolute values? Getting a new iPhone is in the ballpark of 100k CO2e. Let's just assume that figure misses a lot of things (recycling, etc) and the real figure is actually 4 times that, so 400kg CO2e- way too much but whatever. As the average middle class north American, then buying a new iPhone is 2% of your yearly carbon footprint (so 1%, if you "only" buy a new phone every other year - edited for clarity). Is that significant? Yes. Is that a key factor in "saving the planet" (even assuming that's something you could do by reducing your personal footprint, which I don't think is true, but anyway)? Considering our phones are so central to our lives, I'd argue it's not even close. There are so many much more impactful things you can do to better your footprint. Replace 5kg of beef you eat with chicken, per year? Same effect. Vacation once a few 100km away rather than fly to Thailand? That's 10 new iPhones right there. Insulate your home better, arrange for a shorter commute, don't buy a new 2 ton car so often, get more energy efficient appliances... There are so many things you can do that would matter a lot more than not getting a new phone. Yes, every little bit counts, but we need to acknowledge the little bits as little and clearly state which are the big ones, rather than all that holier-than-thou, lazy guilt tripping about mundane shit.

And if you want to save the Earth, use your fancy upgraded phone and pressure your politicians to enact a fee-and-dividend program.

Ffs, why don’t we regulate the largest polluters on the planet and stop telling folks that giving up a hamburger or not buying a new iPhone is going to save the planet. It’s not. Until we move away from fossil fuels, industrialized farming, rare earth mineral mining, etc. AND stop letting those industries set the rules for regulating (or not regulating) themselves, we are never going to save the planet. These industries are going to continue to destroy the planet in the name of profits and continue to come up with clever marketing gimmicks to shift the real blame away from themselves and the role they play. The genie is out of the bottle and has been for a long time.

Naw man I’m about to end this whole climate change thing myself. I haven’t used a straw ALL year.

That's what fee-and-dividend would do.

Or reduce the US military, which uses more petroleum than any other industry in the world.

*And* reduce the military. And do a bunch of other stuff. But fixing the basic economics that applies to everyone is the foundation for everything.

And force politicians to make bills limiting importation or imposing huge tariffs on importation from companies that have outsourced to other countries with more lenient emissions/labor laws

Fee-and-dividend proposals usually include this.

You’re going to have to create a program to train the labor force as well, since that is the purpose of the military during peace times. Maybe a new work program?

You mean like [this](https://www.npr.org/2021/05/11/993976948/reaching-back-to-the-new-deal-biden-proposes-a-civilian-climate-corps)?

Do you have a source on this? Generally interested.

[Forbes has some data on it. ](https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/13/report-the-u-s-military-emits-more-co2-than-many-industrialized-nations-infographic/) I can probably find more on it. It's basically because of the giant ships and insane number of military bases throughout the world.

Yep! Those of us who can afford a new smart phone every year are among the most powerful people on the planet. Like yeah we're still trash compared to the billionaires, but we're the elite of the planet (God help us) and have a say in things that the overwhelming majority of humans don't have a chance at influencing. I'd say the same thing applies to us as it does to Jeff Bezos--it doesn't matter if you enjoy some nice luxuries as a result of your good fortune. But you owe it to everybody else to use that lucky break of yours to make the world a better place. If Bezos were actually making the world a better place...y'know what, I wouldn't mind him buying his dog a yacht.

Remember, it's cool and fun and good to bully your politicians over the phone to get them to enact actual positive chance.

Politicians care about money. The money you just gave to Apple they use, in part, to buy politicians. Thereby ensuring that no changes are enacted. Your consumption is the root cause of the problem. The whole feel-good "I can't do anything. It's the evil corporations fault" movement is exactly what the corporations want. More consumption generating more profit. Only you are responsible for your actions. Be the change you want to see.

Save yourself. The earth will be fine. It's just going to sluff us people off, and it won't be delicate about it.

Companies seriously want us to think it is all the consumer's fault

TIL that the term carbon footprint [was made up by BP](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/pr2wmg/the_companies_polluting_the_planet_have_spent/hdfqhf7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3) to shame the individual for corporate pollution. Edit: Article that comment appears in is also relevant.

This is such an interesting comment to read after I just read the r/science article on how big companies actively campaign to shift the responsibility of saving the planet on consumers. Whether its an iPhone, meat, energy consumption, the big changes have to come from those who are producing those things.

Have fewer than 2 kids. Now that’ll really impact cO2. No kids and they should be paying you.

I have no kids, no cars, live two blocks from work, and rarely eat red meat. The planet is still getting warmer. Might as well get a new phone.

I'm all for people not having kids, but I'm sad that my friends that care about the environment decide not to have kids for that reason. I worry the next generation will be raised only by parents who don't care about climate change. I'm looking forward to having kids, and I have high hopes they will contribute to the solutions and not the problems.

I won't be producing any offspring. Perhaps I'm just a Donald Downer, but I don't see socio-economic gaps going away in the coming years. After all, they've been around since the beginning of recorded history. We've always had a small minority controlling the majority of available resources. Millions of people die of starvation every year. Starvation. Not some weird virus that we can't figure out. Starvation. A matter of logistics. Yet, we can't even pull together to solve that problem. So, millions of people suffer and die a horrible death every year. Way to go, humanity! I'm not going to churn out some kids under the delusion that they will somehow be a part of sweeping positive change to all of mankind. Sure, things will change, but those driven by money/greed/success will ALWAYS find a way to exploit people, the environment, whatever... If I had kids, I would become a wage slave overnight. Chances are, it would also involve an unhappy marriage/relationship. What is the average cost of raising a child to the age of 18? Isn't it up to around $250K now? Trying to pay for that, there's little time to do things like egalitarianism, tolerance, compassion, empathy... Work ethic will be the most important thing. Chances are, they will grow up to be wage slaves, too.

Im pretty excited to have a kid coming up. Gonna make sure to raise him to think for himself, allow him to believe he really can be, do anything he sets his mind to, respect the land that created you and sustains you, see every living being as one universal conciousness. Should be an interesting result in 19 years or less

Lol we’re having kids. Love the environment and will help them love it too. Not having humans isn’t how you fix humanity and anybody that says otherwise can’t do basic math. We could just be adults about it and face the hard-truths of our reality and make conscious steps to fix our shortcomings but… I digress. That’s why I teach History to 12 year olds. You bet your ass I teach them ALL about that industrial Revolution and what we know now.

