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>>skille+(OP)
I feel like the elephant in the room is that there's no phone battery that's going to stay useful in anywhere close to that time frame, and replacing phone batteries is usually a losing proposition. I've tried, several times. Fake, low-quality batteries are rampant (usually degrading within weeks), and genuine ones are prohibitively expensive -- usually a significant fraction of the cost of a new phone.

>>wheels+B7
I don't know what Pixel replacement batteries cost, but Apple typically charges a flat $89 to replace an out of warranty battery, less than 10% of the cost of a new phone, which is a totally reasonable proposition if you think you can get at least another year out of your phone. Unless Pixels are dramatically more expensive, then this doesn't check out at all.

>>willse+Ox
I think the point of the OP is that after ~5 years (when you have to change your battery), your iPhone is not worth $890 dollars anymore, but more like $200-$300, out of which $89 is a significant portion.

>>Kolmog+8y
Swapping the battery means you save the carbon footprint of manufacturing the non-battery parts, which have a pretty high cost to all of us in aggregate that should somehow factor into the "is it worth to keep it going" equation. I wonder how we can make that happen.

My current phone is an S21 that's facing a plethora of failures (screen damage, flaky USB-C connector, weak battery, back cover delaminating) that are all individually fixable, but altogether I also find it hard to resist the pull of getting a new phone at that stage when I add up the numbers.

But I feel increasingly really bad about not trying harder to go repair-first. Also because there's otherwise virtually no tech/feature reason to "upgrade" from something as recent as an S21 these days.