I think we need to collectively understand that freedom and privacy have a cost. That $200 phone is subsidized with the spyware baked into it and the expected income of future repairs and upgrades, ad sales, etc. a $2k phone made with modular parts and software based on open source has a much higher up-front cost, won’t be quite as sleek, will require some technical understanding, but a much lower maintenance cost.
Game consoles, phones, computers, cars and even refrigerators. If some company now considers the product a loss-leader, we should collectively shun it.
It’s a hard sell, though, when everything is super expensive and things like phones and cars are pretty much requirements for living in some places.
I think we need to collectively understand that freedom and privacy have a cost. That $200 phone is subsidized with the spyware baked into it and the expected income of future repairs and upgrades, ad sales, etc. a $2k phone made with modular parts and software based on open source has a much higher up-front cost, won’t be quite as sleek, will require some technical understanding, but a much lower maintenance cost.
Game consoles, phones, computers, cars and even refrigerators. If some company now considers the product a loss-leader, we should collectively shun it.
It’s a hard sell, though, when everything is super expensive and things like phones and cars are pretty much requirements for living in some places.
It’s also slightly cheaper (per unit) to manufacture a million phones vs ten thousand.