It’s common, and especially so on devices that don’t have batteries which are intended to be user-removable - which is pretty much all new phones.

Unlike laptops, many phones simply won’t turn on without a battery connected.

Steam has this crazy concept where as a game gets older, you don’t have to pay as much for it as when it was new! Pretty wild, I know.

Oh no!

Anyway…

10 years isn’t the worst run, but it still proves the point that anything which needs an app or connected web service to function will inevitably become e-waste, and maybe sooner than you’d like.

Earlier today, I was looking at reviews of portable Bluetooth speakers. One had a bullet point “No equalizer app, with only basic EQ functions available on the speaker itself.”

The review intended that to be a negative, but I was like “Hell yeah that’s what I want!”

Functionality in pure hardware means it will keep on working as long as the hardware works. It means that I myself get to be the one who decides when I need an upgrade, not when the company forces my hand.

Every single tech purchasing decision I make these days, having freedom from apps, cloud, or any other ticking time bomb is top of my feature list.