Is there any the point in becoming a Beta tester 
Seems to me it’s just Fairphone ticking another box. No disrespect meant to the testers, they fulfill their side of the bargain by reporting the issues they find. It’s what happens next I have a problem with.
Is there a thread on this forum where Beta testers report their findings to us (the community)? It would save pain by giving us advance notice of breakages if there was such a thread. True this forum is not a bug tracker, but in the absence of any meaningful support from the company, its all we have.
According to this thread, 203,653 FP3s have been sold, 11k were sold just last year. Potentially that’s a lot of very angry customers yet to come to vent. Some of those who purchased their FP3 in the last couple of years will surely feel cheated. Fairphone’s reputation on repairability sustainability is now under scrutiny.
I didn’t know there were multiple channels for pushing updates. Learning this recently I now think Fairphone should withdraw A13 from general rollout, and make it opt in. If you want A13, go and sign up to it on their website, just as you would if you wanted to become a BETA tester (only a different release channel). Could the the Fairphone app be used to advise customers of their options? Hmm, having said that, the Fairphone app seems to have disappeared from my phone. Weird 
Not a good enough explanation.
So is it that Fairphone can’t fix the issue, or that they won’t justify and new part or new sensor firmware on such an old phone?
Is it the hardware, software or both that doesn’t make the Google grade?
As @bartim notes, it doesn’t look too difficult to change the part in the iFixit teardown were Fairphone to procure a replacement.