Despite the overconsumption culture that plagues the modern world, some consumers, actually prefer to not buy new electronic devices every year.
One such consumer found themselves in a frustrating predicament when their smartphone manufacturer forced a user update that rendered the user’s phone unusable. The cherry on top? The smartphone manufacturer pushed the sale of an upgraded device, offering the user a discount on their next purchase.
The customer shared their frustrations in the r/Anticonsumption subreddit, where many others shared similar experiences of being coerced into buying a new electronic device.
Photo Credit: Reddit
“Samsung pushes an update that breaks my device then recommends buying a new one,” the user vented. The poster shared a screenshot of their chat history with what appears to be a Samsung customer service representative.
The customer service agent wrote in the chat, “The device is out of warranty so if we will send the device to repair it will be chargeable. But I understand that you don’t like to send it to repair.” The representative explained that since the device was no longer under warranty and that a repair would cost the user money — something the customer indicated that they didn’t want — the next best option would be to purchase a new device.
In an attempt to sweeten the deal, the customer service representative offered the customer a 15% discount on a new phone.
Prior to the forced update, the original poster’s phone had been working “perfectly fine,” and had been for the past four years that the OP owned the phone, the OP clarified in the comments. Samsung gave the OP an ultimatum: either pay for a repair or buy a new phone — either way, Samsung would be profiting off of the customer.
Scenarios like this, where large corporations manipulate customers to buy new products or devices, happen all too frequently. Large corporations, like Samsung, fuel overconsumption behavior because it generates more revenue for the company.
However, this wasteful consumption — buying a new phone when the old one was still working perfectly fine — encourages consumer debt, as well as unnecessary resource consumption. New phones and other consumer products require raw materials and energy for production, wasting more natural resources than is necessary to fuel perpetual consumption.
The carbon impact of manufacturing a cell phone, including the carbon pollution created from mining for minerals and manufacturing cell phone components, is about 127 pounds of carbon dioxide, according to EACR Inc., a leading electronics recycling company. When you include the carbon pollution created from packaging and distributing the phone, or the carbon released when electronic waste is incinerated, the carbon impact of the lifespan of a single cellphone is even greater.
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Recycling electronic waste (e-waste) through companies like Redwood Materials helps keep the precious materials in e-waste in circulation, reducing the need to mine for additional raw materials.
“This happened my friend in New Zealand,” one commenter said, to which the OP replied, “After googling the issues it seems like lots of people have had similar issues.”
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