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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

So fully 10% of the adult populatiom thinks buying the latest iPhone isn't? Thats a rather healthy market for any luxury good.

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No. Fully 10% think that AND admit it. Another 20% think it but like to pretend otherwise. Another 10% think it's a waste of money, but since it's their company paying for it are happy to accept. And another 20% think it would be crazy to pay 1000 pounds for a phone, but then follow up and explain they got a great deal and only pay 100 a month extra for the next 24 months plus 250 up front.

That's why apple is a trillion dollar company.

To add to this, all the major phone carriers in the states engineer their plans to force you to buy new phones either through discounts or "free" bonus phones from them in order to get good value for what you are paying. It is almost always cheaper to go with a cheap MVNO plan and pay for your phone outright, you will come out ahead instead of paying $80-$100 a month with a major carrier while getting a "free" phone with the caveat you have to stick with them for 2 years. Its all engineered to get you to spend more money, if you look at the prices on MVNOs you will realize you are getting scammed - I pay $10/month for my minimal cellular plan through redpocket and getting more data only costs tens of dollars more, it doesn't come close to tmobile's prices.

Mint mobile has been a great mvno experience for me. I pay a year at a time and get 8gb a month for a very reasonable price.

Yeah, it's interesting because they did that here until about 2016 (I think).

Then it reversed and it was (say) 600 for a handset or free handset and 40 more a month for 24m (960 extra total) with the handset free. Same contract either way.

But I think a lot of people just kept getting the 24m contract. I went though it with my lodger and lent him the 600 because I think it takes the piss to do this.

Here in the UK at least there are a bunch of resellers who will give you a sim only contract and use one of the big three networks. So it's easy/affordable at least to just do that. I hope the US has this too...

All of the major phone carriers have decent plans on their prepaid side now. You don't get a discount on a phone, but you usually get to pay the sticker price, tax included.

MVNO deals can be better, but there's uncertainty from having a 3rd party, and often the MVNOs don't or can't offer x GB of high speed data with low speed data for the rest of the month. But going from like $80 to $30 is good enough for me, I don't need to go all the way down to $10

Count me as one of the 80% that thinks its a waste, but does it anyway. A little bit of introspection is valuable.

The only way I see purchasing every year making sense is if you always, without exceptions, trade-in and upgrade to the latest model phone. The current priciest iPhone (for 64gb) is $1100 for the 11 Pro Pax. If you were to trade in an last-gen XS Max, you'd get $450 in trade-in value and thus only pay $650 for the new phone. The value of that would then continuously roll over into new upgrades (provided you never crack the screen or damage the phone ever, since that immediately causes it to lose $200-400 in trade-in value), meaning you are always paying for a phone but you will always have the latest and greatest model and the value that goes into that.

Trade-in is such bad value. You could probably sell your 1 year old iphone for around 80% of its purchase price.

Private sales of electronics can be a hassle and carry some risk. There's something to be said for a low effort trade-in (or sale to Amazon) even if it doesn't maximize the return.

can you expand on the hassle/risk? especially the risk part.

Buyer claims they never received the item/item wasn't as described/etc. There's a chargeback. Plenty of horror stories on eBay. Not to say don't do it but there's a lot to be said for taking the easy path from my perspective. (And electronics probably have more of this type of thing than many other categories.)

oh right, though that can happen with anything on ebay. i thought you were thinking of something specific to phones, like reading /cloning the memory/disk of the phone or something along those lines.

To add, unless there's proof (and sometimes even when there is proof) a buyer can just tell eBay/craigslist/etc that the phone didn't have Find My iPhone turned off (which would mean they can't use the phone) and get a refund that way without even needing to chargeback ebay.

You've got to put the listing up on ebay or gumtree or whatever, and then handle actual shipping it, and then deal with disputes.

Or just give it to a trade in site and be done with it.

"Purchasing every year" is a different question of course. When I upgrade, I do buy the latest but I still have an iPhone X. (I'd probably have upgraded this year but with no travel, I'll probably just wait another year.)

When our employer plan had a higher cap on monthly compensation for phones for those of us required to be on call and check mail I would just bury the upgrade cost into the monthly billing. They have since reduced the amount by a third so it covers the average phone bill and it really does make me think more than once about whether an upgrade nets me anything

fwiw, I am quite happy with the 8+ and I am not even sure what it would take me to upgrade. phones would have to become super light, fold-able, or even perhaps translucent or such to pique my interest at this point.

Is an iPhone a luxury good? Perhaps it is in poorer parts of the world but it has a 45% market share in the US.

The most expensive iphones don't have 45% market share.

Anyone not living under the poverty line can in theory save for a luxury good, but that doesn't mean they otherwise live a luxurious lifestyle. In my country you see some really poor people living in pretty terrible conditions but who own luxury cars.

America too. I grew up on a town where you’d see a fancy Camaro parked in front of a mobile home.

It might be worth it. A family in my street migrated from Kosovo to Belgium, and returns every year for the holiday. They aren't rich but have a second hand BMW. It's the only car that survives the trip from/to their holiday, so it's cheaper than buying a new car.

You do however VW outsells BMW ten to one. The market share of companies like Rolex or Gucci is tiny compared to Apple’s.

Yes. Here it is also because you can’t get it anywhere at the price you see on their website. It’s much more expensive and so not worth it.

The SE is only $400. I imagine most of the market share isn’t people buying the $1000 model annually.