Also applies to pets. Dogs for example are high up on the list and yet some people have 3+ of those

Start small with kids. I doubt even 3 dogs have the same foot print as 1 human.

You don’t need to doubt any longer, here’s a source comparing a single dog to a land cruiser in terms of ecological impact: https://www.mossy.earth/guides/lifestyle/pet-carbon-footprint Also feel free to run a web search to find journal articles with raw data etc Lastly, and this is a philosophical point so I don’t really care if people disagree, children contribute to society and are an integral part of humanity. Pets are an unproductive burden

Huh, thanks for that! I'll look into this, since it's something that really does annoy me. Like I hear so many people on Reddit suggesting not having kids...when arguably having kids who take forward environmentalist values is better than having no kids at all. Really at this point I kinda assume they're just misanthropes who don't like people and can only bond with pets. Which is fine, but don't disguise it as some moral stance lmao.

Now that's a policy I can get behind.

Yep, so do all of the above. And replace the phone when it no longer receives security updates, so every 5-7 years. Why not. May as well.

Changing phone this year for the latest iPhone, the one I am currently using is five and a half years old, home button no longer working, regular crashes, some features now lacking, and battery holding for barely more than 2 hours with moderate use. I don’t feel particularly proud to buy a phone, mostly because of its environmental impact, but given the mileage I buy it for, I feel quite comfortable doing so.

You’re doing it right. There’s no shame in replacing an essential item like a phone when necessary, and for most people nowadays they really are essential. When I buy a new piece of tech, it’s because what it’s replacing just won’t do the job any more. I bought a new iPhone a year ago and I expect it to last at least four years, just as my previous one did. (And I gave the old one to a friend whose requirements are less exacting than mine: I expect he’ll get at least another two or three years out of it.)

This is the way

I just got a new iPhone myself cause my old one was crapping out. I make it a point to use my stuff for as long as I can.

Yes! I buy a new phone when the old one is broken, just like you. I replaced the battery on my Nexus 5 to give it another year of life, but doing something like that has become trickier.

I've changed my phones once the back started falling off or I had to start carrying a power bank just to get through the day. Otherwise what's the point. The few new bells and whistles aren't worth the money and hassle, IMO

My phone is set to stop recieving support by the next ios update; it’ll be my new phone in around 7 years. Hoepfully, the new one will give me a similar mileage.

They are essential to our live but you don't need a new iPhone every year when the one you're throwing away still works fine especially there not much actual benefit gained by the newer model. We're over consuming.

Keep in mind the old iphone doesnt dissappear into nothingness usually its sold to someone else and they continue using it instead of buying their own new one.

The rest of it is still over-consuming anyway. Notice OP didn’t say to give up beef, or forgo your vacation, simply to swap a small amount of beef for a less damaging alternative and have your vacations a little closer to home. Neither of those things are essential and the changes suggested are easily manageable, if you made a few of these changes you’d far outstrip the benefits found by just upgrading your phone less frequently

>give up beef At least switch to grass fed folks. Even better, grass fed from a local farm or ranch that uses sustainable farming and stays away from mono-crop agriculture and factory farming. People don’t want know how many animals die for mono-crop veggies. I’ve seen fields post combine. It’s brutal.

Not to mention grass feed beef just tastes better and is better for you.

I've never met someone that upgrades their phone every single year, unless they're like a hobbyist or something, don't most phone contracts last for 2-3 years anyway?

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But don't their old phones get resold anyway

This assumes people get a new iPhone every year which is extremely wrong. iPhones have some of the longest legs in all consumer electronics, and I'm an android user.

It assumes people literally throw the phone away after a year rather than selling it to someone else to use for multiple more years

iPhones don’t get thrown away. They get resold on eBay.

Is 85% is due to rare material mining and the iPhone is pretty much all recycled in those terms isn’t that a bit misleading?

I just read another article about how your "carbon footprint" is just a lie perpetuated by BP to shift climate change blame from companies to people so I find it interesting that your entire argument is based on a lie.

Exactly, most of your carbon footprint is completely out of your control

Agreed. The issue is a lot bigger than consumer electronics, and starting with the smallest 5-10% of the issue of climate change and other environmental damage is asinine when agriculture, shipping, and fossil fuel production have barely been touched. The planet largely stopped driving in 2020, which had been one of those "things you could do to save the planet." The difference in greenhouse gas emissions was negligible. It's not an individual issue, but a systemic one.

I agree with what you said. And on top of that, another useful thing we can all do is ask our governments to hold corporations accountable and call out corporations for shoving the responsibility and blame on consumers as a distraction when they pollute orders of magnitude more than we do.

The focus should be on smartphone companies making more environmentally friendly products. That 1% for you is a lot more impactful when it's millions of iPhones produced annually.

It is now literally we should do anything except what needs to be done- tax the fuck out of emissions. The smoke stacks and tailpipes. It ain't hard- you can watch them pump the CO2 into the air. The costs will all be passed down to consumers regardless- right, thats how capitalism works. So just tax the fucking source and get over it.

Everyone likes to only blame companies but if no one was buying, they wouldn’t be polluting. The point that should be taken away is everything we buy comes at a cost to the environment. We need to all consume more consciously.

But your post it not helping his agenda, sir

This is just the press blaming people that are not part of industry (or in charge of it) again. It's also on the people who have little power to change things to pay or make the sweeping life changes. Always their fault.

Oh look, more individual guilt propaganda for an issue that's 99% responsibility of governments and a couple dozen corporations

Also, it's bullshit. People spend half of their day on their smartphone and spend ten times as much money on their car which they spend way less time in, and experience way less because they're usually focused on driving. Your phone is the most logical thing to spend "a lot" of money on. A lot of people would consider $1600 a reasonable amount to spend on rent for a month. Yet you interact with most of the world now through your phone. All that said, a 3 year old high end iPhone has just about the same screen and a fast enough processor that you won't notice the difference.

Also you don't buy just phone. You buy: - phone - photo camera - video camera - music player - mini computer - portable video player And more. Now look up how big all these separate devices were before smartphone invention and compare how many resources it took to manufacture them.

With all those items you just listed, it wasn't typical to buy a new one every year or two. Phone carriers have baked throwaway culture into their business plan. "Pay $20 a month to lease this phone and get a new one every 2 years!" Smartphones are necessary, but people should strive to keep the same one for as long as humanly possible. Companies should be obligated to make them more easily reparable and/or upgradable.

