Picture this: it’s 2007, and Steve Jobs unveils the first iPhone. Critics called it a gimmick—too fragile, no keyboard, who needs a touchscreen? But history shows us that what starts as a novelty often becomes the new normal. Foldable phones are following that same pattern. They feel like a solution in search of a problem right now, and that’s the hallmark of a gimmick. Look, I get the appeal. My opponent will argue they represent innovation, a new form factor. But think about the precedent. Remember 3D TVs? Or curved screens? They promised a revolution but were just flashy distractions that added cost and complexity without solving a real user need. Foldables are in that dangerous phase. They’re expensive, fragile, and the software often feels like an afterthought. The hinge is a single point of failure, and that crease down the middle? It’s a constant reminder you’re using a compromised display. History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. The tech world is littered with “innovations” that prioritized form over function. Remember netbooks? They were a stopgap, not a staple. Foldables feel the same—a bulky, awkward attempt to merge a phone and a tablet, when most people are perfectly happy with a sleek, reliable slab. The market adoption is tiny, and the excitement feels manufactured by marketing departments, not organic user demand. Sure, early adopters love them, and maybe the tech will improve. But right now, they’re a luxury toy, not a practical tool. They’re a gimmick because they’re defined by their novelty, not their necessity. Until they solve a problem better than a regular phone, and do it reliably, they’re just folding for the sake of folding.

But have we ever seen a truly successful piece of technology that started with such a fundamental compromise in its primary function? My opponent paints a lovely picture of comfort and versatility, and I don't doubt that man on the train enjoyed his larger screen. Yet history shows us that for a new form factor to become standard, it must first excel at the core task, not just add a secondary convenience. The first cell phones, clunky as they were, had one unimpeachable advantage: mobile voice calls. That was a revolutionary function. What is the foldable's core, revolutionary function? It's just a different-shaped screen. My opponent mentions the first brick phones were for the elite, implying foldables are on the same path. But that's a false parallel. Those early mobiles solved a new problem. Foldables are attempting to solve a problem of convenience for existing smartphone users, and they're doing it with inherent fragility and cost. That's the rhyme I hear with products like the netbook—a temporary, compromised solution that faded when better options (like modern tablets and ultrabooks) matured. The "choice" argument is compelling, but is it a sustainable choice? We've seen this before with curved-screen TVs. They offered a more immersive view for the person sitting directly in the center, a novel "choice." But they introduced glare, distortion, and higher cost for everyone else. The market ultimately rejected that compromise because the core function—displaying a clear picture—was worse for most situations. The foldable's crease and vulnerable screen are its version of that glare. It's compromising the primary smartphone experience—a seamless, durable display—for the sake of a secondary tablet mode. Yes, the tech will improve. But improving a gimmick doesn't automatically make it essential. It just makes it a better-engineered gimmick. For it to shed that label, it needs to offer something a regular phone fundamentally cannot, not just fold into something a tablet already is. Right now, it's a more fragile, expensive bridge between two devices, and history is littered with bridges that nobody used once they built better roads.

My opponent keeps coming back to this idea of solving a core human need, but I think they're mistaking a want for a need. We wanted mobile calls, so we built brick phones. We needed portable computing, so laptops evolved from desktops. But do we need a folding screen? Or is it just a clever answer to a question most people weren't asking? Look at the precedent. The transition from flip phones to slabs wasn't just about shape; it was about embracing the touchscreen as the primary interface. That was a functional revolution. The foldable's revolution is... making the screen temporarily bigger. That's an incremental improvement on media consumption, not a paradigm shift in how we use the device. It rhymes with something like the Palm Pilot's stylus—a neat solution for a specific niche that ultimately got absorbed by a simpler, more robust mainstream approach (our fingers on slab phones). They argue the fragility is improving, just like early laptops. But that's a false equivalence. A laptop's hinge protected its delicate internal components; it made the computer more portable and more protected. The foldable's hinge introduces a new point of failure into a device we rely on to be rugged. It's adding complexity, not reducing it. History shows that winning consumer tech simplifies and becomes more reliable, not the other way around. Remember clamshell phones? They died out because the hinge was a liability, not a feature. The "choice" they champion feels like the choice offered by 3D glasses. Sure, you could have the immersive experience sometimes, but you had to deal with the hassle and compromise the rest of the time. Most people chose the consistently good 2D experience. Similarly, most phone users will choose the consistently durable, seamless slab over a device that asks them to trade durability for occasional extra screen space. Until a foldable can match a slab's reliability at a comparable price, it remains a fascinating experiment—a gimmick that appeals to our love of novelty, not our demand for dependable tools.