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Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

> If your business model is based on artificial obsolesence and 100% of the cost of e-waste and disposal is externalized, then anything that truly encourages effective continued use of older models is directly opposed to the business model.

You’d think more companies would skip that model: bmw and Apple benefit from the high sale value of their devices, in part due to continued support. It doesn’t hurt that California and Germany have pushed part of the lifecycle cost onto the manufacturers, with some success.

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Samsung gives the impression that they'd love their business model to look like Apple or BMW and be a "lifestyle brand" (if not quite a "luxury brand"). My immediate thoughts from the article was wondering how much Samsung regrets being tied to Android at this point. The timing of the project suggests to me that maybe there may have been some hope at Samsung that they could use "upcycling" as a trojan platform for migrating older hardware to a larger Tizen install base as devices aged out of Android support just before realizing that being chained to Android's continual software obsolescence also chained them to wild shifting winds of Android's hardware strategy (and getting Tizen drivers from some of the "mandatory" Android partners).

Android as a platform in general, with its wild fragmentation and ever moving software goal posts, seems almost cruelly designed almost entirely for the artificial obsolesence path and that path alone.

It's true that Google has made quite a bit of awful and customer-hostile decisions about the path of Android. But what is Samsung's alternative to Android? There is none. All alternative operating systems (PalmOS, Symbian, Blackberry, etc) have failed. A new, proprietary OS from Samsung would almost certainly fail. They can't chain their cart to Apple. Android is the only possibility.

Samsung have Tizen. It is still being used in smartwatch

I don't understand how BMW hold on to their reputation for making cars that run reliably for years. In recent years, their cars are largely shiny toys for the lease market, with an excess of gadgets and value engineering.

My Poco cost me €349. In two and a half years I'll replace it for something new. Long term support isn't even a concern, for that price who gives a shit?

Not giving a shit _is_ the problem: Poco doesn't have to pay for all those 349 euro phones going to the recycler after just 2,5 years (while probably the components could last years longer).

Idk about that. I'm pretty sure that people who constantly want a new BMW just lease. BMW has this real awful spot with their 5yr warranty so a lot of people buy a pre-owned BMW off a lease and then drive it for 3 years and then get absolutely wrecked by the maintenance costs.

Apple's business model is reliant on people buying a WHOLE NEW PHONE for ~1000$ every 2-3 years. And you get to sell your old phone for what? like 200$ trade in?

Apple also constantly locks you out every 5-6 years of iOS updates and then you can't run, say, spotify on your old ipod touch because you can't update the OS.

I actually find it hard to believe your propping Apple up here with their huge fight against right to repair.

So ... what’s your example of a company besides Apple currently providing first-class mobile OS support for their 5+ year old devices?

Wait Android phones can get updated?

It's five years. Not 5+ (according to their website).

I don't have to provide a counter example because that wasn't even remotely the argument I was making (that no companies really do this because their objective is to SELL NEW DEVICES).

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