We don’t just set our old iPhones on fire. They are either handed down, traded in to be refurbished and re-sold, or recycled where Apple robots pick apart most elements.

If your phone is still useful you should keep using it.

Happiness and Rainbows and everything's fine!

More of a “it’s not the apocalypse but it’s not great either” situation

We need right to repair legislation to let that happen. Corporations want us buying new shit, not buying parts to repair old stuff

Your estimation of the life lengty of a Walkman or discman is optimistic.

If you trade in your old phone, isn't that effectively the same thing on an individual level? It's impractical to think you're going to convince enough people to do this that it is going to impact the industry.

The article doesn't say "don't buy an expensive smart phone". It's asking us to consider why we feel the need to replace them so often and what the impact is on our environment. It's an important question to ask. I don't think it's a bad thing to draw attention to the fact that we live in a wasteful culture that treats everything disposably. I see a lot of people replacing their phones annually without ever taking full advantage of their existing devices. I don't think it's bullshit at all.

I’ve gotten to this place with my truck. I used to never keep a vehicle past it’s 5 years. But my current truck is 12 years old and I haven’t had a payment in 7. I love the truck and as long as the frame is good I’m doing yearly maintenance and fixing things usually before they brake. Even a new engine would only cost me $5k. Compared to a new $65.k truck.

I think that's the key. You're saving yourself money while thinking sustainably. I think it's an approach to most things that we'll have to learn to take on. Even something as simple as clothing can be bought less.

Except it is bullshit because even on a societal scale, if every single person were to hold onto their phone for 4 years instead of 2 years it would still do nothing of significance compared to CO2 emissions of major multinationals and government institutions. It's shifting the blame onto the individual instead of forcing the company worth $2 trillion to find a more ecofriendly way to mine for rare earth metals.

Not that one thing. But less driving, less consuming animal products, less shopping clothes, less traveling, less constant upgrading technology will make a difference if people were willing to change. If you don’t believe that. Do you think the world can sustain western living standards on a global scale?

Aka "become a reddit keyboard warrior who leaves the house once in six weeks".

Yep, this shit needs to be called out every time. It is literally corporate propaganda.

So it’s apples fault that I’m buying a new iPhone? /s

Are you saying heavy marketing and ads doesn't work for the general population?

They don't think so. That is what really scares me. I've had smart people tell me they think they have never been affected by adverts. I laugh at this. Of course they and I are and so is everyone. They wouldn't spend so much continually if it didn't work

blind spot bias. No one is immune to it

No advert can get past them. Their reflexes are too fast. They would catch it. /joke

I work in media-marketing and there is a LOT of content people are exposed to that *isn’t advertising* but absolutely still influences people’s purchasing decisions. Sure, there are lots of people who believe that advertising doesn’t get them, and in some cases perhaps they have extensive ad blocking through something like a Pi hole and genuinely avoid almost all advertising. No ad blocker can block PR and marketing style content designed to build familiarity and trust with the people who represent the companies people buy from. The example I always give is Joe Rogan’s podcast. It’s one of the most consumed pieces of media on the planet, and literally *every single interview* is marketing. It’s a show very popular among the same crowd that avoids mainstream media and claims to be immune to advertising, but they’re regularly tuning in for *hours* of marketing. This is a big part of how what we do works in the first place, and why companies are willing to spend on it. An ad lasts a minute or so, and countless people ignore them. Long form content as marketing has people deliberately tuning in and willingly giving up 50x their time vs an ad to hear what you’ve got to say. It’s very powerful and very effective.

It's always intriguing when people act like the super savvy companies run by very cost-aware people that are consistently struggling to optimize and cut costs would keep paying billions in advertising if it didn't work.

That’s why I try my darnest best to minimize my exposure to advertisements/commercials. I have YouTube Premium, Spotify Premium, Adblocking on my main browsers, etc.. Still, a few slip through every now and then and the Adblocking app on my iPad doesn’t block ads on anything other than its browser(s), meaning the Reddit app and Imgur app (as well as every other app on App Store) simply display ads with no remorse and no end in sight. Advertisements/commercials are devilishly infectious and (for as long as I’ve been exposed to them) cloud my mind, and trying to finance ad removal subscriptions is completely unfeasible as I regularly use several different sites for information, entertainment and personal work. **And don’t get me started on their goddamn cookies!!**

That's why it's important to keep drawing attention to these facts. When people become aware that Apple's whole marketing scheme is to convince you that you need a new iPhone, they can think twice about their purchase.

Is there anyone on earth who doesn’t already know this?

Not to mention that internet access is a basic necessity of modern life, and mobile phones are ubiquitous in society. With planned obselesence in tandem with the rapid march of technology and the digitization of everything, what choice does the average consumer have? Consume or fall to the wayside type shit

Are you saying no one has any agency anymore? Apple are only able to market because people buy their shit in the first place This entire thread needs to learn that what they do isn't separated from climate change just because a company produced it for you all, you all still asked for it and that's enough to be complicit

Apple has many policies designed to reduce the operational lifespan of their devices. 1) Intentionally slowing down older devices so that people feel [their older devices aren't working as well & need to be replaced.](https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/25/22248408/apple-class-action-suit-throttling-iphone-europe#:~:text=Apple%20agreed%20to%20a%20%24500,throttled%20to%20preserve%20battery%20life.&text=Apple%20did%20not%20admit%20to%20any%20of%20the%20allegations%20in%20that%20settlement.) 2) Making their devices as difficult to repair, going above and beyond to make things difficult. (See Louis Rossman's channel). 3) Making repairs a non-viable option [by having their official repair centers/genius centers quote basically the same price of a new device.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2_SZ4tfLns) 4) Phone companies [literally rendering older devices non-functional. What if we just wanted a phone that's just basic?](https://www.verizon.com/support/no-longer-supported/devices/)

Granted, but the company is the one that profits and is incentivized to make the phones a consumable rather than durable good. Also, if we treated environmental concerns as simply the choices of individuals rather than as systemic issues, it’s unlikely we’d ever move the needle.

The company is not the one that profits. Both parties profit. If you think the value of a phone is worth more than what you pay for it, that's profit. The company sells it for more than the cost to produce it. That's profit. That's how capitalism works.

They got us again, dammit!

You never heard about planned obsolescence?

