alt Hacker NewsMaybe as a society it's better for people to have replacement insurance than to have sealed batteries that make phones so disposable. I wonder if we've defined IP68 as a "must have" without considering the alternatives. I'm thinking the percentage of people who actually "use" IP68 over the course of their phone is pretty small...yet that "requirement" drives a huge design choice.
I suspect it's a moot point. Makers have every incentive to drive replacement cycles.
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Spills and drops were traditionally most common causes of mobile device insurance claims. We've only seen that change for phones because of their IP ratings in recent years.
While manufacturers do have an incentive to get people to buy new phones, many of them with first party insurance do have an incentive not to pay out as many claims.
Downvoted for daring to speculate. I love this place.
Phones aren't disposable because of the lack of replacement batteries.
I keep my phones for 3-4 years, and the battery life while degraded isn't really an issue.
And that's with recharging it just about every night even if it's not dead.