I honestly think we reached the perfect phone in 2020.

After that, it has just been a rinsing.

A bigger screen.

A slightly better camera.

A little more processing power.

A little more storage.

A different material.

A new button.

A different shape.

A new version.

And then another one.

And another one.

And another one.

And somehow we keep convincing ourselves that every upgrade means we have discovered something fundamentally new.

We haven’t.

We reached a point where the phone already did practically everything a human being needed a phone to do.

It communicated.

It connected us.

It gave us access to information.

It gave us cameras.

Music.

Maps.

Payments.

Work.

Entertainment.

Education.

Photography.

Video.

Social media.

The internet.

And an enormous amount of computing power in the palm of our hands.

At some point, the question should have stopped being:

“What else can we add?”

And started becoming:

“What else do humanity actually need?”

Because everything that came after that had its own consequences to be paid for.

And one of those consequences was obsolescence being incorporated into the upgrade cycle itself.

We didn’t just keep improving the phone.

We kept creating reasons for the previous phone to become obsolete.

And then we charged more for the next version.

And then more again.

So the price became bigger in every sense possible.

Not only financially.

The environmental cost.

The material cost.

The extraction of resources.

The manufacturing.

The transportation.

The energy.

The waste.

The social pressure to upgrade.

The psychological pressure of feeling like what you already own is suddenly inadequate.

And for what?

For incremental changes that often don’t represent an equivalent increase in real living value.

That’s the part that bothers me.

Because if something genuinely changes the quality of human life, then by all means, build it.

Create it.

Improve it.

Push it further.

But there is a difference between innovation and manufactured necessity.

There is a difference between making something better and making people feel that what they already have is no longer enough.

And there is a difference between technological advancement and technological consumption.

We need to stop confusing the two.

Because more technology does not automatically mean more value.

More features do not automatically mean more life.

More expensive does not automatically mean more useful.

And a newer version does not automatically mean a better human experience.

So maybe we should focus our minds on something more necessary.

Housing.

Food.

Clean water.

Healthcare.

Education.

Nature.

Infrastructure.

Human connection.

Creativity.

Access to resources.

Actual quality of life.

Things that make being alive better.

Because I don’t need a phone that is 15% faster if the person holding it still can’t afford a home.

I don’t need another camera upgrade if somebody can’t afford food.

I don’t need another premium material if communities don’t have the infrastructure they need.

I don’t need another year’s version number if humanity is still struggling with the basics.

We have become incredibly good at upgrading objects.

Maybe it’s time we upgraded life.

We reached the perfect phone in 2020.

After that, we kept rinsing it.

Making it more expensive.

Making the previous one more obsolete.

Making the upgrade cycle more aggressive.

And increasing the price in every sense possible without necessarily increasing the real living value at the same rate.

So let’s stop asking:

“What can we upgrade next?”

Let’s start asking:

“What actually needs improving?”

Because there is still plenty of life that needs an upgrade.