Economics

Many workers report that aging devices stifle productivity, but like a favorite pair of shoes or an old sweater, they don’t want to give them up to learn the intricacies of a new device (which they’ll learn and then have to replace with another). Familiarity can trump productivity for many workers.

So first off I'm glad they mentioned this. However it's frustrating to see the first quote, "last month concludes that each additional year companies delay upgrading equipment results in a productivity decline of about one-third of a percent" which feels like real numbers versus the section I quoted which feel like vibes.

There is a cost in doing something and a cost in not doing something. Sometimes doing nothing is the best course of action.

(Now if getting a new device is a huge cost you should investigate where you can improve that process.)

Americans are increasingly opting for reusable cups. This is costing the plastic cup industry billions.

And how exactly is this bad?

Spending less money on stupid stuff isn't hurting the economy, for fuck's sake.

The exact same applies to smartphones.

The only useful thing for new phones would be if there was easily discoverable good new games to buy with real pretty graphics. Instead the stores are adware platforms and phone cameras have been pretty good enough for a decade. Splitting hairs these days for improvements

Good. Better for your pocketbook, better for yourself, and better for the world.

I would like to note that the difference in relative purchases of technology investments between consumer and business markets will make comparison a little less than easy.

That and certain social demographics within the information technology world present a bleed through of practices in spending habits and thus should not be included.

Noooooo the economy 😭😭😭

Oh no not the economy!

"device hoarding" Fuck off

The section about buying new phones and the section about company investment appear to have nothing to do with one another.

The report by the Fed they cite is concerned with estimating the effect of capital reinvestment productivity gains by the firm.

Just breezing through the report it looks like the Fed is trying to explain differences in GDP between economies as a consequence of capital reinvestment. When firms buy new equipment, which could include IT equipment but also could include things like robots, backhoes, new looms, or any other piece of equipment a firm uses to produce goods or services, they should be more productive because their equipment has newer technology in it. The Fed reasons that if two major economies differ in GDP growth one of the potential explanations might be the rate of capital reinvestment firms in those economies engage in because newer equipment usually increases productivity. So more frequent investments in capital should yield faster growth in GDP. They present evidence in favor of that argument.

I don't know how reasonable their conclusion is because I am not too familiar with their measurements which are not direct measures of capital investment and don't really know enough about how GDP changes over time to know if this is a good explanation. It is clear, however, that the Fed is not arguing that consumers need to keep buying new phones every year or the economy will collapse or even be harmed. That is not even remotely what the report is about.

I'm still using a Galaxy S9+ from 2018! And yes, I still get over a day's worth of battery life with the original battery.

29 months is a lot shorter than I thought the average person switches phones. I’m still sticking with my IPhone X.

NO, it's costing some companies. The economy benefits from cutting out waste. It just so happens that the stock market and "the economy" are not synonyms.

You look at the headlines of what’s new every year, realize it’s a nothingburger and say “meh maybe next year if there’s something interesting”. It’s been going for a few years for me, my last phone broke because I mishandled it, bought iPhone 13 and don’t see myself replacing for at least 2-3 years. I’ll replace the battery soon because it doesn’t hold a charge that well anymore but that’s about it really. Does everything else very good

Im on an iPhone 12 Pro Max(2020). That must make me above average. Yay!

Why does this smell like something that's a problem only because corporations have the same rights as people?

I'll get a new cell phone when I find one that has feature parity with my current one.

Why tf make a new phone every year or 2 years then? Samsung has already made it so that there's no reasonable benefit to doing that besides maybe battery life and camera. Everything else is commodity or gimmick at best. You can't keep doing that anymore. Coming out with stupid flip phones is not going to solve this made up problem. Just fucking stop.

I bought my current smartphone in January 2022.

also because they are becoming walled gardens , converging into apple-esqe type situation.