Less than two years ago, I was on the hunt for a device to use for those times when I didn’t feel like sitting at my desktop computer, but wanted something with a bit more screen real estate than my phone. My use case was basically for lounging on the couch or in bed, and when I was traveling.
In the interests of frugality I was obviously concerned about price. My “could afford” price is much higher than that voice in the back of my head telling me what I should actually spend. With how high my monthly free cash flow is these days, I could buy an iPad Pro or some crazy high-end laptop and it might not even register as a blip on my net worth graph. But I’ve trained myself not to think in that manner, because that mindset is a slippery slope towards unbridled consumerism and financial mediocrity.
As usual, I decided to responsibly buy only what I needed (or wanted in this case), trying to hit that value sweet spot and get the best utility per dollar. I purchased an Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet for $99.99. After adding a $15 case and tax, my total came to $123.23.
My new toy was a little sluggish out of the box, which I realized was likely due to only having 1 GB of RAM. Amazon Fire tablets run a modified version of Android, so I found some advice online to go into the settings and restrict the number of background processes to make more memory available for the apps I wanted to run. Cool, it was fairly snappy now. I was also able to get around Amazon’s limited app selection by side-loading the Google Play Store. I was pretty satisfied that I now had a fully-fledged Android tablet for barely over $100.
Well, it wasn’t perfect. If I opened more than 10 tabs it would crash my web browser, I assume due to maxing out the 1 GB of RAM. I figured it was something that I could live with and made an effort to be more conscious of my tab hoarding. That worked for a bit. But over time (and with updates taking more system resources) my device got slower, and slower, and slower. A year after my purchase it was hardly usable, even after wiping it with a factory reset.
In hindsight I should have done enough due diligence to see this coming. My 3 year old Android phone has 6 GB of RAM to work with! I had to go back nearly a decade to find phones or tablets that released with only 1 GB of RAM. Clearly, spec-wise my Fire HD 10 tablet was years outdated before the first unit had even left the production line.
A philosophical dilemma
Some people might say something like, “well you got a year of use out of a $100 device. So even if you throw it out and buy the upgraded equivalent every year you’re still coming out ahead compared to someone who got 8 years of use out of their expensive MacBook.” And while that’s completely true in a financial sense, it falls flat from an anti-consumption perspective.
This year, the amount of global electronic waste (or e-waste) produced annually is expected to exceed 50 million tons, and continue growing at a steady clip. Even when we attempt to recycle these items, an overwhelming amount just ends up being illegally dumped in third world nations anyway. In some cases it just sits there, where the toxic compounds in e-waste slowly leach into the soil and water. In other cases it’s sent to derelict recycling dumps with nonexistent worker protections, where items burned in the open air create respiratory issues and other health hazards for workers and their surrounding communities.
To that end, a $500 tablet that lasts for 5 years creates a fraction of the e-waste compared to buying a new $100 device every year. Something I’ve been considering a lot lately though is, what are the price of my values? Would I be willing to spend $800 for that device that lasts for 5 years, effectively personally paying a premium as a consumer to reduce my environmental impact on the world? Hypothetically, would I be willing to spend $1000 for the same device that is guaranteed to be fully recycled at its end of life? These questions aren’t easy to answer, but at this stage of my life I’d lean towards saying yes.
We live in a throw-away society
It’s not reasonable to expect anything to last forever, especially electronics where Moore’s Law states that processor speeds will double roughly every two years. But I do think it’s reasonable that consumers have a “Right to Repair”, both for the benefit of their wallet and the environment.
When you feel like you need to buy a new phone after two years because it barely holds a charge for half the day and you can’t easily replace the battery as an end user, that’s planned obsolescence. When my tablet became useless because the 1 GB of RAM is soldered to the motherboard and can’t be upgraded, that’s part cost-cutting in the manufacturing process and part planned obsolescence.
If I need more RAM in my desktop computer, all I need to do is pop the side panel off and install two more sticks directly on the motherboard. When that time comes it will buy me several more years with this machine, and I guarantee that the small waste footprint of those RAM sticks outweighs the impact of replacing the whole machine dozens of times over.
While companies share some of the blame for planned obsolescence, consumers are the sustaining force. Some people just want the best technology at the lowest prices (which in turn drives cost-cutting practices like soldering components in mobile devices), and some want that new phone as a status symbol every two years like clockwork.
Vote with your wallet
What would happen if consumers collectively refused to buy phones without replaceable batteries, flocking to the few phones sold today that still offer this feature like the Samsung Galaxy Xcover Pro or the Motorola Moto E6 Plus? Companies would be forced to adapt their product offerings to what the market demands or go the way of the dinosaur.
Even if you share my cynicism about a majority of the population ever thinking in such terms, it’s not so pointless that you should give up and join them in wanton consumerism. Every time you spend money on a good or service, you’re adding one more vote to tally up for the provider of that product that says “this is what consumers want me to produce more of.” And that goes for everything behind the product too: the design, the cost, whether it’s repairable, where the materials were sourced from, how the workers that make it are treated, and many more factors.
Furthermore, it probably doesn’t take 100% of consumers to change their habits to force the market to start changing. Maybe the number is 50%, or 30%. But not all votes are created equal. This isn’t like a political election where everyone gets one vote — based on our income, here in the Frugal Flannel household we’ve got over 3x as many votes in our wallet as the median household in our state. And choosing to consume less overall is perhaps an equally powerful statement as what you choose to buy with the money that you do spend.
Striving to do better
At 27 I’m still making mistakes, learning new things, and refining my worldview and personal beliefs. I view my Amazon Fire tablet purchase as primarily an ethical mistake, and a financial mistake secondly. It really wasn’t enough money to get broken up about. The best thing that I can do is to commit to making better purchasing decisions in the future that are more in line with my beliefs.
Last fall I needed a coffee grinder. I opted for a manual, hand-turned conical burr grinder over one of the fancy (and more expensive) electric options. With no electronic components or motors to burn out, my coffee grinder should last for decades at the price of a bit of sweat equity. As long as the manufacturer stays in business, they sell each individual part for a fair price on their website, and it can be fully disassembled with common tools should I ever need to make a repair.
Supporting business models like that feels like the right thing to do. As does reducing my environmental impact as much as is practical. As does striving for increased levels of self-sufficiency. In an ideal world, I’d feel good about where every dollar that I spend ends up. Progress down this road can only be achieved through being a more conscious consumer and scrutinizing every spending decision.