> Eg, I'm pretty sure Bill Gates or Elon Musk don't buy the newest, latest phone that comes out every single time. Because at some point you find something that works well enough, and just thinking of using something else involves effort. Even if V2 is theoretically faster or has more RAM, maybe you have no need for that yet.
I don't think you have to look to billionaires for that - surely for the majority of HN users what we spend and how often we spend it on a phone isn't limited by what we can afford?
I've been using the same ~£150 phone for I think 4-5 years - I could have afforded however many top-spec iPhones or Pixels or whatever came out in that time, but I don't play games on my phone or do anything intensive that requires it, I just need to be able to message people and browse the web basically.
I'm not sure if that's supposed to contradict my point, but I don't think an iPhone user earning $100k is skipping a model, upgrading only every 2.6y, because they can't afford to upgrade faster.
The point I’m making is that most people aren’t buying $110 phones and keeping them for years and most people making what the stereotypical HN user makes also isn’t buying $110 phones.
But that's because they want a phone that happens to be more expensive, not because they (necessarily) have a greater capacity to afford it than (all) those of us with cheaper ones, was my point.
Obviously there are people with a phone choice that has been limited by their ability to spend, I'm not denying that, I'm just saying you don't have to look nearly as far as billionaires for those who aren't.
If you prefer, I could equally have phrased it as people buying iPhones as frequently as they come out or not, either way needn't be billionaires; in the former case becoming a billionaire is unlikely to make you suddenly see that as an excess.
Exactly. I just upgraded against my will, as my 170€ phone from 2016 finally died for good. I bought a refurbished Pixel 4a, pretty much the only phone I could find that isn't quite a hand tablet. I will keep this as long as it lasts since I literally see zero reason why I should upgrade to any more recent handset.
I don't think you have to look to billionaires for that - surely for the majority of HN users what we spend and how often we spend it on a phone isn't limited by what we can afford?
I've been using the same ~£150 phone for I think 4-5 years - I could have afforded however many top-spec iPhones or Pixels or whatever came out in that time, but I don't play games on my phone or do anything intensive that requires it, I just need to be able to message people and browse the web basically.