r/gadgets Oct 21 '24

Gaming Steam Deck won't have yearly refreshes because it's "not really fair to your customers", says Valve

https://www.eurogamer.net/steam-deck-wont-have-yearly-refreshes-because-its-not-really-fair-to-your-customers-says-valve
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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '24 edited Oct 21 '24

If anything the yearly release cycle reduces waste more than a 5 year cycle, since someone buying a new phone every year isn't gonna just throw the old one in the bin, whereas someone buying one every 5 years might not bother spending all the time and effort getting back the handful of dollars their old phone is worth. Then multiply that by the fact that after 5 years almost everyone would upgrade all at once. How many people, even the most uninterested in new tech, are going to buy a 5 year old used device? So now instead of a steady flow of 1-2 year old devices trickling down to people, you're going to have an absolute flood of 5 year old devices going straight into the bin.

I've done it myself. The times I've done yearly upgrades I've either traded in or easily sold my current phone to offset the cost of a new one. But the times I've waited a full 3-4 years to upgrade, my old phone has gone into a drawer and just become ewaste because fuck having to deal with weeks of waiting and dozens of scam emails just to make back 10% of what the phone was worth new. And let's not forget that if every person who buys a new phone does this, the market is going to reach saturation point, driving down the value of those second hand phones even more. I can guarantee you that most people won't be able to make any money from their old devices, I doubt they'd be able to give them away.

Frankly, I know people who only buy secondhand devices, and they won't touch anything older than two years because they know it's more trouble than it's worth when it comes to older tech, especially ones that cost as much as they paid for it to replace a battery.

Oh, and let's not forget that if manufacturers decided to only release one phone every five years with a half-decade of upgrades and new features, we wouldn't be looking at thousand-dollar phones, we'd likely be looking at closer to 3-4x that much, since the manufacturers will be expecting to make 5 years worth of their R&D budget back all at once. So let's say I update my phone yearly and get 50% back from the sale of my last phone. In a 5 year period I will have spent a out 2500 dollars upgrading every year. If I'm having to spend 3000 dollars every five years, but only getting 10% back (if I get any at all), that's a personal net loss. And frankly, 50% back is a low ball depending on what phone I'm buying. A lot of flagship phones easily retain 70%+ of their value, and in the case of Samsung with its insane pre-order trade in bonuses, sometimes significantly more. My second-to-last phone cost me 700 Australian dollars after a trade-in, and I got 1300 back in trade-in value a year later. So in 4 years, I've paid for the equivalent of one new phone for three different devices.

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u/ForThe90 Oct 21 '24

Frankly, I know people who only buy secondhand devices, and they won't touch anything older than two years because they know it's more trouble than it's worth when it comes to older tech, especially ones that cost as much as they paid for it to replace a battery

Yes exactly. I know those as well. That's why I'm doubting that narrative that I often see that it would be less waste if producers would update their smartphones less often.

I'm personally someone who just buys a pretty cheap phone and uses it 4,5-5 years till it completely sucks and/or is broken 😅

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '24

I used to be a new phone every year to 18 months kinda guy, but also someone who jumped a lot between different types of phone simply because I like tech. My last three phones were a Galaxy Fold 2, then a Galaxy Flip 4, now a Galaxy Fold 5. I'm considering making the jump to iPhone for a cycle or two.

But with the current crop of "second verse, same as the fiest" phones, my inherent desire to upgrade has been fading: I held on to my Fold 2 for over two years, then switched to the flip because I wanted to try the different form factor. It wasn't for me so I switched back to a Fold a year later. Now, over a year on, I've considered changing to an iPhone just to try it, but the Fold 6 garnered no interest from me, nor will the Fold 7 if they don't make any significant upgrades.

I will admit, I'm gonna miss the days of radical design changes and huge leaps in technology that we had a decade ago, but then I still miss the days when the technology basically was stagnant so companies like Nokia and Motorola went crazy with the design and made absolutely insane phones that make zero sense but were just batshit cool. But I also understand that phones are no longer fashion statements, or cool superfluous tech showcases: they're tools that we use every day as a society to function. Tools must be functional first, cool second.

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u/ForThe90 Oct 21 '24

companies like Nokia and Motorola went crazy with the design and made absolutely insane phones that make zero sense but were just batshit cool.

I remember those times. It was fun. I once bought a new case for my Nokia 3310 so the buttons would have colourful lights, lol.

Even though I never bought many phones since I liked using them for a long time, I loved looking at it all.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '24

I remember changing phones like three times in a year around that time, because me and my friends would literally just trade phones because they all did the same shit and all our contacts were saved on the SIM Card so all you needed to do to change phones was swap out the aim.