What I don’t get is how no company seems to have worked out a legitimately good service and maintenance model for tech products. Fairphone hasn’t invented the wheel here. They’re going to make money on maintenance, parts and repair.

I would think there would be lowered costs involved in not having to push out a new product every 6 months and market it to customers who just bought something less than a year ago.

The costs (overhead) are too high. They make more by simply manufacturing and selling.

Otherwise they’d be doing it.

I’m wondering about that. I’ve worked with several manufacturers, and their most profitable segment is parts. If you ever want to get the highest annual bonus, work for the parts devision.

Manufacturers of what? Selling and replacing car parts is a much different proposition than trying to replace semiconductors inside an earbud.

Anything that’s repairable is by component (main board, sound card, battery, camera, case, etc.). It was nice when we could swap batteries in cellphones. I have a Samsung S24 Ultra that came with a promise of 7 years of updates but the battery will degrade well before that and will cost $200-300 to pay a repair shop to replace because of the need of specialized tools. With my old Samsung Note 1, I could get a new battery for $20.