I’d like to set the record straight, since you’ve made some pretty large leaps and factual errors which I hope doesn’t mislead anyone else.
Disclaimer before I start: I have a Fairphone 4, I’m probably one of the first to get it in North America (especially Canada), and I’m the first Fairphone Angel in that region. So yeah, I’m biased in favour of Fairphone, but I get nothing out of supporting them.
the fairphone company makes grand promises of 7 years support, despite historically really doing 2-4 years of support very badly.
The Fairphone 2 got 7 years of support, the Fairphone 3 just got it’s 5 years promise upgraded to 7. They make no promises about how timely the updates are, but they do keep your phone usable for 7 years if “usable” is defined as “having reasonably up to date Android security patches”. This doesn’t work for everyone, since some workplaces require very timely security updates, but I think that’s a quite reasonable niche to miss for a small company with much more limited resources than the big two phone companies. On the other hand I can confirm first hand that CalyxOS has had very quick turnaround for Fairphone 4 Android security patches (e.g. it’s July 12th, I just installed Android’s July security patch).
especially when they make claims outside of SoC OEM support periods despite knowing that they can’t provide those updates
Firmware updates aren’t the only sort of security patch. You drill this point home a bit more in your linked post as well, as though firmware is the only thing that determines whether a phone is secure. Blame the SoC makers for that, if you must, but Fairphone has not made any claims about firmware updates in that 5-7 year promise.
the fairphone 3 even launched on the same day as android 10 but instead of quickly porting over, they instead ported over their next line of phone (fairphone 3+)
Fairphone 3 and 3+ are the same phone for most intents and purposes. The 3+ has an upgraded camera module and DAC [citation needed], but the base software/OS is identical so that statement simply can’t be true.
the phone removed expandable storaged
All Fairphones have expandable storage, including the Fairphone 4.
the phone removed […] a headphone jack […], at the same time as they released their unrepairable line of wireless products. this is just begging for e-waste.
Are USB-C DACs really a big source of e-waste? Anyone who cares about e-waste would probably get one that’s going to last a while or at least have a replaceable USB-C cable since that’ll probably fail sooner (and it’s a easier to recycle than the actual circuitry). Wireless earbuds are infamously hard to make repairable, but Fairphone throwing their hat into the ring at least guarantees that there’s a more ethical option. If Fairphone doesn’t follow market trends, then they’re never going to get people to use their products, which would mean they’d be better off not existing at all. I don’t think any of us think that is a preferable option. Refer to your Pixel for recent market trends.
the claims of being ethically sourced are not universal to the whole phone, the fair trade gold standard is limited to some parts that they source.
Fairphone was like 90% ethical (& ethical offset) according to their latest impact report. You seem to have extrapolated the claim of using any fairtrade gold into using all fairtrade gold, which I can find no evidence of Fairphone saying. You’re also sort of throwing away any effort to be ethical because it’s not 100% ethical. As OP said, there is no [absolute] ethical consumption under capitalism (but there is more ethical).
they have hardware for an extra SIM slot on the fairphone 4, but made it unusable to the user. clearly just an anti-consumer move.
Qualcomm chips only support 2 active sim cards (called “5G Global multi-SIM” if you like marketing gibberish, FP4 has the X52 modem), so it’s not a big stretch to imagine that they didn’t want to confuse people when they try to activate both physical SIMs and an eSIM and it doesn’t let them. (I also can’t find anything that says how many physical SIMs the chip can support, so I wonder if Qualcomm would even allow for that configuration).
You’ve jumped to some conclusions on your own which don’t line up with what Fairphone has said, and then you conflate those conclusions with the actual facts. Marketing is all about telling people what’s good and why they should buy it, so it’s usually best to read it like a lawyer: read it literally and try to see find the loopholes. Hoping no one is going to ever make another big purchase without doing extensive research.