If phone cameras hadn’t changed over the past 10 years, most people would still be happy with the quality of photos taken. Most photos are never printed out or viewed on any device other than their phone. They may be poorly lit, composed badly, and be blurry, but they still serve their primary purpose for most people, which is to relive a memory. That function is the same whether the sensor is 2 or 48 megapixels.

Newer tech of course looks better, and people can definitely tell the difference when comparing them side-by-side. But there’s also an element of the reality distortion field when it comes to convincing people that they need to upgrade from a two year old phone to the latest release just because of the camera upgrades.