Since there is huge demand for small phones, yet manufacturers refuse to make them, what in the world is going on here? Is it just sexism?
I have no doubt that is part of the cause, but thinking about it more deeply I think that the larger explanation is that manufacturers are attempting to make sure that the phones are adequate enough to replace desktop machines and tablets such that even those who do want small phones will have no choice, and thus conclude that something with a monstrous screen is there already so they need not use a better device.
Again, why? One must ask. And the reason is that smartphones are the new nexus of tracking and control, much more efficient at it and capable than desktop machines or tablets, and much harder to remove these capabilities therefrom. It is imperative both to surveillance capitalism and to the surveillance state that people use smartphones almost exclusively. They are the modern lever of propagandistic control and monitoring.
Small smartphones that aren’t paid attention to often, that can easily be left behind, are inimical to these sweeping surveillance and control ambitions. That, then, is why despite enormous demand no small smartphones exist to be bought new nor are likely to be made again.