You had me until the word subscription
The alternative being free? I’m not going to comment on the value of this specific case but one-time “lifetime” purchases are historically unsustainable. There are plenty of fine services with a subscription and if (read: if) Punkt can leverage some kind of independence charging one versus getting $20m from Google for including it as the default search service, I think it’s a fine addition a market with fewer and fewer real choices. Seems like a knee-jerk reaction IMO
This phone runs a MediaTek Dimensity 7300. Charging $699 for that hardware means there is already a massive markup baked in. I would generally argue against this stating “buy once, cry once”, but in this case the price is already inflated comparibly to the offering. They’re selling services bundled in with their operating system on their infrastructure, their servers. They are the data handler in this case. You give them rights to your data. With a subscription fee and a continuous reliance on them for this service you are in a SLA with them. They can modify their service to be more expensive, less privacy focused on a whim. You then have a device you are unhappy with that your sole investment purpose was for privacy and control. You have an ethical brick.
So just like any other distro, like grapheneOS or Debian, but (semi?) closed source. Everyone can change their tos (do the degree of their bylaws & AOSP).
There seems to be a lot wrong with their approach (not open sauce, specific hardware choice, ofc not open hardware), but you can’t compare prices with phones that bundle in Factbook & co. Ask any are they so cheap.
I do think paying for dev vs having it bundled into the initial purchase price is vastly better bcs the incentives are better - less ewaste/planned obsolescence.
Also they might be willing to get audited so you get a yearly report if they truly respect their promise, if they changed their tos, and if they respect gdpr (they have to list all their data brokers).
I looked up the datasheets, and the ‘sustainability’ argument doesn’t hold water mathematically. I’ll use the Fairphone 5 to match the same timeline for support as a comparison, because they are targeting the same market within the same hardware timespan. Fairphone 5 uses a Qualcomm QCM6490. It’s an Industrial IoT chip with a guaranteed 8–10 year support lifecycle from the manufacturer. That is how they offer long-term support without a subscription: they bought the right hardware. The Shortfall: Punkt chose the Dimensity 7300, a standard consumer chip released in May 2024. MediaTek typically supports these for 3–4 years. While Punkt sells 5-year subscriptions, the hardware vendor will likely move on long before that subscription ends.
That is what I meant with
There seems to be a lot wrong with their approach ( . . . specific hardware choice . . . )
And on the same note - security issues:
ledger.com/blog-is-your-smartphones-hardware-safe
So just like any other distro, like grapheneOS or Debian
I don’t think so. If my device runs Debian it’s also probably going to run Fedora and SUSE and whatever so if Debian enshittifies I can change.
GrapheneOS is maybe a reasonable example.
I agree, but my point was obv that with basically all phones is like that - I was commenting on that thing about sla:
With a subscription fee and a continuous reliance on them for this service you are in a SLA with them. They can modify their service to be more expensive, less privacy focused on a whim. You then have a device you are unhappy with …
