Reinforcing this. Yes, it is slightly bulkier than say a Pixel, but for that you get a phone where everything is screwed using standard parts, nothing is glued and the battery can be swapped without any tools. So building a repairable phone is perfectly possible. Yes, it has downsides, but if as a society we really want to go towards less waste, this is the way to go.

Fairphone is a great product and I have a lot of respect for them trying to do what they're doing. But the sad brutal reality is that it's a very niche in the grand scheme of things and won't change things. I equate it a bit to "The year of the Linux Desktop" happening making everything better.

We have to be honest with ourselves about this, recognise how the deck is stacked against us and respond accordingly.

Linux won though :) "the year of the Linux Desktop" is a joke that started over two decades ago to dismiss Linux and OSS as a delusion of a few nerds but now we have Android devices everywhere, every server on earth using it, supercomputers/HPC clusters, game consoles, and even on desktop it keeps growing. Those who were in the FLOSS community back in the late 90s and early 00s probably remember how most people literally laughed at you and would call you crazy just for believing that things could be different.

The idea of a phone that can have its battery easily replaced is several orders of magnitude less crazy in my opinion.

The problem with Fairphone is that the price just isn't right. I get that they don't have enough volume but they should find a way to make it viable at a competitive price otherwise it is useless.

Who cares that it is easier to repair if you can buy 2 similar phones for the same price?

The issue with other phone manufacturers is not that they are inherently hard to repair, even if some phones could use some improvements at the design stage. The issue is that even if you want to repair and have the knowledge/skills to do so, it will be very hard to source correct parts at a worthwhile price.

The big brands are knowingly killing repairability by preventing 3rd party parts in the name of "Intellectual property", parts pairing/locking (with serials/chips) and finally not offering parts at a reasonable price even when they are forced to.

The Apple repair program is a farce precisely because of that, even if you are willing to do the work, it will cost you just as much as it would in an Apple Store just because they sell the parts at a ridiculous price while making it so that you can't get a replacement elsewhere because the phone will not work or have reduced functionality if you don't get a part from them. It is disgusting predatory anti-competitive behavior and buying Fairphones won't solve much of the problem because peoples will still buy iPhone for obvious secondary reasons.