I see that, and agree, for the short-term future. My point is that manufacturing of circuits, touchscreens and other components is extremely resource intensive. Relatively pure water is one of very many inputs that are required. Other resources such as metals and rare-earth minerals are often mined in places which are quickly becoming inhospitable.

We already see metals being harvested from infrastructure. I expect that to get worse -- and worse faster in more impoverished areas. It seems to me that the remaining hospitable climes will face increasing pressures on their resources, and the luxury of nearly-free electricity powering smartphones will be fleeting.

Ok that sounds reasonable, that these surprisingly low cost phones, cannot last that long.

At the same time, shipping phones to far away places where there is a "shortage" of phones, and selling them there, is going to be more profitable, per shipment, than shipping water to that same place.

And one needs just a few shipments of phones, for everyone to have a phone. One ships just 0.1 kg phone per person, once. Compared to 10 or 100 kg water per person and day.

With that in mind, I'm thinking phones will continue to be prevalent, in comparison to water, in areas where there's a drought.