They do not need to pay more. The equation that repairable means more expensive for the customer is propaganda. It assumes that every cent companies save by making devices worse lowers the price. That's trickle down economics and has never been true.

People can still buy new stuff earlier if they want. But their old stuff can be reused by those that do not need, want or can afford the new devices. There are many categories of devices where that's a good option for many, not only phones. Besides, it's always good to have the option to repair that thing you have when it breaks even if initially you did not think you would need that. You might have grown to like it.

I've had an iPhone since 2009 and I'm definitely familiar with the "time traveling" effect of upgrading phones, but I think it has diminished a lot as the technology has matured.

I've been using a 6S since 2015 (this thread caught my interest because it's now somewhat of a Ship of Theseus as I've replaced so many parts over the years), but the 11 Pro I bought last year was the first time a multi-year-gap upgrade felt rather incremental, especially for $1100. I returned it and expect to continue to use and repair the 6S until they drop iOS support for it.

Considering 3 years a long time to replace a device is part of the problem.

A large part of that is simply that smartphones entered the market very recently and started out computationally weak compared to existing computers - the first iphone was released less than 14 years ago and had a CPU running at 412MHz!

Smartphones have largely caught up to traditional computers in terms of the time it takes for upgrade-worthy advancements in hardware. I expect we'll see smartphone upgrade cycles continue to lengthen until they mirror desktop/laptop upgrade cycles.

Agreed but that part of a larger problem such as fast fashion and throwaway trinkets for the home.

It is quite easy — invest in the most limiting factor, for example:

* OnePlus 3, released in June 2016, 6 GB RAM.

vs

* iPhone 7, released in September 2016, 2 GB RAM.

* iPhone 12 Pro Max, released in October 2020, 6 GB RAM.

From my perspective smartphones have not changed much.

The processors have changed significantly. I had a OnePlus 3T which I really liked, and recently pulled it out of a box because my daily driver phone broke. The 3T struggled to load modern, bloated apps like Google Maps. The device would chug at most tasks more intensive than scrolling a webpage (and sometimes even then... what a sad state the web is in these days)

By contrast the processor in my work phone (an Iphone) is faster than my laptop.