That 45% includes folks paying them off every month, folks buying new cheaper models, folks being given other people's old phones, and folks buying used/refurbished phones. It doesn't mean they aren't a luxury good: The newest, latest iPhones are still some of the more expensive on the market, and a lot of onlookers can't tell one from the other.

The richest 10% of the UK[1] have enough to afford the latest smartphone each year with no real difficulty.

[1] income threshold per taxpayer: £35,345, but unlike US almost nobody bothers with private medical insurance

At 36k or even 100k/year, spending 1000/year on new phones is a big deal. Giving up 1% of your income each year isnt taken lightly.

>Giving up 1% of your income each year isnt taken lightly.

Unless you're like me in which case you give up about 10% of your income each year on absolutely frivolous shit you just had to have but then used for about a week only to never touch again. Oh the joys of totally shot impulse control. That definitely includes a few smartphones.

I think next time though I'll just get a dingy piece of crap. All a smartphone really is to me is a browser in my pocket. Don't need a 4k screen for that. Won't fall for the stupid gimmicks next time.

Well.. I say that but, if I had much control over it it wouldn't be called impulse buying :(

There's lots of great Android phones at $300 or so. No need to get a bad one.

I find many of the "cheap" phones better for my needs. I want a small phone, one that can live in a pocket without worry in the field (military). I need a phone with a removable battery (security thing where I work). I need a phone with a headphone jack (ie headphones without Bluetooth). So very few of the flagship phones are even an option.

The real trick is to find impulse buys that aren't truly expensive for you.

This can in turn be directed into its own kind of hobby. It's common for people who can't afford the actual thing they wanted to collect the marketing materials around it instead - like, instead of buying a luxury sports car, you get a poster for that car and hang it on the wall. It can be done creatively and redirect you towards your actual interests, instead of getting the high ticket product itself and learning once again that it did not magically improve life and mostly sits unused.

More like 45k now (assuming you mean post tax, pre-tax is even higher of course): https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-f...

Most richer people I know do not spend frivolously.

The "I must have latest Samsung Galaxy" crowd is depressively young and inaffluent. At least two such guys borrowed money to buy the latest models.

Imagine borrowing money to buy anything, including a house. Yikes!

Let us hope that the new "work from home" standard resulting from Covid will usher in an age of "deconcentration" from major cities.

I could buy an older house in Czech countryside with my savings. A garage in Prague would cost approximately the same.

In America, the price differential between rural and metropolitan areas is even worse.

Movement back to the countryside could deflate the bubble and make property accessible without mortgages again.

Completely and totally agree. The price of a new construction house in Redmond WA is around $1,400,000 USD and involves lots of paperwork and rules to be able to qualify to buy.

The price of a similarly specified house in Iowa or West Virginia in a very affluent zip code is less than $600,000, some closer to $400,000. It is conceivable that a married couple with 10 years of savings could buy this house cash and continue working remote as they please!

> Imagine borrowing money to buy anything, including a house. Yikes!

Is this a joke? The 30 year mortgage is possibly the single most powerful financial tool available to an average person. It allows you to leverage hundreds of thousands of dollars for just a few percent down. Imagine going to your stock brokerage and asking for 1000% margin on a $10,000 account. You would be laughed at. Yet that's precisely what a mortgage allows you to do. In the US at least, home ownership is also incredibly tax advantaged as well, to the point that it is almost impossible to build wealth otherwise for a normal working class person.

It's less tax-advantaged in the US under current tax law than it used to be depending upon housing prices where you live and whether you itemize deductions. But, in general, I certainly agree. The idea that there's something inherently wrong with getting a mortgage is silly. (Obviously, some people do buy more house than they can afford.)

How do you feel about those who are excluded from home ownership due to not qualifying for a mortgage because of arbitrary rules and supply constrictive zoning laws?

The TCJA changes to personal deductions expire at the end of 2025, so the tax benefits of a mortgage will return.

Please explain to me why it's beneficial to society to people to work 30 years, paying all sort of interest and fees to middle men and excluding the median citizen from home ownership?

Dare I remind you that a single income family could afford a new construction home with just 4 years of salary in the 1950s and 1960s.

Build more houses, make everyone that can go remote, remove the needless fake money bidding wars that come from easy leverage for those who qualify.

It is scientifically proven that when a human owns something instead of rents it, they take much better care of their property and their community (source: google). Mortgages and renting just bring despair and trigger apocalyptic emotions in humans, which is why the Bronx looks like the Bronx, and Bellevue looks like Bellevue.

> Mortgages and renting just bring despair and trigger apocalyptic emotions in humans, which is why the Bronx looks like the Bronx, and Bellevue looks like Bellevue.

I’m assuming you’re referring specifically to the South Bronx with your comment. An area that is in the state it’s in primarily because of decades of racist redlining that prevented any sort of leveraged investment in properties and services.

Imagine being foolish enough to spend a wad of cash that could earn 8% per year to avoid borrowing the money at 3.5% per year (or actually less now).

> but unlike US almost nobody bothers with private medical insurance

They might not go out to buy it but I bet a lot of white collar workers get it as part of their salary.

10% of any respondents will always reply strangely to a survey. "adults" should probably be in quotations.

Lord help us at the next election.

How about that little referendum we had a while back?

Could be they’re on much older phone and/or quite flush with cash.

Perhaps the 10% are the people who routinely earn enough money to buy a new iPhone every week. That's totally reasonable for them then.

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