Unregulated free markets are widely accepted to be a bad idea. E-waste is a serious problem that the free market can't solve on its own. Regulation is necessary.
I believe the PinePhone prioritizes repairability but it's obviously not as popular as the iPhone.
> Unregulated free markets are widely accepted to be a bad idea. E-waste is a serious problem that the free market can't solve on its own. Regulation is necessary.
Why is e-waste a serious problem (as opposed to other types of waste)? Couldn't this problem be solved by improving e-waste disposal processes?
Improved? Yes. Solved? Not really. Recycling is not a perfect process by any stretch. Producing less E-waste is just as important because global consumption of the resources that go into it is currently very unsustainable. E-waste management right now is not just unideal, it's more or less a joke. In 2021 less than 20% of E-waste in Europe was being collected and recycled. Recycling is hard. It requires changes at almost all levels of society. Designing repairable electronics on the other hand is essentially a solved problem that the industry has done less and less due to cost. Because the free market ultimately is best at optimising for lowering cost, and not other things like sustainability, safety, and so on. That's where regulations and taxes come in.
And third, if we're sharing anecdotes, i also talk to a lot of people who ended up switching phones due to a dead jack or USB port, and have drawers full of fully functioning phones except for a single, cheap, broken component.