Moved discussion about Fairphone as a company

[Swiss-fairphone]

Dear everyone,

A little fact-checking against very popular fake news or rhetorical cheats (such as the “straw man” technique) on this forum.

@robbert.f

Your experiences with the FP1 and FP2, while no doubt frustrating, are not the norm.

Maybe true, maybe wrong, because there is no way to know if the “norm” is

• mostly working FP2/FP3/FP3+, or
• mostly defective FP2/FP3/FP3+.

So far, the Fairphone company has refused to give me defective smartphone statistics for the FP2/FP3/FP3+. I can only wonder who benefits from that lack of transparency: the customers, or the company and its shareholders ?

Dedicated thread (closed down by a moderator): For an ethical company, is transparency optional when it comes to defective products statistics?

@BertG

You can not buy a revolutionary new product by a small startup and expect everything to work as flawless and perfect as it does with global players that are on the market for decades.

True but not a very useful fact and probably an involuntary “straw man” from BertG. I’ve read this thread and many others. I don’t think any customer on this forum expects any Fairphone products (even the FP3/FP3+) to work “flawlessly” and “perfectly”. I think most of them would settle with

• an FP3/FP3+ that can make phone calls or browse the web (for example, without rebooting randomly in the middle : FP3 reboots during phone calls)
• a customer service that reads customer e-mails and answers them
• a company that honors its warranty

For many customers owning an FP3/FP3+, that minimum level is not even met. How many customers exactly ? It is impossible to know because, again, the Fairphone company refuses to give me defective smartphone statistics so far.

The hard facts are the following. We are in october 2020. Fairphone is a 2010/2013 commercial company manufacturing its third generation smartphone and selling it to regular customers as a final product (and not as an experimental product). These regular customers include poor or low middle class people too, who need a smartphone every day for professional use and don’t have any money to spare at the end of the month (to buy a temporary replacement smartphone while Fairphone technical support works on their FP3/FP3+ or to invest endlessly in spare parts).

So the question is quite simple: the Fairphone company either had success to achieve their aim at producing a fully-functional fair smartphone (that means with low defective products statistics) at the third attempt (FP3/FP3+) or they failed. If they failed, they have to take responsability (like every person, corporation or entity on the planet) and face three choices:

• keep presenting and selling their products as experimental ones (and not as final products)
• find new additional investors or donors and try one more time
• get out of business, restructure or accept a buyout : which is what bankruptcy laws and commercial laws are made for.

But if they failed, letting the customer pay the price of their failure is not an option.

This is how business works. And a commercial company makes business, wether it is

• a small carpenter, or
• a 2020 “real” startup, or
• a 2010/2013 company that manufactures smartphones like Fairphone, or
• a huge multinational corporation.

But that simple question has no answer because, again, the Fairphone company refuses to give me defective smartphone statistics so far.

@robbert.f

You had a bad experience, the whole tinkering-with-your-phone thing isn’t for you, you want more RAM for god-knows-what. That’s fine - if a Fairphone isn’t for you, just get that LG phone; you don’t have to type up an angry diatribe to make yourself feel good about it.

@ElKrasso

Instead of an idea how electronics were produced and remedy flaws the only thing you got is your rant. If this is want you want for personal satisfaction you reached your goal.

Wrong, because “maki” and others are not engineers, not paid employees of Fairphone, not investors, not donors: they are customers that paid a price for a retail product.

Regular customers of the FP3/FP3+:

• are usually human beings with limited money and ressources who need to eat, find shelter and sometimes support a family
• “buy” a final product that must have a reasonable chance to work in its basic functions (phone calls, web browsing)
• must benefit from a reasonably helpful customer service
• have a right to have a company honor its warranty

Investors:

• are usually either human beings with enough money to spare to invest in the stock exchange or financial corporations with a lot of money
• “invest” in a company and accept the risk of losing all their money (or the reward if the stock rises or if dividends are distributed)
• have a right to vote at the general assembly of the company
• have very few other rights (it can vary depending on the type of corporation and the national law that applies)

Donors:

• give their money to the company without asking anything in return

So, whether it is deliberate or not, in good faith or not, please stop this collective “Everyone needs to take a hit for the Fairphone Team because their are facing incredible challenges, whatever the individual costs to the customer” (this is not a quote of any forum member, this a general mash-up of many answers to dissatisfied customers I have read).

And please, avoid responding with half-truths, rhetorical cheats or other formal or informal fallacy. It doesn’t get the debate anywhere.

Best regards,

Swiss-fairphone