Absolutely fucking not. Im not going to lease something that contains my private information ever.
I buy one smartphone per decade. Why would I want to lease it instead?
Think of the recurring opportunity for emails about price increases and downstream shareholder value!
Subscriptions were supposed to replace cable, then software, then heated seats, now phones. Funny how every innovation somehow ends with paying forever. If your business model needs me renting hardware I already carry everywhere, maybe the product isn’t improving fast enough to justify buying it?
Don’t kid yourselves, the majority of people will eat this shit up
That’s exactly what I thought. I know so many people that just want the newest release just because “status”. Most of those people I know can’t actually afford it, they just prioritise it over other things.
And most of them are tech illiterate and don’t use 80% of the phone’s abilities.
They will love this.
I don’t get that status thing, every phone looks the same to me. A black rectangle with screen in a generic case. Woo…
Even without the FOMO, some people just want a working device.
It’s why leasing cars is attractive to some. They don’t care about the specs, they want one that works “well” and looks nice and are willing to give up nebulous "ownership"of a device that they don’t know or care how it works, that they can’t repair, so they can stop thinking about their choice and just always have a one available.
Yup, they already buy their phone on a payment plan for double the price, and get locked into a carrier at inflated rates. Eventually though, they could actually own their phone.
But they’ll just see a lower monthly price tag, and trade in the ability to eventually own the phone.
Maybe we just need more affordable phones.
There were lots of affordable phones before the AI companies bought up all of the RAM and flash.
I wrote this comment on a $150 phone which for all the purposes that I use it for, performs exactly as well as an $800 iPhone.
I bought my Samsung for $240 CAD, brand new, not refurbished.
I can’t tell the difference from an expensive phone. Less camera lens? I don’t understand why other phones are $1000 to $2000. Processor speed? On a phone? I’m not running games on this thing except online chess. It plays YouTube without ads. It makes calls and sends texts.
I just don’t get it.
Past $800, you’re not getting a better processor. The base iPhone and Galaxy offer the same chip as the Pro Max and Ultra, respectively, in most generations.
You’re only getting more cameras or screen. The $2000 ones fold.
Fuck that.
Apple, Samsung, and any OEMs leaning on this can get fucked.
Last phone was an iPhone 13. Current is the 17.
I don’t game so unless something catastrophic happens I don’t see myself needing to get a new phone for a very long time.
I have no interest running “AI”, either.
Same. I upgraded bc my 13 was starting to show signs of age. I would’ve waiting until it catastrophically gained, but with the ai/chip crisis I figured there was no way future iPhones were going to be cheaper, so I got a 17. Looks like I made the right call
As former IT, most people seem to go from iphone 12/13 to 17 in the last year. Anecdotally, my wife and I went from S17s to $300 motorolas. My parents take the rotating yearly “upgrade” offer and seem fine with that
Depending on what moto does with graphene I may just need that instead.
See what amazon did to older working kindles. Is there a law that phone makers can’t just brick their devices when considered old enough? It doesn’t seem that way. Soon we will all revert back to phones as phones only.
Never do that. You should always fully own and control your communication and computation devices. It’s a matter of privacy.
Even if you buy an iPhone outright you don’t fully control it.
That’s why I don’t buy Apple products…
Rent your phone so you can rent an app that’ll allow you to access your internet banking and pay for all the rents, including the rental of payment services for rental paying?
No, thanks, I’ll cut through this whole Rube-Goldberg machinery of “living in society”, straight into applying for a leasing for my next six-feet-under wooden house instead. I’d love the view, grass and chrysanthema at my roof, buzzards as my faithful company (whether it’ll be part of the legalese leasing terms or not, Mother Nature doesn’t care about that, and neither do I as I’d be long gone (or should I say, long bones) at that point).
So they’re coming to terms that nobody wants to buy what is basically the same kind of phone now a days for higher price… and so now they want to scam people by “upgrading” to what they think will be cheaper when in reality, it’s probably not…
Didn’t Google used to have Pixel Pass where you get a new phone every 2 years? Then they killed it before the 2 year cycle was up?
Imaging companies promising you a new phone after 2 years and then canceling the program at 22 months and then said oops, here $50 store credit…
I bet we’re 1 generation away from cheap “clones” with (pure) Linux on them.
What do people need? A A57 octo core, 8GB RAM, 256/512GB storage, and a 100€ screen…
Throw in the usual stuff (sim, gps/galileo, wifi, bt) plus maybe a card reader, swappable batteries, audio jack for us nerds out there and the craze can be done with.
300€ from china (made in eu/us for 1100€ coming next decade)…
Good or bad, I see it coming! (Just after the linux desktop 😁?)
Jolla and SailfishOS inbound
No better then android. Actually worse it isn’t open source.
They can buy my left nut.
I’ll buy it. Three fiddy?
$3.5 trillion. No low ball offers. I know what I’ve got.
No low ball
Ironic considering what I’m getting
Um. Isn’t this what people already do? Phone comes with contract. You don’t own it.
No? Unless you chose to do it that way!
I don’t know many personally that choose the installment contracts, but I can see it can be convenient for some. But “you don’t own it” only applies to that case, which from my point of view, seems the rarer case than just you know, buying it.
I’ve had ten phones since 1997 and never done it like that.
