It's not that I'm not sympathetic toward wanting the new shiny. I've been there and done that and generated my share of e-waste. But I've managed to (mostly!) get off that treadmill. I only got a new phone last year because my old one stopped getting security updates. The new one will (in theory) be supported for 7 years, so, barring loss or catastrophic breakage, I should be good until 2031.
Surely wrinting better software will help. /s
Mobile phones haven't yet reached the point of diminishing returns on power, cameras, etc., so it doesn't yet make economical sense for an individual to keep the old devices working. I have kept the Moto G5+ and I use it as an internet radio and to listen to podcasts so it isn't a complete waste. Unfortunately the battery is now in such a poor state that I have to keep it on a timer to cut off charging frequently to avoid overheating.
Android could of course make batteries last longer by giving the user control over the charging regime.
The new battery, even if it's Samsung original, it isn't as good as new, it is better than the old one, but not anywhere close as first day phone.
Why? No idea. I imagine that although the battery is new it was built circa when the model was in production and somehow that has affected its capacity.
So you get a phone, you pay 60/80 euros, and you get maybe, two hours more of battery when a new phone would give you 6 or 7.
And then there is the other problem that an old enough phone is no longer getting software updates, including security updates either.
Yes, it is still probably less than buying a new phone but you don't know how long it will be before another component dies. If replacing the battery gives you another 4-5 years it might be worth it, but if something else is going to break in a couple months, probably not.
Then we could begin forcing manufacturers to sell security updates regardless of the age of the device.
Lots of questions and puzzles here that would be interesting to figure out.
Who's going to pay for those updates? It's hard for the economics to work out. It makes sense for handset makers to pour engineering resources into developing and maintaining operating systems when there's millions of customers. How are you going to scrape together enough money when there's only a handful of customers?
It is actually cheap and easy if we change the question: Should you be allowed to run a closed source proprietary platform with insufficient security? After all, if you open it up and let people do what they want it becomes their responsibility.
Bricking the device at a predetermined date isn't very elegant but it would work. Maybe the user should have the option to return it (working or not) and get some money back.
But in the current ecosystem every device has its own medley of custom firmware and software that gets abandoned when the maker stops selling that version, and the makers are incentivized to stop updates to drive customers to buy new devices.
I don't know if this is an education problem or what. Maybe manufacturers make it less obvious that you can get batteries replaced, because doing so would hurt sales of new phones. I dunno.
Sure, in an ideal world standardized batteries would be available off the shelf, and regular people could replace theirs with standard or even no tools. But honestly, I don't think the world we live in is that terrible when it comes to this.