People have substitutes.

Even if you want a niche feature like Google Fi support, you have to dig a bit but the Moto Android one entries are fine.

Internal memory is tight though. Expandable memory can't support apps or the OS, where sizes are growing...

Seems trivial to give these all 256 or 512 gb but they are stubbornly kneecapped on space and hard to expand.

Maybe space is how manufacturers are fighting back. We know with the battery scandals they aren't averse to "justifiable" planned obscelesce.

When do we get a dozen low cost Shenzhen competitors to diversify the market?

Fast, durable storage is a lot more expensive than an SD card with dismal random performance a few thousand cycles of endurance. The big-name manufacturers do use storage as a segmentation feature, but many new manufacturers are happy to offer you reasonably-priced storage and microSD expansion.

>When do we get a dozen low cost Shenzhen competitors to diversify the market?

We've already got them - Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Elephone, Ulefone, UMIDIGI, Cubot, Oukitel, Blackview and a whole bunch of others. Only the first three are likely to be competitive on the western market, but Xiaomi are already taking big bites of market share in many European markets. They'll sell you a perfectly serviceable mid-ranger for $150 and a flagship killer for $300.

Being able to stream an app would be nice.

Wait a second... we have those, they are called websites.

Maybe apps themselves are the problem.

I realize it might take 3-5 years, but that's okay.

> The oligopoly juiced prices for flagships and is shocked it affected demand.

It didn't affect demand, it affected market clearing quantity because demand was not (assuming, arguendo, the description of surprise is correct) what the makers involved in the “juicing” of prices thought it would be.

OTOH, if there are effectively competing alternatives to those offered by the “oligopoly”, then it is not an oligopoly.

The theoretical reason is I trust a phone more if I know it’s direct from Apple.

Now that I have the XR + Watch combo, I’m seeing if I can get by treating the XR as a “desk phone” and the Watch as a “mobile phone”. So far that’s been working out pretty well. If I get tired of it, I may rethink things and try to get a used SE.

Obviously people do hold on to phones for longer than the support term but that's far from ideal.

Just because it says "fingerprint-protected" on the tin, doesn't mean it has good fingerprint protection.

Even with no security/pattern you have to first press the power button, then swipe up. With a fingerprint reader, you tap your finger to the sensor and the screen is not only on, but the lockscreen (swipe) was bypassed.