I'm not arguing about your point. Of course no one is forcing anyone to buy anything. But they do. On a literal earth destroying scale. Our whole global economy is based on how much useless shit and excess shit we can consume. Rather than using our resources to solve our problems, we are allowing literally metric tons of materials to go into new iPhones every year. (not just iPhones but most tech in general and nearly every none essential product) I'm not taking about individuals changing habits. That'll get us no where. We need smart resource management and tech not to be allowed to shovel the same shit with small improvements, while lobbying to turn everyone into blind consumers. So what if we have to wait 3/5/7 years for a new phone? No one is going to die. But if we don't slow things, just look at north Carolina. Look at the coral reefs. Look at the copper mines in the Congo.

That's comparing apples to oranges. Apple has been caught doing planned obsolescence multiple times. And many other tech companies as well. I'm proposing more regulations to ensure that none essential products have longer service life and replacements are a substantial jump in performance and quality to justify the raw materials being used. Also with the rapid conglomeration of companies the allusion of choice is worrying. Also slowing down the releases would allow more equitable distribution of money and resources. Just look up the numbers behind electronic waste alone. Yes in the perfect world people would only get a new device when needed. But that's not reality. I'm not talking about a communist utopia or anything but the question is should humanity be trowing so much resources and energy behind millions of new iphones every year? These are serious decisions we need to have because the alternative is literally the destruction of the human race as we know it. Apple makes a new phone every year because imaginary line on graph must go up. But should we measure a company's success that way? The environment, the poor people that mine the resources, and assemble the phones say no.