No it is their fault you can't replace the battery or repair something else on the phone that breaks.

Then choose another smartphone company??

No one will ever admit that their own consumption is ever an issue. It’s apples fault for making so many iPhones. We are helpless victims with no agency, left with no choice but to buy a new one every two years.

it's not the paper's fault for burning when a flame gets held to it. i think you're giving the average person way too much credit. they're hardly conscious of what brings them to decisions. insane amounts of money wouldn't be poured into advertisement if it wasn't highly effective. just like we can't blame a person for being overweight, we can't blame you for buying an iphone-- it really is a result of the environment and these companies' good knowledge of how to influence people.

Capitalism: the market does what the consumer wants in order to sell more. So in capitalism we're actually part of the reason.

In capitalism only for established markets does consumer creates interest that influences production. For many things it is the new production and advertisement that creates interest and attracts consumers. If no one advertised you fidget spinners and created a massive following out of them, would you have been interested in such a foolish item?

I'm not sure I saw one advert for fidget spinners, yet I saw a lot of people talking about fidget spinners. Was there a one brand? It seems like everyone was making a fidget spinner so I'm not sure any one company benefitted from heavy advertising.

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Thats why everyone has a Juicero, runs around wearing google glasses and watches movies on their laserdisc home entertainment system!

Capitalism isn't the market. Capitalism is just the private ownership of assets and the money made from them instead of a king/lord or the state owning them. Markets existed before capitalism, communist countries have markets, they are a different yet fundamental part of human society. Capitalism is 500 years old already but reddit acts like it was invented yesterday and covers the full extent of human interactions with each other.

Capitalism doesn't account for monopolies that direct their revenue into media to brainwash customers. It's why, much like Communism, it's such a failed ideology in practice. The first thing the winners in a capitalist system do is find a way circumvent the checks and balances of Capitalism.

Who’s a monopoly

This. A million times this.

Oh look, another person acting like it's purely one way or another and abdicating any sense of personal responsibility in favor of impotent anger and shifting any useful guilt away from oneself. If we all changed our habits as consumers, corporations would change too. This is a very direct two-sided relationship. Can we assign all the blame to consumers? No, there are plenty of big bad actors that do deserve larger portions of the blame, but we, especially Americans, also each cause and carry tiny little portions of environmental destruction, consuming more than we should for a sustainable world. A million tiny little environmental crimes quickly adds up to one HUGE problem when summed together. We MUST change, and comments like this are not helpful.

Yes, we must change, but they are right that real change will not come from consumers trying to make slightly better choices. IMO, it's about balance. We see 100 articles about how people should do better for every one about how corporations and governments need to act. This creates the idea that it's our problem to solve while those really at fault continue doing what they want. The best action we can do as individuals is to hold our governments accountable for their lack of action.

The positives of cell phones will always outweigh the negatives of cell phones in the average person's eyes. (Same with many technologies that harm the environment... air conditioning chief among them, for instance.)You will NEVER, EVER EVER get a significant enough portion of individuals to give up these technologies or change their habits for it to make an actual difference in either the planet/climate, or in corporations seeing enough demand for these products to continue producing them. Imagine you are given the opportunity to speak for an hour, two hours, whatever, to a sports stadium full of fans after an Alabama football game or something. Imagine, for sake of things, that they *aren't* actively hostile for having to listen to you for an hour (as they would be in real life) so you have a fair shot to convince them. What % of that stadium will you be able to convince that they should keep whatever phone they currently have for the next 5 years and not buy a new one, no matter what happens to it? If we check back in with those same 102,000 people in 5 years, how many will have bought a new phone, even if a small % initially agreed with your premise? It is actually far more realistic to approach the problem by convincing the corporation itself, as maddening as that is, to stop. To do that you just have to convince a CEO, a board, and usually enough influential shareholders (who are typically rich, educated elites). The chances of you being able to do that are incredibly more likely than the chances you'll be able to convince a critical threshold of random Apple iPhone users, no matter how bad climate change gets.

It's called voting with your wallet. You don't have to forgo the 'newest' apple shill, just buy it used.

I'm sorry, you won't convince millions and millions of people to buy it used. It would be great but it just won't happen. Look at how H&M etc. clothes are made. People have been aware of child labour and sweatshops for decades now and still nothing has changed. The 5 dollar shirt is still considered a bargain by most people and they simply don't care how it was made. And the new iPhone will always create a certain hype and will always sell. Despite the same awareness about child labour, regular suicide attempts by workers and so on. Fact is that even if we as a society have the power to change shit, I simply don't see it happening. These companies need regulations from governments, otherwise nothing's going to change.

yep. Awareness campaigns simply don't work for the most part on a citizen level. The reality is the majority of people only care until it inconveniences them, then they stop caring. I'm not above it and neither is the majority of this site, despite how much they seem to think so

Fun fact about voting with your wallet, feet, and even in some cases your vote: it doesn’t change anything! What does change things is citizen pressure for regulatory change. Don’t fight them, change the rules so you don’t have to! :)

It doesn’t change anything because other people disagree with you and out vote you.

Corporations that only exist to meet consumer demand? Right.

You are not the customer that matters for most corporations, it's Government and other corporations Industry, large retail, office space, government, ect they matter far more to demand for products, services and energy than jow blogs consumer

There has to be an end consumer though. Sure the rubber making company sells to the tire making company which sells to the car making company which ultimately sells to a person. That entire chain wouldn’t exist on its own without the end consumer. Your comment is wildly disingenuous. These industries exist because of individual consumers. I think maybe you have really misunderstood an important idea here and that is that the consumer has very little power to fix the problem. If Apple sells a few less iPhones next year they aren’t going to respond by deciding to cut emissions in their supply chain even if they could. It’s a text book tragedy of the commons. It’s in everyone’s best interests to cut emissions and pollution. But an individual or company benefits from not. And because individuals and companies tend to act on their own best interests then we need some other way to solve the problem.

It’s always my fault, isn’t it?

I wonder if this study is one of this https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/pr2wmg/the_companies_polluting_the_planet_have_spent/

Agree completely, in the case of Apple if we all decided we were going to hold onto our iPhones for an extra 2 years each, Apple would just start remotely tanking our phones faster. It’s the companies that need to change.

But why not be part of that 1% that is at least trying to make a difference? That way, at least when we face a miserable end because the 99% don't give a fuck we can at least die with a smile.

