[Kaxo]

Non-replacable battery is the no1 cause.

Its amazing that the general public have accepted that as another other than a deliberate ploy to sell more new phones more regularly.

Regulators need to start enforcing repairability if they actually want to tackle e-waste.

[sebtron]

Software support is another big one. My 6.5 year old smartphone is still strong on battery, but it stopped receiving updates long ago. At some point, some stuff I needed would not work anymore. Fortunately I found a version of LineageOS for it, but it was a lucky accident - the vast majority of phones become waste at that point.

I really hope vendors get forced to open up their hardware for the user to install their own OS once they stop supporting a device with updates.

[sschueller]

Why is this still so difficult? Android and Apple have moved a lot of apps out of the system image into the app store so they could be updated more easily.

I know the hardware on Android is fragmented but by now we should be able to handle this? PC are way more fragmented. Maybe drivers need to be open sourced?

Is it just too much competitive interest?

What manufacturer would want a phone that last more than 3 years when there is no downside and a possibility of someone buying another phone.

The only scenario where I see this change is by a law or phones become something you no longer own but rent. Then it would be in the interest of the manufacturer to keep the costs as low as possible and try to make you keep the same phone as long as possible.

[plutoh28]

Non-replaceable battery has got to be one of the most profitable examples of planned obsolescence. Your average consumer is going to notice that their phone is lagging more frequently and attribute that to their phone being old… when in reality it’s just that their battery has degraded [1]. So, what could’ve been a <$100 replacement becomes a $1000 upgrade.

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210557?cid=iOS_SettingsUI_...

[Gigachad]

Even in the age of easily swappable batteries I don't think many people actually did swap them. I had a Samsung S5 and when the battery started to go, I walked up to the samsung store for a new battery, and they told me they didn't sell them and I'd have to go online to get one.

As well as the fact that back then phones progressed much faster so by the time your battery gave out, the new phone was much much better.

[plutoh28]

Agreed. Back then switching to a new phone was justifiable since there would be a noticeable quality of life improvement between a couple generations. Now, I think we’ve reached that point where the new phone is not significantly better. Or at least, not worth the extra cost compared to a battery replacement.

Easily swappable batteries would be a big value add now for a lot of people.