Smartphones are widely available on the used goods market though, perhaps even more so than second-hand SBCs or old PCs. The "low and mid range" can be filled by the former high end.
My Samsung Galaxy S8 died at 7 years. Some kind of thermal failure, I was able to recover my data by keeping the phone in the freezer while I copied. Known issue.
My Samsung Galaxy S21? I figure I've got another year or two in it before it, too, dies.
Having beautiful dead phones that have never had a broken screen or a hard drop is pretty depressing.
My Galaxy Tab also has dead EMMC. My HTC One M8 still works and even holds a day of charge. Too bad Android doesn't support 32bit ARM anymore.
The great filter for incompetence by the big G was real and necessary.
I'd been running CyanogenMod until they quit giving updates to the S3.
Maybe that's why the previous owner sold it.
My Galaxy Note 4 still works. Had to sideload updated web certificates.
My Galaxy S1 would still be going, but somebody got the charging port wet.
> My Samsung Galaxy S8 died at 7 years.
The bigger issue was no more OS updates since 2020, and no Play updates since 2023. The battery can be replaced but getting a fully updated OS is more involved.
The device integrity is a bigger deal, this is also a backup for some banking apps so if they don't work it kind of defeats the purpose. I removed all other apps to minimize the attacks surface.
Like everything else, phones need to be backed up.
When new cars got more expensive, used cars got more expensive, too. I expect the same to happen with the phones.
With the 4-7 year support window on Android? Maybe that's why Google is trying to kill off Graphene et al.