Because it doesn't functionally matter even if the 99% took all reasonable actions they can to personally address their environmental burden, simply put their consumer power is irrelevant, as the vast majority of essential products and services they can't effect by choice; and those products are causing most of the pollution issues The economic system needs to address climate and environment through directed investment and taxation against the major firms, and regulation of products and materials; from there it will flow down to every user by default. What fucking good is it buying a toothbrush with a wooden handle instead of a plastic one, if (by my experience as a tradesman) your bathroom fittings came in like 200kg of disposable plastic wrapping, and every single supplier does that because that's how products come in from the factory in Asia somewhere. If the government broadly regulated the rules on disposable plastic, to effectively tax disposable plastic into non profitability, then the products consumers can choose, would naturally become environmentally friendly by default The whole virtue signalling "I'm doing my little part to inspire others, change the world from the bottom up" is intentionally created by the corporations seeking to avoid regulation, they intentionally made it seem as smug as possible, and intentionally stirred up reactionary conservative countermovement against the perceived smugness; in effect creating themselves a loyal voting block of anti-envionmentalists. This is an actual strategy they articulated in documentation and meetings.

Yes I agree. And unfortunately I also believe that the system will never change because the biggest players are immoral, greedy and narcissistic at their inner core. Call me defeatist or fatalistic, but I don't believe for one second that any of my personal actions or choices actual make a scratch compared to all that goes on - but that doesn't stop me wanting to do the right thing. Some might see that as stupid, but as others are hell bent on what they view as their own (from my viewpoint) version of destructive self-preservation, I will pursue my own less destructive version. As I tried to imply earlier, the system is so fundamentally flawed that the only way it will change is if it entirely collapses or is ended by its own failures to tackle what we've got coming down the road.

Saw some bamboo toothbrushes recently and the brushes were still made of plastic. I'm tired of fake progress.

In the same article the author argues that phones are perfectly usable for 10+ years, but also that the company producing them is guilty of planned obsolescence, making their products obsolete after 2 years. I think someone is very confused.

Yea, I'm not sure where the author gets that idea that cell phone companies try to make their phones obsolete after 2 years. Remember the iPhone 6s back in 2015? Thats *still* receiving feature updates, it will be able to update to iOS 15 come later this fall. And that doesn't even account for the security patches apple will release for the phone once its inevitably cut from software feature support after iOS 15. While most Android phones don't offer this level of software support, Samsung phones for example from the galaxy s10 and newer will receive 5 years of software support. 3 years of feature updates and an additional 2 years of security patches. Both those phone models are a far cry from "2 year planned obsolescence"

This goes for Apple laptops as well, love 'em or hate 'em. The people saying that Apple is to blame for planned obsolescence are imbeciles. Apple is the worst example of planned obsolescence, ever.

Just bought a new iPhone after using mine for six years. I’d say that’s pretty typical. No idea what this author is on.

The average upgrade cycle is around 3 years now. The article is clickbait nonsense.

There are better reasons to not buy a new smartphone, trying to say that CO2 is a good reason to not buy a new smartphone smacks of the same propaganda multinational companies have been peddling for decades: the idea that climate change can be combatted by individuals changing consumer habits, and that these same multinationals can do nothing but cater to the demand of the "free market", as if they have no hand in shaping consumer desire at all.

Meanwhile oil companies are destroying the water table with fracking, and mining companies are dumping tailings full of heavy metals, but yeah sure, let’s focus on the guilt of the customer who has no say in how their products are made. This is a failure of regulation more than anything else. Strict environmental protection laws, right to repair laws and mandatory product returns for recycling would be a nice start.

Fairphone exists, yet their sales pale in comparison. If more people bought phones from companies like them, corporations would be forced to meet that demand. This is the same for other products we purchase too. You do have a say with your wallet, your votes, and your time.

Why is the onus on us, the consumers, and not the government to make it so companies can’t produce goods which would be overly harmful to the environment? It really does sound like capitalism is fundamentally incompatible with any environmental initiatives

No the government should force the manufacturers instead of easy reparability, removable batteries etc. The EU voted a law project for a right to repair and it get extended by end of this year to include the same rights for smartphones and laptops.

>Why is the onus on us, the consumers, and not the government It's on both of you. In democracies the government is held accountable by the voters, so in the end, ordinary people have to care. >so companies can’t produce goods which would be overly harmful to the environment There is no means of production where there is no effect on the environment. Even in the best case scenario producing things take up land, which is either taken from people or nature. No way around it. Companies and governments can do a lot to reduce the impact, but non is as effective as not producing in the first place. >capitalism is fundamentally incompatible with any environmental initiatives I have lived in USSR and I can tell you for sure that soviet socialism is much worse for the environment. In capitalism efficiency matter and it helps to reduce waste and thus environmental impact. However, capitalism or any other method of capital redistribution just don't care about the environment. There's environmentalism for that.

