You can choose not to upgrade.
Obtaining status symbols is a choice (and a pretty vain one too). Even if your lifestyle requires these empty displays of status, that's a choice of lifestyle that you've made.
You can be perfectly successful in life with a 5 years old phone.
This is a huge part of the change we need. I felt proud in a way to show off that I was still using an iPhone 8 until a couple of years ago, and I admire some (techy) people I know still using a phone from that time.
Is pride a healthy, wholesome motivator? May be not, but we're human.
My feeling is that phones are not evolving that quickly anymore, though.
> If you upgrade a phone to get a new one with a better camera, well, the processor on the old one is probably decent still, it could be a mini PC where the camera quality doesn't matter.
Sure, but if you didn't need the mini PC in the first place, then it's not more sustainable than throwing it away. It's actually less sustainable, because now you consume energy for a mini PC you didn't need.
Not saying people should not get their new toy. Just that they should not pretend it's sustainable :-).
> Also, it's a status symbol, you can't just _not_ upgrade.
Around me it's become more and more of a status symbol to not upgrade. It's sometimes almost a competition of "who has the oldest phone", and nobody is impressed by someone buying the latest iPhone. So... it's not the same everywhere :-).
You've become older and the status symbols have changed.
But I stay convinced that in the beginning of smartphones, they would dramatically improve every year. Now... not so much.
On that note, please, someone make a phone with more than 2 active SIMs. At this point, I have four SIMs, and they're more likely to increase than to reduce...
If you upgrade a phone to get a new one with a better camera, well, the processor on the old one is probably decent still, it could be a mini PC where the camera quality doesn't matter.
Also, it's a status symbol, you can't just _not_ upgrade.