Money is a powerful motivator to do really crappy things, and Apple has done exactly that for decades now. Others are following suit in the lucrative accessory market.

But this is the smoking gun, pointed at the consumer.

Dongles are an admission that the phones they come with don’t work in the way the company knows its consumers need them to.

Almost as insidious as how the inkjet printer manufacturers vendor lock and upcharge for ink. Profitable? Indeed. Despicable and anti-consumer? Very much so.

They lose no customers by including it. They lose some by omitting it.

So it boils down to being too expensive to include? Hardly!

You evaluate prior decisions with posterior data. But you fail to take into account the counterfactuals. How do you know how much the FP4 would have sold with a jack?

Claiming that an increase in sales validates the goodness of the decision is not causal.

It is the same logic that would tell you that playing russian roulette is worthwile in case you win and get some reward. That’s backwards rationalization, fitting a narrative.

If market research universally showed that people don’t care about a jack then why do some phones still have it? Are these manufacturers going against the grain? Surely they wouldn’t leave money on the table if it worked like that.

The justification of “they do what sells units” is backwards. It would imply that no product would ever flop. But products regularly do. There is no telling in advance how it will perform, and saying otherwise is falling prey to the problem of induction, whether past observarions justify predictions.

The FP4 could have broke sales records for a multitude of reasons. How can you say which factor caused it when there is only one scenario that played out? We don’t have alternative universes to compare, where they released one with a jack, or another with some other altered specs.

Are we forgetting that companies also have their own bias to make the decisions that increase overall profits? They lost buyers (me included) by this change, but they made up the difference by selling higher margin accessories. Companies will only cater to users if it aligns with turning a bigger profit. If adding an anti-feature is better for the bottom line, then that’s how it goes. Enshittification doesn’t happen accidentally, but by pushing the boundaries of what the users tolerate.

I made the mistake of believing that Fairphone is an enthusiast company, like the Framework of phones maybe. There is some overlap, sure, with the repair-ability aspect and available parts and schematics, but that’s about it.

Other than that, FP wants to be a mainstream brand, the eco-friendly Samsung or Apple; the power users can get shafted with their audio jacks for all they care. While Framework has actual hardware modularity and release updated HW modules so you don’t buy the whole device again for an upgrade.

Looking at FP’s financial statements, I get the impression they aren’t doing too hot lately, so I get it if they need bigger margins to continue operating. Just don’t be a fucking hypocrite and lie about the reason of the jack removal ffs.

Before BT headsets even existed, all of them were wired and none of them required lithium batteries or chips inside.

Having to buy something makes it bad isn’t really an argument.

It costs resources to produce. It is one of the main missions of FP to reduce this by having to not by a new device if your current one breaks. If buying a new one wasn’t a problem, why are they trying to make it repairable?

They are easily repairable and you don’t have to throw them away if the battery goes bad (just replace it).

You get it.

If you start reasoning like that its better to start living in the woods with no possessions at all.

Taking my argument to the extreme naturally makes it absurd. But living in the woods isn’t my point.

If you look at FP’s yearly financial statements, you can see how they are struggling. In 2021 and 2022 they were roughly at a breakeven point, turning basically no profit, in 2023 their operating loss was 37% of their net turnover.

See previous comment:

I’m saying it is very hypocritical and goes against their brand. If they simply came out and said: Look guys making phones sustainably cost too much, we need to sell higher margin items like dongles, BT earbuds and cases to have enough cashflow to continue manufacturing and R&D.

Ok, fair enough. I would say.

But trying to justify and greenwashing the whole ordeal is insulting. The tactic is straight out of Apple’s “Think different” book. Paying more for reduced functionality. Only for them to sell you more accessories for even more money.

I think I had this all wrong. Fairphone isn’t / doesn’t want to be an enthusiast DIY brand at all (like framework for laptops) but a mainstream brand that’s eco-friendlier* and non-exploitative.

So of course they will not care much about niche features like other ROMs or audio jacks. The privacy focused, tech-savvy or feature focused buyers are not their target.

*IC and PCB related footprint is still roughly 80% of the FP4 and FP has little to no control on those processes, according to an independent study.

How is that a bad thing?

I have to buy them? Every replaceable and repairable stuff is manufactured and has an impact.

About 90% of other brands you can throw them away if the battery goes bad or they break.

I don’t have any of those, for related reasons. The best one can do is to consume less and less often.

Buying a USB-C-2-Jack dongle or BT headset is anything but eco-friendly. It goes straight against the whole brand if you need to buy new stuff in addition to make it work.

Are you a murican? Cuz you really sound like USA is your whole world.

I’m saying it is very hypocritical and goes against their brand. If they simply came out and said: Look guys making phones sustainably cost too much, we need to sell higher margin items like dongles, BT earbuds and cases to have enough cashflow to continue manufacturing and R&D.

Ok, fair enough. I would say.

But trying to justify and greenwashing the whole ordeal is insulting. The tactic is straight out of Apple’s “Think different” book. Paying more for reduced functionality. Only for them to sell you more accessories for even more money.

That’s a definite advantage of the Fairphone.

I guess, I will find out how mine fares when the need arises. Hasn’t happened in 4.5 years yet.

And an attack on his character is of zero relevance to the topic of Fairphone and jack ports.

Of course they are going to offer dongles too! The profit margins are way better on those. Fuck what the users want, we want money!

Louis Rossman on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdL0StldJM

Very strange how mine can somehow fit a 7000mAh battery, dual SIM + SD card slot and a regular jack. Hmm…

All I needed to know was when they released their BT earbuds just when the jack port got removed to figure out where their priorities are.

Or shot with a car.