Maybe it'll play out differently on the low-end, but on the high-end it seems there's been some "soft collusion" where one manufacturer raised prices, and others saw that as a signal they can also raise their prices.
I think it's more that higher price = more flagship. A higher price is in itself a sales argument to a certain audience. If you just want a competent phone there's no reason to buy a flagship one.
Yes - at the very high end, smartphones are a luxury goods market. There's an old adage in luxury goods that "if your product isn't selling fast enough, raise the price".
IDK, I always save up and buy flagships, and convinced my wife to do the same, because that's the only reliable way to guarantee neither of us will have to suffer through a phone that chokes under its own stock software, and is a constant pain to use. So yes, I'm one of those for whom "higher price = more flagship" is an argument, mostly because so far, "most flagship = bestest specs" and "= most care taken by the vendor".
I'm on a pixel 6A. It cost me under £200 factoring in the trade in deal that let me trade in a 10 year old phone (if you don't have one eBay one for £5).
And there are plenty of reasonable smart phones for less than £100 these days. You can get something like a Motorola E13 for under £70 that will do everything most people use their phones for well (beyond the camera being nothing special, but we're comparing to a dumb phone).
Exactly. Normal people have already replaced their computer with phones so how old is the PC that HN commentators use? Five years?
Phones are appliances that are being used up to 10 hours every single day. And sure you can keep repairing them but at some point buying a new one will actually be cheaper.
I’m on the apple upgrade program. So I just pay monthly. I could skip a year and own the phone, but don’t really care. I want the best cameras. Life is too short.
Yes, that is a problem, but that's a different kind of regulation (anti-trust). The EU also tends to be pretty good at busting such things, but they take their sweet time to do it.
