I worked at AT&T and then AT&T for about 8 years. I'm not talking about the anecdotal evidence of personal friends. I'm talking about broader consumer data.

For your information, here's a statistical study: https://www.statista.com/statistics/619788/average-smartphone-life/

This indicates an average of replacing a phone every ~2.7 years. That means there's someone that replaces their phone every year for each person who keeps their phone for 4 years. And many people keep them longer than that. Obviously, I'm not saying that EVERYONE does this. But obviously this is not uncommon.

I don't typically complain about this; it happens to be the topic of conversation here. It just sounds like you're taking it personally for some reason...