But the customers of FP1, who contributed to start the project, had to pay dearly. Fairness was discussed only in connection to production - but the fairness to customers seems to be lost.
I strongly think so, especially in regard to policy makers. They are very vulnerable to lobbyism by huge electronics companies and yearn for companies, who put in practice environmental and social improvements in the supply chains. Now that Fairphone exists, the policy makers can tell the whole industry that complying with tighter regulations is indeed possible.
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One of the reasons why I invested in a Fairphone 1 (first edition), was the concept that I could open the phone and change the battery, myself. At the time, 3½ to 4 years ago, it was actually quite an issue, since it was not offered by any other smartphone vendor. I do not know how the situation is now concerning this.
My situation has changed since I bought the FP1, so I just need it as a telephone now. I guess it will work fine as such, so I can skip a generation and wait for the FP3.
Finally, I am amazed that a small company is able to produce smartphones with a, shall we say, conservative product portfolio. What would win me over for good, is a freely bootable OS platform, so I can stay clear of Big Brother companies from both the east and west. Thank you very much.
PS. Fairphone should at least have batteries for sale for the FP1. They last approximately two years with normal use, so a last shipment to fill the shelves for the next 12 months would be needed. After that FP1 will slowly render obsolete (no 4G, upcoming 5G).
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… which has remained mostly an unfulfilled promise: Only two minerals are traceable, no living wages, 60 work hours per week.
Just calling your product “fair” is not enough.
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Yet here we are, at least having this discussion. There’s plenty of information on the blogs regarding tracing/certifying other minerals (also after the FP1) and the challenges in improving a supply chain (and no, I don’t believe avoiding certain countries altogether is a solution). Interventions have been made in worker conditions, together with an exploration of why certain changes are a bridge too far. Whether or not you agree with the approach that was taken, or think the arguments in the blogs are lame excuses, at least there has been an opportunity to learn and discuss these matters.
Sure, they didn’t reach all their goals with the first phone they built (nor do I recall them claiming that they would), but (as pointed out by @Stefan) they have shown that companies can try harder, that certain approaches are possible, and that there is a (small) market for fairer electronics.
What strikes me in this discussion in general is that we all seem to have the tendency to pick one of the four areas in which Fairphone aims to make improvements as part of a ‘movement’, promote that to ‘Fairphone’s main goal’, and finally project that goal onto the product as a ‘promise’ or ‘main selling point’. Evaluating on that basis is sure to cause disappointment.
That’s not to say everything is all fine and dandy. Fairphone’s communication could have been clearer in the difference between movement goals and device characteristics. The impression I get is that they’re mainly about the movement and see the phone as a means to that end - to show that things can be sourced differently/can be designed differently (a proof of concept, if you will). By contrast, as customers, most of us will focus on the device in our hands, and then the goals become largely irrelevant. This is where the combination of advocacy and sales starts to feel uncomfortable, at least for me. On the other hand, showing what can and can’t be done (and learning from mistakes) is so much more persuasive in terms of convincing others that change is possible.
It’s a difficult to get the balance right, but they’re brave (or naive) for trying.
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@Douwe, one of the moments where again I think that Fairphone is failing to presenting itself properly (also thinking of the phrase: ‘do good and talk about it’).
That information does not belong just into this community forum, because only the very interested/enthusiastic/disappointed people will come to read it anyway. And then it is still a lot of random digging to find this juicy-parts-post of yours.
What belongs into this forum is a reference to this information on the main Fairphone page. But looking here Fairphone | The phone that cares for people and planet I cannot find anything like this.
Also I think that a newsletter regarding FP1 end of life is not enough.
People having changed their mail account might not get the information plus it has a feeling of trying to dodge bad press when the blog does not contain an entry. In that entry you could explain why you decided to stop the support - or, if that is the case, why support is not possible at all - and that in more detail than in the mail and community forum entries. For example someone posted somewhere that FP1 exists in so small numbers, that continuous production of spare parts would be an environmental impact not outweighed by its benefits. And why is that? Because nobody in the industry has ever really tried to standardize batteries and that is the real disaster. Also in that blog entry you could explain whether back in the days when FP1 was initiated nobody thought about that situation or whether there where reasons why to expect a different development. And you could explain your measures how to avoid a similar fate for FP2.
I think people like simple answers, because they make decisions in life easier. But sometimes things are a little more complex. So for those who really want to know it would be interesting to get the information easily and intuitively.
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Fairphone now stooped the lifetime of my old F.P.1 hoping I’ll buy now a FP2. But why should I buy it now with the same bad camera as FP1 ? The price is still -after 3 years- 520,- I am a normal photographer, and in order to prevent unnecessry electronic waste, I will not buy a speparate camera for having middle-good pics. So again: why used FP2 still a camera technologie before 2012!! I am very disapointed of stopping support of FP1. If I buy now FP2 it is ONLY because of the fair- n a m e d project - not at all of the company behind, who cannot plan (e.g. enough spare-batteries for FP! - which is a ridiculous issue!), more sleeping than awake. …
If I’ll buy now a FP2 because of my ethics in mind… BUT IF FAIRPHONE STILL WOULD NOT START TO DELOPE A BETTER CAMERA MODULE WITHIN 2017 (which I would buy extra), I will give to all my (facebook-)friends the strong advice, NEVER MORE to buy a Fairphone again !!!
Hi @Martin4,
wow, that’s what I call a rant! 
Okay - so: how many spare batteries have to be planned?
For that you’d need to know how long a battery lasts on the average. Also you need to know, how many FP1 will be used in the years to come (if only spare batteries are produced then FP1s will die due to broken screens or motherboards and so on).
