Picture the time before the internet made it’s way into all of our homes. When you decided you didn’t need or want something you owned anymore you had only a handful of options:
You either gave it away or sold it to someone you knew, donated it to charity/disposed/recycled it, or you sold it at a car boot/garage sale. The most likely fate for most things was the bin, or just keep using it due to it either being undesirable to others or the effort to sell being too high. With the internet came a different option. Easy resale.
Currently we’re spoilt for choice for options. We have eBay, Vinted, Gumtree, Craigslist, Amazon, Depop etc, we also have hundreds upon thousands of companies that offer easy to use services that will buy your goods for a fixed price. These companies will then either refurbish the product and sell it on, or simply resell it with a warranty.
With that in mind, surely this would be a success story of the internet in the name of sustainability, extending the lifespan of pre-owned devices thus preventing landfill and reducing the demand for new products? Not so fast. In classic capitalist fashion, this has only served to benefit companies and boost profits even more.
Take a look on eBay, Vinted, or any company selling refurbished or used products and you will see the market is absolutely flooded, in particular the tech space. Phones, laptops, wearables, cameras are available refurbished and used by the boatload. Obviously there is a market for them but clearly the demand does not match the supply from the sheer number of these products for sale.
How then is this serving companies and driving ever increasing profits? The answer is quite simple, and easier explained with an example. A person buys an iPhone 16 Pro Max for £1500. After a year this phone may still be worth £1200 in good condition on the used market, the person sells their phone for that amount, resulting in a total cost of ownership for the year of £300. That person then goes out and buys an iPhone 17 Pro Max for £1600, confident in the knowledge they’ll be able to resell it for a good price in another years time. Apple would still make £3100 on the sale of these two devices, and of course they would rather have two people buy brand new phones than one of them buying used but one sale is still better than none, and thanks to the used market that initial customer is more likely to make another purchase sooner.
On a smaller point for sustainability we also have to consider the resources needed to keep shipping these devices to their new owners. Using iPhone as an example again, if an iPhone has an average lifespan of 6 years it’s feasible that the first owner might keep it a year, the 2nd for 2 years, the 3rd for 3 years then it might be sent to a recycler and sold for parts. That’s 4 times the device has been shipped, maybe even into double figures when broken down for parts, potentially cross country or internationally. Items in their original packaging fetch more value too, so consumers are increasing the package size and weight in turn requiring more resources to ship.
This almost guaranteed resale value depends heavily on condition though, with pristine devices fetching much more than ones with signs of heavy use. This leads consumers to buy cases and screen protectors, which in turn consume more resources with most cases being produced with by-products from the oil industry and glass requiring lots of resources to run the furnaces.
If these second hand markets didn’t exist what would happen to that iPhone 16 Pro Max? Well for starters the consumer may have not purchased it in the first place. Knowing that the device would cost £1500 with no return may put the consumer off, pushing them towards a more budget oriented option. Assuming it didn’t though, the consumer would be much more likely to keep the device for a longer period of time. When they were finished with the device it would most likely be handed down to a family member, requiring no courier to move it. The condition wouldn’t be as much of a consideration either as it wouldn’t be a monetary transaction.
With this in mind, and companies now offering up to 7 years of updates to their devices, do we really think they’re hoping for people to keep using their devices for this length of time without making another purchase? Absolutely not. They’re offering this to increase buyer confidence that their devices will hold better value on the 2nd hand market, encouraging them to upgrade even more often.
Companies often claim to be acting in the name of sustainability, however sometimes it requires more analysis to get to the true motives. A shareholder owned company will only ever act for one of two reasons; the potential for more profits or government legislation forcing them to do so.
Personally I’m not guilty of buying new devices, but I am guilty of enabling the people that do by purchasing the 2nd hand devices. I’m also guilty of buying cases and screen protectors to keep the device pristine to preserve the resale value onto it’s third owner. Considering the first owner most likely purchased these accessories too the footprint of these devices just keeps growing.
Can we actually break this cycle? Probably not. It would be a step backwards to stop the resale of devices, and would be very anti-consumer. What’s needed is a change in mentality, only spend what you are willing to spend without the promise of money back. We also need to make conscious effort to keep our devices for longer periods of time. The most environmentally and financially friendly thing we can do is to not buy anything at all. Obviously that’s not realistic, so interpret it as buy as little as possible whether that be new, used or refurbished.
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