I remember having this discussion on this forum about Fairphone’s future. I was interested in Fairphone in the first place because of the fairness dimension. I then discovered the modularity of the phone and its openness (easy to install other OSes, updates long after other phones). These last two are very important to me too, but they are not directly related to fairness. It’s excellent that Fairphone manages to embrace fairness, ecology and openness, but it makes their task even harder. So: kudos for what you have been achieving.
That being said, I have always thought that Fairphone should be a label and not a phone company. I would rather see Fairphone’s standards regarding mining and production used by other companies, than Fairphone selling 1 million phones (which is still quite few in the phone market). Some people would pay more for a fairer iPhone or a fairer Samsung, but they wouldn’t buy a Fairphone. Modularity and openness are important to me (and many of us on this forum), but most people just want another phone.
It reminds me of the Hybrid cars industry. In the beginning one of the few models was the Prius and you could tell directly that it was a Hybrid car, because it was impossible to have the same car working with fuel. Nowadays, you can find a lot of different models with either a combustion engine or an electrical and a combustion engine. I guess it’s easier to sell a car and then discuss its motorisation.
It could be the same with phone: you choose the type of phone you like and then you choose if you want to pay extra for the “fairphone” label.
In the end, what’s important to me is that the phone industry gets fairer. Fairphone has led the way, we can see that it can be done. The fairness should be a new standard shared with other companies and Fairphone (as a phone company) could focus on the modularity!