But they should be .. or at least last as long as an old C64. You can put newer Windows on pretty old hardware, and for really old hardware you can always slap Linux on and it will still be useful. There are still Kernel forks to support 386 processors!
Cellphones are a mess because we can't even have a nice base hardware platform. ARM isn't a platform. It's a SoC spec with random shit soldered to random pins by different vendors with completely non-upstreamable kernels. Google could just mandate UEFI on OHA phones like Microsoft did with theirs, but instead we're just getting this /vendor partition in the next release.
I don't think it's unintentional either. It's an aspect of planned obsolescence. The cellphone industry wants you to upgrade every two years, when we should not be destroying the planet and creating gear that lasts 10 years. Fewer factories, less pollution, longer life .. but we're in a consumerist economy hardwired the opposite direction, where any type of profit shortfall or lack of growth is seen as a problem, not the result of a good product.
Agreed, but if a public company makes stuff to last 10 (why not 20) years then they'll go bust because capitalism requires profit and sustainable ideals are contrary to profit.
What we need is a privately held cellphone company that will forgo profit in favour of creating long lasting, repairable, maintainable devices. [I've been working on this thesis for the transition from capitalism to communism]
Meanwhile I'm wearing a 25 year old tshirt, whilst tshirts bought much more recently wear out and get holes in.
Instead, was designed to last only as long until the next induced appetite for a new phone. Cuz otherwise, financials wouldn't look as good while another company X in the industry capitalizes on it anyways
