Captain America #4

[history79]

Comments

[captainbellman]

"Well, joke's on YOU, Snakey-Chum! *I'm* a left-leaning middle-class elitist, so *I* bought an ethically-produced Fairphone 2!"

"Curses! My cynical speech is useless now!"

(NB - I have actually bought a Fairphone 2. The initial attraction was the repairability , but knowing it was ethically sourced sealed the deal.)

[siliconshaman]

I think I know what my next phone's going to be.

[captainbellman]

Glad to hear it. :-) Note: they're not yet available in the USA. But you could have it sent to the house of a friend in Europe and they'd forward it to you.

[siliconshaman]

Not a problem, I'm in the UK myself..

[captainbellman]

Cool cool cool, same here.

[siliconshaman]

I think this where we're supposed to be very British and say something about the weather, right?

[captainbellman]

Quite.

[laughing_tree]

This conversation intrigues me. Is there something equivalent for those of us who are in the U.S. and don't have friends in Europe?

[captainbellman]

Well, given the remarkable success of the Fairphone 2 in Europe, the Fairphone company/campaign are setting their sights on engaging with the competitive US market too over 2016.

Their goal is to create awareness of the very manufacturing issues talked about by Leather-Boy in the pages above and get more companies to do as they are doing, rather than to make a profit off a new smartphone. (Their slogan is "Buy A Phone, Join A Movement".) They're just a small company from the Netherlands, but they are taking off - the FP2 is actually the first fully-repairable, modular phone to hit the market, Google's Project Ara being stuck in limbo for the time being.

At the moment, though, there's no real "rivals" in the fairness market - par for the course in a competitive multi-million-dollar business - but the following article is a useful guide. I'd definitely recommend switching to giffgaff, who've been nothing but helpful in the UK and while I've been away.

http://www.thegoodshoppingguide.com/ethical-mobile-phones/

Also, you could maybe try and buy a FP 1 off eBay? Fairphone have definitely been encouraging people to sell or recycle their phones rather than throw them away, so this might be an ideal time to get one on the cheap.

[laughing_tree]

Intrigued. Will look into it. Thankyew.