What's the typical income in this country, in America if you're talking about a $700 phone, and you make $70,000 a year it's not completely unreasonable to replace it every year.
But if you're making $15,000 a year, spending $30 to repair your $700 phone makes much more sense.
Average salary is $6,000 a year. But those numbers are according to the official statistics and I don't think those are true because of huge gray economy sector. I think that it's more like $3,000-$4,000 a year for most people (but those numbers are after all taxes, we usually don't pay taxes from our salaries, our employer takes care of that).
I agree that's one of the reasons that repair is more common. Very few people would darn torn socks, because those are cheap enough just to buy them.
This is actually a bit fascinating to me, so do people tend to buy much cheaper phones to begin with. I know in many parts of Eastern Europe iPhones aren't nearly as popular due to the expense.
I've had to replace a battery once ( on a Nexus 4)and I will never go through that again.
Generally people tend to buy cheaper phones. But iPhones are kind of exception, some people are so obsessed with iPhones that they're trying to get loan to buy iPhone. It's not really logical decision, they just want to look more wealthy than they are, it's kind of luxury item.
You also have bizzario phone deals where if you pay 2 to 3x as much for service you can get a free IPhone. I personally buy a phone for 300$ or so every year or 2. Right now I pay about 30$ a month for 2 lines, but you can definitely spend 150$ a month for 2 lines plus financed phones.
Americans love ZERO down deals, so you can get you and your partner IPhones and worry about paying em next month.
