I saw on Reddit that there is a sort of rivalry with another company (called Nothing, I had never heard of them).
I wondered, isn’t Fairphone above that? Fairphone doesn’t have to talk smack about a company that tries to make repairable devices, without disclosing how. Fairphone is about so much more, and has been since it started.
Fair trade, improving workers rights, is priceless. Holding itself to the obligation to keep holding the bar for workers’ rights to be much higher than it currently is. Until one day the bar will be well enough, and there won’t have to be any “fair trade” as there is no unfair trade. And if that bar cannot be raised now, at the very least make whatever is happening visible. So that there is accountability, up to everyone to see things for what they are. That abuse doesn’t happen invisibly.
I don’t like Fairphone to see/brand itself as toxically “superior” (bullying newcomers, the way Linux kernel developers have behaved for years, telling people to literally go kill themselves). That it is “too good to compete with another company”. That is not what I meant.
I don’t want the brand of Fairphone to become about selling to consumers, rather than engaging in trade between people from a lot of diverse background. Fairphone advertising itself over petty subjects seems wrong. A Fairphone without the fair trade is nothing (that is a pun I guess) other than “a phone”.
About the fear of marketing/upscaling part, that is also in response to the increase in complaints that seems to be happening now beyond doubt. If you search the word fairphone on Reddit, you get these top results:
Hence, the developments of upscaling and Fairphone having to define its brand while also trying to become a global manufacturer, seems concerning. I believe that this globalization is a new aim since the FP6 right? Before that there were no US versions? Or was it only EU and US (carrier) versions at that point?
I don’t like Fairphone investing more money into marketing that should go into actually pursuing fair production.
I can understand why Fairphone as a brand want to expand and appeal to wider audience , however everything has it’s good and bad sides.
The good
More people using their products,
more feedback from customers
more revenue for r&d
more refined products.
The bad
Employing more staff,
Software side gets neglected,
More pressure to release new product.
Turning into a corporation.
That’s only the tip of an iceberg
I think brand is recognised enough, have good community of developers and support. Let’s not destroy that and turn it into another brand like Xiaomi, Huawei , honor and others that just release same kind of phones with 4 different versions and none of them are actually that great.
We have something good here so why should we turn it into another player. People will see the brand as it is and what it’s stands for not as it wanna be.
I don’t have enough conviction/strong feelings about this social media reel (I think it was a reel not a post) to take part in the discussion but I have recently noticed a new investor report summarising (tough) financial decisions Fairphone has been taking last year. Perhaps that is a better source to analyse
The investor report published in June 2026 I reckon, is available here
Nothing is a practical joke led by a Steve Jobs-LARPer. Buying one of their phones gets you some style, I suppose, but basically no substance – especially once you get ~two years into using it, which seems to be about the point where they reliably start to fall apart. This individual post/reel is whatever, but generally speaking, even in this miserable attention economy, they should be aiming a little higher than that.
Nothing is by one of founders of OnePlus and like Xiaomi it is one of the many Chinese smartphone brands. As you may know, the Chinese have successfully undercut ‘some’ European manufacturing, and that comes with severe disadvantages which aren’t always clear beforehand. We should absolutely call out these disadvantages, and a European smartphone brand which takes a leading role there is something I cherish.
Could you please explain why you see it as a Chinese brand? I don’t follow it closely but thought some of its appeal comes from being an European/UK brand
I assume it should read: OnePlus is a Brand of a Chinese Company and Nothing is founded by one of the founders of OnePlus. This can lead to the interpretation that Nothing is a Chinese Company, however as far as I can see, the founder of Nothing has the Swedish citizenship even if born in China and Nothing is a UK company. While OnePlus was and is a China based company, I cant find any hint that Nothing is somehow “influenced” by China.
So I would also like to see some clarification what China has to do with all this.