The monetary price of all this is one issue - the lesser batteries are produced, the more expensive each one gets. And it can get expensive because the battery manufacturer wants to earn as much money as he looses due to producing a few special batteries instead of hundreds of thousands batteries for one of the big players. If for the FP1 battery special production equipment is needed (which maybe has meanwhile been destroyed by the original manufacturers) that means more expenses.
Another issue is the environmental impact which you are also concerned about, because at the end there is the risk of having produced too many spare batteries which will then have consumed precious resources in vain.
A better camera…maybe FP thought that this would make the FP2 too expensive?
What I don’t understand - why FP is not providing such explanations. Imho they can only win by providing more information.
But certainly:
that is a pretty bold and not very fair statement (unless of course you have any proof for such claims).
Anyway - the more people use FP2, the lesser are the chances of running into spare part issues. Also because FP2 is not produced in few batches but constantly.
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Understandable and probably most reasonable decision. The FP1 was a decent effort and nobody could expect that this initial attempt to build a fairer phone would produce one that is better, cheaper and longer lasting all at the same time than other phones. I guess the rules of our free market economy simply don’t allow that.
My FP1 “Special Edition” isn’t the best phone in the world and I sure wish I could use it longer than until something breaks and I possibly can’t repair it any more. But the concept worked out for me - I could replace a broken display once and I got a replacement battery for free! I need to tape the back cover to the phone because it wouldn’t stay on after I dropped the phone a few times too often… but it still works (besides 3G and GPS which never really worked) and I have a battery runtime of several days.
And most important, this phone did start an important movement. No one could have hoped to make a bargain at the same time. You get less fair trade banana for the same price than of a conventional one, too.
I hope my FP1 will last long enough until the FP3 
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Thanks, I agree with you on all points, same for me! 
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OK but I don’t see why that affects the current situation. Fairphone should make deal with whoever they need to in order that the FP1 OS doesn’t get stuck on this alpha version - although who knows, maybe it’s good enough.
My point though is that it is now clear this FP1 OS licensing was essentially buidling in obsolescence.
The Fairphone statement that they have done what they can, i.e. that there is no longer any money in it to support the resources they think they would have to allocate - it just means they are using the wrong business model. Their executive decision-making is straying from the ethical values they started out with which is poor because it’s not necessary. Obviously it would be foolish to commit themselves to something that would bankrupt the organisation (company, co-op or whatever it is) but Fairphone has many resources to offer to continue supporting FP1 that do not cost them anything which they would do well not to withdraw when so many are still out there in use.
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As customer I can’t accept their excuse: “Sorry, we can’t support our product any longer because we have no more the money.” This is the point which I stated already: Fairness to customers is missing.
If you know such magic ways to solve this whole situation why don’t you share them?
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I was trying quite hard to avoid this kind of tone. I assume you have adopted it due to my reference to the executive decision-making straying from their original ethical values?
If people at Fairphone on the decision-making level are reading this, I believe I’ve said all I need to.
I didn’t think I’d warranted your facetiousness.
The only part of your post I reacted to was the one I quoted where you claim that Fairphone has ways to keep supporting FP1 that wouln’t cost them anything.
I reread all your posts in this thread and - unless I keep having a mini-stroke every time I come to the relevant paragraph - you haven’t elaborated on how you think this would be possible.
I don’t think FP employees can litterally read between the lines either, so please if you know a solution enlighten us and don’t keep it to yourself
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The kind of resources that don’t cost anything which I am talking about are pretty obvious I thought - without looking into it further, how about domain knowledge, business knowledge, network & hardware & software knowledge, community forum, experience, stats, data, code bases, bug histories, etc?
The fairphone forum is now advising me to reply to other people on the forum too. I think it has a point. You do make good points and have definitely enhanced this particular topic, and I didn’t come here to formulate an executive masterplan for Fairphone, so let’s drop this. I feel we’ve said enough.
[quote=“maik, post:143, topic:30482”]
Okay - so: how many spare batteries have to be planned?
For that you’d need to know how long a battery lasts on the average. Also you need to know, how many FP1 will be used in the years to come
[/quote]When the version 2 battery was ordered by FairPhone, they should have had at least some idea about the demands. But (apparently) even this (high quality) battery was out of stock very shortly after it was stocked. It’s really a shame that phones have to be abandoned solely due to the lack of a battery (and I’m glad I have two of them ).
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I totally agree. It is even more sad that when the end of support was officially anounced there were no more batteries available. Otherwise we could have got one for the - maybe near - future. In this case I do not agree with what is said elsewhere in the forum, stating that fairphone never promised a sustainable phone. They sure said that the fairphone 1 was a phone also for people who care about life cycle of a product. This does not agree with the massage we recieved in May that the life cycle is coming to an end (after some three years at best) and it does not agree with what is written on the battary: “This is your battary…And you can always replace it”. I do not think that always means forever, but definetely more than once!
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I hope, this will not repeat with the FP2. I think, a minimum of 4 years of
maintainance is a must. Otherwise the whole idea is for trash. Then a device
from the big players would last longer, especially these, where custom roms
are available.
I totally agree with the disappointed FP1 buyers. The problem will be the
dead battery.
Overall, this would be no good advertisement, when the FP2 also has such
a short life.
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Here is another article published in the German taz:
"taz.die tageszeitung vom 17.07.2017
Letzte Chance Secondhand
LANGLEBIGKEIT Für das als nachhaltig angepriesene Fairphone 1 liefert der Hersteller keine Ersatzteile mehr. Zu teuer, sagt Gründer Bas van Abel. Er sieht aber noch nicht das Ende seines Projekts
“Aber das sei nun mal eine schlichte „ökonomische Realität“.”
I’m going to switch to LineageOS, first on my old Samsung S2, afterwords on Moto G4 Plus.
Both more sustainable.
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