Yeah, that was the main reason. And it’s not “just”: in fact it is a huge problem-solver. Just look at the planet’s state on electronic waste and what was the first phone to get 10/10 repairability on iFixit.
Well, some people (I included) thought so. But they didn’t confirmed that, they just didn’t discard it. They had been working on it, but there are (again!) big technical issues and bad industry practices. Systemical challenges, after all. No one can win all battles at the same time. Not excusing them, just explaining the situation. Words are easy.
So deterministic you are here. Businesses and projects, like people, change with the experience. Also, they designed FP2 with other spare parts model, so this is just fallacious (no ofense).
They just released Android 6 with security upgradability in mind, removing Fairphone-specific parts and being more mainline with the Android source. They are currently also working on Fairphone Open OS Marshmallow upgrade… I don’t think they are devoting all their resources into a “concepting phase” FP3.
Also, there is a whole topic for the “porting new Android versions”, with bad-decissions and (tada! again!) systemic industry issues.
Phone’s modularity is not computer’s modularity. Not even close.
Solving the world is just so easy, I must go do it right now. Bye!