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Today, I read this article from Rob's Gemini capsule:
I could not agree more with it. Customer expectations have grown way beyond realistic expectations. Society got used to the "quick, addictive and free" mindset that is present on most mobile video games and apps, to a point that pervasive ads, forced connections against Google servers and micro-payment traps are unavoidable.
Let alone the frenzy trend of replacing smartphones every 1 or 2 years. The most recent Android device I bought had an 8x 1.7GHz ARM Cortex-A7 CPU, plus 2 GiB RAM, microSD slot and a rather decent 13MP Sony camera sensor. It is powerful enough to handle pretty much anything I would ever require from a smartphone. I got it on 2015, almost ten years ago!
Do most people *really* need today's multi-sensor, AI-powered smartphones with over 6 GiB RAM and 256 GiB of flash storage? I have the feeling smartphones have already been *good enough* for almost everyone form many years now, if people did not have the need to store bloated 4K videos and spyware apps on their internal memory.
Unfortunately, that Android device was rendered unusable because of no software upgrades possible, so it was stuck on Android 4.4.2 forever, so old that no applications were compatible with it. Then, I briefly switched to a de-Googled, LineageOS device, but again it was no longer maintained, being stuck to Android 7, and phone signal was always bad, so I had to switch again.
So I finally switched to a PinePhone. Of course, the device is (very) far from perfect, but it is good enough for my purposes. It is flawed in some aspects, but it does not have to be perfect, and I might complement it with other hardware that I already own. And, as opposed to obscure Android phones, I feel confident software upgrades will be available for a long time for it.
Do not strive for perfection. And do not expect perfection from others. It is unhealthy, for you, those around you and the environment.
Striving for "good enough" is a much saner approach instead. Society must understand there is no need for the latest fancy, 1kUS$ smartphone that came out this year, only to be replaced by whatever comes next year.