Having it optional for people who want it, trading off design and durability? Sure.
I'm perfectly happy with the iPhone's battery life, never intend to (nor wanted to) change the battery, and use it around or even under sea/pool. This "improvement" would either change the IP rating or lose a lot of inner space to keep the waterproof rating while still supporting battery changing.
Why would I, as a user, want a totally backwards rule for something I'm never planning to do in my entire life? If someone wants that functionality, they can get a cheap Android phone with swappable battery and 100 spare batteries. Making such a thing mandatory is beyond ridiculous.
[...]Having it optional for people who want it[...]
But then it doesn't exist, right? Like today, which phones do have replaceable batteries? So the free market doesn't work and the government needs to step in. Blame the manufacturers (or the customers if you want).
In addition, the notion of "just switch from your lived-in ecosystem and flagship phone to some new ecosystem and cheap-o Android phone" just so the battery can be replaced without jumping through hoops seems like a bad take.
Where are the phones with extendable antennas for better reception in areas with bad coverage? Government should step in and mandate that.
The demand simply isn't there for replaceable batteries. I know there's a loud minority on HN and other tech focused sites, but it's simply not something most people care about. How well did extra batteries sell when they were common?
I think you mistake this for "everyone should have 2 batteries in their backpack and be able to flip them out on the fly", when in fact it is "manufacturers shouldn't be glueing in batteries in so that they can be replaced reasonably easily as the battery degrades, so that the lifespan of a phone can be increased".
Considering how phones have pleateaued, I bet you'd get a lot more buy in if you frame it like that.
This is about avoiding electronic waste, not being able to plop out a battery every day. People may not care about that, but some people don't care about pollution in general.
I suspect the EU is trying to "enforce demand" for a few reasons. Individually I feel people have a bias towards checking the features and price of the phone they are buying right now and not so much resale value or if it will last 4+ years.
But the EU thinks society will benefit from less electronic waste and more durable devices. Or at least EUropean society, which AFAIK leans towards importing smartphones rather than making or design them. And this is far from the first time governments enforce features on products that the market doesn't seem to be demanding.
But is the EU thinking of something about enforcing longer software updates timelines? I suspect this law won't be so effective without it.
If there was truly a critical mass of users clamoring for this particular feature, surely a phone manufacturer would have already jumped at the opportunity to grab that market share?
I’m pretty sure Apple will handle the battery they replaced for me better than most consumers will. And if the old battery does find its way to a recycling service and the not the landfill I hope the service is not run by a local council like mine.
The demand wasn’t there for electric cars either. That’s why we have incentives. This is an environmental policy designed to reduce externalities: manufacturer makes a phone without an easily replaceable battery => everybody else pays for the environmental damage that causes.
But the net policy effect of electric cars is to reduce the number of cars on the road. Those things are expensive and quite rare. They require a lot o Obviously. Because there is no need for a policy to force people to use things that are cheaper and plentiful.
If you want to argue there will be less smartphones -> less waste that seems reasonable. Some person on a tight budget drops it in water and it fizzles because water gets in the the battery maybe. Can't afford to replace it. They learn to live without a phone.
But it isn't going to cause less waste with the same utility. The market is much better than the EU at sniffing out the maximum benefit for minimum resources. Less waste is almost always moire profitable.
If you ban pesticides and the oil industry, Europe would be depopulated through famine. Almost everyone would starve.
If enough food to make it to the end of the year is on the list of non-essential items then yeah I suppose there is a lot of waste out there.
> factory pollution
Where does the stuff some from without factories? Are you proposing a world where people do without whitegoods? Nobody knows how to run a factory that makes affordable goods in bulk with little pollution. The market is optimising for the most people being able to afford to live comfortably. The equilibrium that minimises waste at all costs is a world with no humans.
The smartphone industry right now is more comparable to fast fashion, the more they sell the better and if you can't fix their products nor do they receive updates after a year you need to buy a new one.
So fast fashion but you can't even patch your pants if they have a hole.
> factory pollution
If companies had to pay for the pollution they produce they would have to raise prices and/or find a way to produce the same while polluting less. Enforcement in a globalized world is the issue.
That's like saying "nobody wants lights in the car boot because if they wanted it the demand was there and market would provide"
I hate that dumbass argument. Every fucking time someone brings it.
Nobody fucking buys thing like a smartphone or a car based on a single feature while ignoring every other feature.
You buy a thing. There is like half a dozen to a dozen different factors. Battery life, screen size, CPU, RAM, storage etc.
If there is no phone with the "niche" option like replaceable battery that ALSO have all of the other features in acceptable range, people will not buy it.
It's NOT because they don't want <niche feature>
It's because picking <niche feature> means bigger compromises in other areas that are also important
Exactly. The free market is perfect. Consumers are always aware of every detail about what they purchase. That's why we don't need food safety laws at all. Consumers will simply buy products from bakeries which don't cut their bread with sawdust to save a bit of money.
If you want a plastic phone with microSD, 3.5mm, IP68 and somewhat current specs, the Sony Xperia lineup is actually offering that. I recently bought an Xperia 10 IV and I'm really happy with it.
Having it optional for people who want it, trading off design and durability? Sure.
I'm perfectly happy with the iPhone's battery life, never intend to (nor wanted to) change the battery, and use it around or even under sea/pool. This "improvement" would either change the IP rating or lose a lot of inner space to keep the waterproof rating while still supporting battery changing.
Why would I, as a user, want a totally backwards rule for something I'm never planning to do in my entire life? If someone wants that functionality, they can get a cheap Android phone with swappable battery and 100 spare batteries. Making such a thing mandatory is beyond ridiculous.