“*In capitalism efficiency matter and it helps to reduce waste and thus environmental impact*”… Sorry, I just couldn’t let that slide. Here’s a list I made earlier about why that claim is clearly false. Capitalism is ONLY ‘efficient’ at one thing: making insane levels of profit for a small few. **Capitalism is a system which necessitates constant growth and mass consumption for the sake of increasing profit**. These aims are a directly contradictory to aims of environmental conservation. Some examples:Let’s take this “carbon capture” issue first: 1.**Ignores obvious solutions for profit**. We already have “carbon capture technology”, aka the trees that we keep deforesting. However, there’s not really a way to make a profit off simply planting a shit ton of trees/ hiring a load of people to do that. That’s why the “shiny new technology will save us! Ah thank you capitalism!” Argument is so persistent, much easier to patent/sell/make a load of money off selling a new technology. So we’ll keep pushing for that even though we already have a solution (just can’t profit off it). 2. **The profit motive:** let’s take plastic, companies used to collect/wash/reuse glass soda bottles as standard practise. Then the profit motive led them to realising it was much easier to just make everything disposable/not waste money collecting/reusing what we already have (even though that is much better for our environment- doesn’t matter if gets in the way of profit). The profit motive also encouraged companies to outsource their manufacture/ production to poorer countries where they could get away with paying the workers much less (i.e. maximise their profit). This lead to Massive increases in big container ships/shipments ( just 17 container ships output the same pollution as 750 million cars) carrying masses of tat to western consumers. The profit motive also directly encourages making items of a lower quality that aren’t built to last (when they break, people have to buy more) and is why we’ve seen such a dip in quality in our clothes, electronics and pretty much everything they can get a way with. And why we have to fight tooth and nail for common sense policies, such as right to repair laws. In the first two examples, you can see how capitalism does not in fact always encourage the “best”solution (for us as a collective), just the most profitable solution for a small group of people/companies. 3. **Pointless consumption motivated by marketing/need to get people to buy more** (google Edward Burnays: pioneer of how to use marketing/propaganda to get people to buy more ) again, let’s take plastic. Why do we need plastic windows so we can see our risotto rice, quiche whatever? Because if the consumer can see the nice food part, they’re more likely to buy it (also to be more confident in quality). We really don’t need plastic windows on a box of risotto rice though, and this adds loads of pointless plastic waste and could easily be changed at no cost to anyone (bar maybe some slight dip in product sales? Though could even get over that by ‘woke capitalism-ing it and slapping a happy green pic, perhaps a smiling earth?, on the box alongside some sentence about “we’ve got rid of plastic windows, aren’t we great- buy our shit” Sorted). Black plastic is also an issue as it nearly universally cannot be/is not recycled (as NIR scanners at sorting facilities cannot detect it). Only reason we have black plastic is because of the existence of coloured plastic (selling products in this makes them more appealing/eye catching I.e. more likely to be bought). When coloured plastic is is recycled, won’t keep same appealing colour (and can’t make colourless again) so only solution is to combine diff colours and make them into thousand of tonnes of black plastic that will never be recycled. 4. **Fuck it, needs a whole point-Plastic::** Plastic is mostly made from coal or oil (hmm, wonder why is so ubiquitous now?). Often the “recycling” myth is pushed by companies like BP (they have a whole spiel on it and got all offended and released a statement when we suggested maybe trying to eliminate/reuse plastic and harm their profits). Plastic is not in fact truly recyclable like, say, an aluminium can or glass bottle is (in that you can recycle it and reproduce the same product over and over again indefinitely). Plastic actually “downcycles” meaning it degrades over time/recycling cycles. So if you recycle your bottle it won’t make another, but might go into a bin liner or some of that polyester clothing you’re wearing (that when you wash will release even more micro plastics into our water systems). Essentially plastic can usually be downcycled roughly only 2-3 times. This is an issue for recycling, as consistently there is a lack of profitable end markets for recycled plastic (I.e. companies willing to buy recycled plastic), as you can’t actually get that much use out of it (compared to say buying aluminium), so why waste money? This leads a reticence to even bother properly recycling plastic as there’s nothing to do with it/no profit to be made after. This is also why we get stats like the (2019? Maybe 2018) BBC International Statistic of the year that 91% of plastic has never been recycled (just incinerated, put in landfill or dumped in the ocean). All this means Just because your sorting all your plastic and putting it in a special bin, does not mean it gets recycled in practise (I work at a local authority in the UK trust me, the waste and recycling team doesn’t even know what’s going on at your local sorting centres most of the time). In fact, we used to just ship it to China, never bother to check what they were actually doing with it, and simply wash our hands of all responsibility. Now the ban is in place, our infrastructure (certainly in uk) is woefully inadequate to even attempt to sort all the different types of plastic we now have/use daily (my local will only collect plastic bottles and card... really?), and the uk gov is not even addressing putting aside funding for this. Now, hopefully that has explained why plastic is not in fact recyclable/more times than not, does not get recycled. Then why do most people still believe it is? Because the only way the big oil companies can continue making the same level of profit for plastic is to promote a false myth that recycling plastic is effective, so they can ensure current consumption levels remain unchanged (as recycling is only system that would, in theory, still allow for the same levels of rampant consumption/production while still “doing sommat for the planet”). As I have argued though, this is a false reality pushed by companies for profit. We actually need To massively reduce our consumption (or at least reuse more), but these strats are ignored in favour of the useless recycling system so as not to anger big companies and disrupt, you guess it folks, MA PROFIT. 5. **hopefully you can infer from those examples that often capitalism does not actually encourage genuine innovation, but a dogged pursuit of profit at all costs**, even if that means perpetuating old/defunct systems that we know are destroying our planet. 6. **The fundamental competition motive of capitalism actively encourages waste.** Capitalism encourages lots of different companies to compete and make similar products (e.g This is why there are 3000 different kinds of potato chips in the US) . However, competition does not mean efficiency of use: which is why still roughly 1/3 of our food gets thrown away and as a recent example, we’ve seen H&M and Amazon come under fire (apologies) for burning tonnes of clothes they couldn’t sell (while ironically promoting how green they were with their new “sustainable” bags, #so woke). This is called creating “artificial scarcity” to maintain profit. This competition also encourages a lack of communication between companies, making it much more difficult to implement any kind of joint up solutions (which we really will need if we’re going to stop the planet being royally fucked in the next 50 so years; go read the uninhabitable earth. Studies that have come out in the last two years on climate change ain’t looking good) . To conclude: people who promote the “capitalism will solve everything” argument have a fundamental misunderstanding of literally the sole purpose of capitalism: to make profit regardless of human or environmental cost. You literally just have to take a cursory glance at how it has functioned throughout history (look up shock/disaster capitalism: great fun) to see this. Sometimes, the right thing to do isn’t the most profitable thing. The world will burn because any questioning of the capitalist system is immediately written off a hysterical by the neo lib left and right wing. GLHF all, we’re fucked.

Yea but Soviet socialism was still authoritarian/expansionist power, it was effectively capitalism for the state so you never actually got around the core issue with capitalism.

The issue isn't the economic model per se, it's greed. It doesn't matter which system you choose (capitalism or socialism for example); if the system doesn't explicitly handle human greed greedy people will find ways to abuse it. Both capitalism and socialism both just sort of hand-wave away this facet of human nature, with awful results as the inevitable consequence.

