I could get behind modular phones if they weren't 50% bigger than an integrated alternative and more expensive.

I also note with some irony that there are ways to dispose of these electronics which will take all of the people out of the equation. Incineration and refinement is a thing. There is a plant in Milpitas CA that can take electronics, grind it through chompers into powder, material separate the grind through a series of steps, and then incinerate the "light" stuff, and refine the metals. One of their things is getting the gold and some rare earths out of chips and circuit boards through their process.

Then there are Apple's "disassembly" robots. Which take apart things, that makes for better aluminum recovery in Apple gear.

Frankly a modular phone sounds godawful. I work all week and build stuff in my spare time, I don't want yet another thing I need to maintain and that's why I have an iPhone.

There's no reason we can't have proper disposal methods and environmentally sound manufacturing -AND- have single-piece prebuilt devices. I'd argue that making stuff modular wouldn't even solve that problem in the first place, you'd just have piles and piles of PIECES of phones instead of piles and piles of phones.

Presumably, with better parts standardization, you'd have companies buying off broken phones and reassembling the still working components into new phones. Sort of what happens in Shenzhen, but on a larger scale.

I agree with your point that it is the economic system. However, I do think it is feasible, but it is complicated because it requires cooperation with manufacturers, governments, recyclers and consumers.

If you didn't see it, there is a recent, existing conversation on the economic system here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12733659

Is that really true or is it just that they can make more doing it the way they are? I'd love to see a big company that boast about the money they're not making because they have standards they're not willing to give up on.

This was standard for computers back in the 80s and 90s and has become less popular over time. The problem is twofold: 1) all components tend to become obsolete at the same time and 2) the bus itself becomes obsolete. So even the most modular computers - which cost more, were physically larger, and contained more e-waste - tended to get replaced wholesale anyway. Computer upgradability is a myth.

But Apple keeps forcing me to update iOS to newer and newer versions. Also, the apps stop supporting the older OS. But upgrading it causes it to slow down. New iOS and app version seems to be bloated more and more. Even simple web-browsing is slow which used to be fine before the updates.

I'm sticking to it for now, but it's slowly getting unusable and might end up in e-waste before its time.