Onomatopoeia

Exactly.

Phones don't age the way they used to. For most people, new phones offer little.

If they'd learn to simply reset it when it goes wonky from installing a million things...

I'm hard on phones from a software perspective - I do a lot of testing because I'm the family IT. I've always used 2 year old phones. My current phone is a Pixel 5 running a Lineage fork, and it works great. I'll replace it when hardware (other than screen battery) dies.

Because people like to keep their jobs?

Yep, I've had 2 only because it was the hardware I wanted.

Oh, they were very nice to hold, sleek, futuristic. And both immediately got cases so I could hold the damn things.

The only reason we want thinner phones is because of material like this causes us to put cases on them, making them wider.

Yes, it's called fructose.

Plastic - plastic is what I want.

I have an old Moto 5 that's pretty thin with a plastic back wraps around the sides and snaps on. It has a nice texture that's easy to grip. It's a brilliant piece of functional design. If only they'd given it a better screen/processor I'd be using it today.

Hell, what does almost everyone do with these premium glass phones? Put a synthetic cover in it so you can grip it and give it some drop protection.

And?

You conveniently ignore the stats, in does happen, instead introducing a goalpost move, aka sophistry, in an attempt to "win" an argument, or at least derail OPs point.

Where were they xenophobic?

They used statistics to support their point, you used insults to attempt to win argument (aka sophistry).

Make pommes Boulangerie from scratch.

Carriage bolts are the worst, for sure.

I agree, drill it out, keep some replacements on hand, and always reassemble with anti-seize or the weakest loctite (they make some for just this situation, to prevent nuts from seizing but also be easy to remove). Hell, even blue loctite would work, as it breaks down with just a little heat.

I've been running STFork for so long I forgot its not the mainline app.

Guess it's time to learn how to host my own Relay server.

Dude, they've been tracking since the first cell phone (even the analog ones).

Since the first PCS phones in 1995 it just got easier with smaller cells.

Then with smart phones, all of them use AGPS, and the tracking data is largely available in a few ways - cell towers and signal strength, which/when AGPS data is pulled, etc (coupled with tower and signal data).

Then 5G cells are so small the accuracy is crazy with just cell and signal strength.

I'm not excusing what they're doing, just giving background - there's a lot more tracking going on than is obvious at first. And AGPS is always on already. It's not a tracking function in itself, just is one piece if data that can be used.

Never.