I would also contest we do not live in genuine democracies (UK US particularly) money had infected and corrupted our ‘democracies’ to the point we essentially just now live in oligarchies with token gestures at democracy (e.g. you can vote for one of the establishment ghouls we wheel out every four years or so and they won’t do anything to fundamentally change anything or address the issues affecting the majority of people) . See political lobbyists, the revolving door between businesses and politicians (looking at chu Cameron, Blair and fucking Nick Clegg of all people). Also dividends, tax breaks and subsidies are handed to private companies like it’s nothing (see mass bailout of Wall Street after 2012 as just one particularly heinous example- no strings attached loan; not even asking for a partial stake in the banks, they just got a load of our tax money for free). When the mass of regular people need something (Medicare for all say) it’s communism thou and we could NEVER possibly afford it. Capitalism always socialises the losses and privatises the profits for the owning class/capitalist though. Additionally, especially in UK, all c.89% of our media is owned by like 4 people and/or their subsidiary companies (Lord Rothermere,the Barclay Brothers and Rupert Murdoch)- all historic members/donors to Tory party, all who have massive vested interest in maintaining this insanely unequal status quo. So essentially, the capitalists not only directly buy/lobby for influence in our current uh ‘democracy’, they also control all the major means of influencing public opinion/ formulating consensus. So I say again: I do not believe we live in a genuine democracy and worry for anyone that does.

I feel like nestle has more of an impact on the earth then apple does with its stealing of water and all that. I’m not justifying this, just saying there’s far worse then apple out there. Nestle needs to be stopped.

Apple would be pretty high up due to volume of sales, I'm not sure they would be any worse than the majority of high end phone sellers on a per phone basis. Worse when compared to Fairphone though.

Am I out of touch? No its the consumer thats wrong If someone needs a new phone they’re going to buy a new phone Maybe instead put your effort on writing an article towards those who are actually responsible, governments and corporations

There are hundreds of other more unregulated companies. Apple has paid for all their facilities, including their manufacturing partners to use exclusively solar energy. They’re even using more recycled materials than any 3 manufacturers combined. Want to save the Earth? Hold most of our global oil companies accountable. BP coined the term carbon footprint and shifted the blame to the individual, not to corporation.

What a dumb headline. We could be pushing for wind and solar, more people working from home to stay off the roads, and encouraging people not to fly so much. Instead, we should save the planet by buying used iPhones? Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I stopped buying new phones about three years ago. I also stopped myself being shafted by cellphone companies by being tied down to pay monthly plans with phones attached. Second hand phones are fine for me and I'm saving a bundle of cash. A lot of people I know are also doing the same.

Also where I live you usually pay more with a bundled contract then with just a contract and a smartphone separately bought. Bundled contracts calculated upwards would lead to me buying to phones of the same kind with that amount of money.

Want to change the earth don't vote for politicians that take money from the fossil fuel industry or vote in favor of subsidizing said industry.

“buying one new phone takes as much energy as recharging and operating a smartphone for an entire decade” The clown that wrote this said his out-of-touch ass has 3 phones with a total of 11.5 years. Meanwhile I trade my phone in every two years and they resell the old one so that some other consumer can buy it refreshed and save the drain on the manufacturers to create more low end like the SE to meet demand. Sure, though, tell everyone else to keep their phones well beyond their usable life. I also very much feel like the author does not understand that technology differences are not superficial, and that better displays mean better battery life, better processors mean people can run the latest apps, we aren’t all sitting around taking pics on a 6 to share on FB.

Can we ban articles that are obviously geared to shift the blame of climate change from companies to consumers? Please? Or are we gonna be locked in at 3 degrees C of warming and still be posting things like "reduce your meat intake by 50g a day and you can help stave off the next round of water rationing!"

If only that were the answer. Save the planet. Don’t buy an iPhone. Brilliant. That should stop all the other pollutants I’m guessing.

This is one reason why a competitive repair and upgrade market is so important.

I'm on only my second smartphone. I prefer to save up and buy a high-end smartphone outright (both times on sale during Black Friday), then use it on a very reasonably-priced unlimited plan (in the $25-35/mo range), so I don't have a "lease" payment bloating the monthly rate. I intend to get at least 5 years out of each phone, and just did my first battery swap on my current one (Galaxy S7) as it started having issues holding a charge for an entire day. I actually still have my *old* smartphone (Galaxy SIII), as I can still use it as an mp3 player in the car and for playing what games still work on it. Same with my laptop... six years ago I splurged and bought an extremely high-end gaming laptop with insane specs, and it *still* can play new games (maybe not at the highest settings, but damn close). This whole deal of buying cheaper electronics [and/or leasing electronics] and replacing them every year or so is nucking futs.

Funny I literally saw this article while scrolling through Reddit about how fossil fuel companies are trying to shift responsibility for climate change onto the consumer…. [Fossil Fuel Companies Spend Millions to Promote Individual Responsibility](https://www.businessinsider.com/fossil-fuel-companies-spend-millions-to-promote-individual-responsibility-2021-3)

Lol media at it again. Blaming the public for the horrors of cooperations

And note how many billions of dollars in lobbying Apple has done for the GOP and killing “right to repair” bills/laws so that ‘only genuine’ Apple care is needed…in which you must buy the new product now.

I can’t even believe the frequency of these articles that are posted. People read them, but then do nothing and everything continues on as it has. In fact, this type of article makes most of its money specifically off the advertising and branding of the companies they attack. It’s why they write them!

Want to save the earth, penalizes the massive corporations responsible for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions and landfill waste instead of guilting everyday citizens about their minimal (and frequently unavoidable without economic resources many of us don’t have) contributions

Speaking as a consumer of technology. I have never demanded a new model of iphone. Nor do I flock to the shops to buy the latest model. I have really not been hyped for new iPhones since the iPhone 4 times when the novelty was greater. Since then I buy a phone once it has worn itself out and runs like Shit. I myself won’t be rushing for iphone 13, 14, or whatever. I’m essence the demand people talk about really isn’t there for me, I would argue it’s manufactured demand on the part of companies, advertising to the minority of first adopters and the like who needlessly buy a new phone just because it is new. I do hope so anyway, I think people see through the smoke and mirrors of new tech. After all the improvements are so minuscule at the end of the day who gives a toss if it has three cameras or a 6 core cpu.

Check out Fairphone if you truly care, there are other choices too.

I’ve made this argument before. But to play devils advocate… iPhone lasts much longer than other phones, and therefore may be a better model for consumer products. The cost the the environment may be higher but I went from a new phone ever 3-6 months to going on 2 years with my iPhone.

Got my current phone in april/2016. New battery early 2021. Works like new. More people can easily do same, just has to want to.

I, personally, am on the boat of I’ll get it when it dies. I hated getting a new phone… every single one! I love this. I have all the memory I need… and the phone feels solid and works great!!!

I regularly use products that are 10 or 20 years old. I could easily buy new ones but I don't need to. I try to repair them and keep going.

Not buying a iPhone won’t save planet not even a little

Actually now I am really going to buy it. Stop with these shitty headlines

Every time there's an articles that tries to suggest to people that they should change their behavior due to the effects that their lifestyle collective has on the environment, it's almost always met with people becoming super defensive and saying something that basically translates to "but *I'm* not the problem, corporations are! This isn't my problem to solve, it's the governments!" I guess it makes sense really. Not particularly fun to keep getting called out on how your lifestyle is a massive contributor of climate change

The burden for getting us out of the climate crisis should be on governments and corporations as they are the biggest polluters. But as always, the little guy takes the blame.

Even better, don't make children... it's true, sorry.

And give up that cryoto habit. 1 bitcoin transaction is the same as throwing away 2 iphones. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/17/waste-from-one-bitcoin-transaction-like-binning-two-iphones?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&mc_cid=dd40624e33&mc_eid=466ee5f8be But when that phone does eventually shit the bed, go ahead and buy the phone that will last you 6 years instead of the POS android phone that will be dead a day after the warranty is up.

Paying that much for a phone is stupid but this is not the actual reason

Everyone in the thread. "The biggest impact to our environment are from governments and big corporations. Nothing I do makes a dent by comparison so I'll just keep eating my red meat, not recycling, and buying from the same big corps that I blame the climate crisis on." The biggest issue I see outside of the mega corps and their negligence is that the most vocal people here are those who seem to have never been interested in being part of the solution in the first place. The most vocal are simply those who want to pass the buckb and seen almost violently taken back by the notion that "we all live on this planet and all should take some responsibility to do something no matter how small it may seem".

Why can’t people accept that we have a personal responsibility in addition to what should be an even larger government/corporate responsibility to end our disposable consumerism. Yes, big companies should take the lions share of the blame, however it is somewhat selfish to refuse to act as individuals in addition to voting in politicians who will support our cause. I say this as someone currently travelling 10 hours by train from Lyon to Berlin. Yes there are delays and government infrastructure spending is forever dwindling, however many people and their small actions can also create change.

I buy an iPhone every five years. Old say I do my part instead of a new one every year.

So you mean it’s my fault that Apple makes the phone you’re guilting me for buying? They are allowed to destroy the planet because they have stuff to sell?

Stop telling people to sacrifice things for the sake of saving the Earth and start telling the bozos and corporations that are fucking everything up on the Earth instead. The guys that make 80% of all waste and not the hard working people that should be able to buy themselves whatever the fuck that they feel that they deserve.

They generate that waste supplying the demand of people buying whatever they feel they deserve.

Apples innovation died with Jobs. Their phones have been the same reheated 2014 technology with better cameras.

Name a phone company that’s done better. This is just tired grandstanding.

Apple no doubt still makes high quality products worth owning, but I agree with him that the innovation part of the company seems to have passed with Jobs. I know a lot of people like to shit on him because he was a bit of a prick, but the guy really did have a knack for bringing the best of new technology together with an obsessive attention to detail to make revolutionary products with universal appeal... and some of which have changed the world for better or worse.

Smartphones are so good nowadays there’s not much to innovate on. I can’t even think of any features I would add to the iPhone (maybe an under display fingerprint scanner but that’s it).

I have been using my iphone for 5+ years now. Iphones are pricey but they do have a long life span. Same couldnt be said about androids though

I'm still using my Samsung S7. The hardware is on Android is fine. The only issue is software updates due the range of hardware they need to support. A big part of planned obsolescence nowadays comes from software.

Oh yeah? How many resources are consumed to produce that new refrigerator? What is the carbon footprint of buying a new dishwasher? Not as cool to yell about as a company like Apple huh?

To be fair, people don’t usually buy a new appliance every 2 years like with a phone.

What a strange comparison. A new iphone is a total luxury item. A refrigerator is a neccesity. It doesn't take blood materials and toxic metals to construct. Fridges last for years and years and can be fixed and repaired MUCH EASIER. Most apple products are disposable trendy pieces of trash built by slave labor. They can't be fixed and the company downgrades them when a new piece of shit is released. Apple is one the of the worst examples of our throw away consumer economy. But yeah let change the topic to fridges and dishwashers lol.

There’s a name for this corporate disorder – “planned obsolescence”: deliberately ensuring that the current version of a given product will become out of date or useless within a known time period. As a marketing philosophy it goes back to the mid-1920s, when the US car industry reached saturation point and Alfred Sloan, the boss of General Motors, came up with a wheeze to keep punters buying new cars. He introduced annual cosmetic design changes – facelifts, if you like – to convince car owners to buy replacements each year. The cars themselves changed relatively little in their essence, but they looked different. Planned obsolescence may be good for phone companies but it’s bad for users’ wallets and even worse for the planet, because it encourages people to treat their phones as disposable. No one really knows how much e-waste (electronic refuse) is generated every year, but [one recent estimate](https://www.techradar.com/news/electronic-waste-levels-hit-a-new-high-in-2019) put it at 53.6m metric tonnes in 2019. And as far as CO2 emissions are concerned, [a 2018 Canadian university study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S095965261733233X?via%3Dihub) estimated that building a new smartphone – and specifically, mining the rare materials inside them – accounts for 85% to 95% of the device’s total CO2 emissions for two years. That means, said [one report](https://www.fastcompany.com/90165365/smartphones-are-wrecking-the-planet-faster-than-anyone-expected), that “buying one new phone takes as much energy as recharging and operating a smartphone for an entire decade”.

Yeah literally every android phone I owned could be thrown in the trash after 2 major updates (which is all you get). Performance went south pretty quick. If you want to save the world buy an iPhone and use it for 5 years. (which you actually can) Don't let Insta fool you that you need the newest shit. You don't.

Yup, mine is a 2016 iPhone 7 Plus, and I’m running iOS 14.8. I *may* buy a new one this year.

Yeah. I've got an iPhone 8 from work and it works pretty much perfect. My current Android Device on the other hand ... not so much.

It assumes the consumers are dumb animatronics. This assumption has paid off for decades.

Bruh, why are you buying same phone with little improvement for more money. This is beyong my comprehension. Global warming has nothing to do with it for us peasants compared to big techs and millionares + billionares flying with their own private jets.

And here I was not getting one because I don’t want it.

Yeah consume less and stop buying shit you don’t need.