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A “right to repair” movement tools up

economist.com

201–210 of 321 posts

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#201
post #195
post #6

I hope at some point we'll start including recycling/disassembly and replacement externalities into price somehow. I don't know how you would do that in a fair way, but it is frustrating that there aren't a ton of corrective market forces to encourage manufacturers to make highly reusable, repairable, recyclable devices. All of this electronics churn is environmentally terrible, and it's frustrating that, as with car…

In Poland, and I believe it's an EU regulation, every seller is obligated to take your old appliances when you buy new ones in the same category. For example when you buy a freezer you can drop your old one for recycling free of charge (so the cost is included in the retail price). Sometimes it's even used in marketing ("bring your old TV, get new one 10% cheaper"), maybe because they need to meet some quotas so they…

> In Poland, and I believe it's an EU regulation, every seller is obligated to take your old appliances when you buy new ones in the same category. For example when you buy a freezer you can drop your old one for recycling free of charge (so the cost is included in the retail price).

In Italy is the same. Keep in mind that the retail price includes a tax to cover the costs of recycling, so it is not really free :-). The amount depends on the type of appliance. This too should come from an EU directive.

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#202
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Poland, and I believe it's an EU regulation, every seller is obligated to take your old appliances when you buy new ones in the same category. For example when you buy a freezer you can drop your old one for recycling free of charge (so the cost is included in the retail price). Sometimes it's even used in marketing ("bring your old TV, get new one 10% cheaper"), maybe because they need to meet some quotas so they…

> In Poland, and I believe it's an EU regulation, every seller is obligated to take your old appliances when you buy new ones in the same category. For example when you buy a freezer you can drop your old one for recycling free of charge (so the cost is included in the retail price). In Italy is the same. Keep in mind that the retail price includes a tax to cover the costs of recycling, so it is not really free :-).…

I think in Belgium they specify how much the recycling premium is when buying something new.

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#203
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That already happens, but on a different scale. When Apple has to repair or replace an iPhone, they're giving you a remanufactured iPhone using reused internal parts like screws or shielding. This is factored into the costs of an iPhone which keeps them 'lower' / profit margins higher.

> they're giving you a remanufactured iPhone using reused internal parts like screws or shielding And, unless something changed recently, batteries. My iPhone 5 had a faulty charging socket, which got worse. A month after unboxing, it would no longer charge at all, so I handed it in for repair. Got back a unit with half the battery life and a faulty charging socket. I gave it to a good GSoC student across the world a…

I thought the iPhone 5 had a pretty good iFixit score. The Teardown was a 7 out of 10 [0], which is one of the highest scores they've given.

[0]: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+5+Teardown/10525

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#204
post #18

Planned obsolescence is why I will never invest more than 100 euros into a phone. I will always wait to buy low-priced, fast enough for me hardware. I still remember how my macbook pro started to be slow and unusable after OSX updates. My real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years. I know software is evolving quickly, but there comes a point where I don't think y…

My desktop is 7 years old, admittedly that is a 3.3GHz Phenom II X6 with 16GB RAM, the highest available configuration on that socket/motherboard. It's still going strong, though of course it struggles with some newer games, which isn't as relevant to me as it used to be.

My laptop is a refurb T420, around 5-6 years old. Runs Linux Mint and all the apps I need with no issues at all, still gets 5+ hours on battery.

Computers have been "fast enough" for a long time.

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#205
post #81

"In the future, repairability is likely to become even more of an issue, says Kyle Wiens, iFixit's chief executive. Not only do firms want customers to use authorised dealers, but a growing number of products are also no longer stand-alone devices , but rather delivery vehicles for services that generate additional revenues. " Gee, I wonder who started that trend?

Gillette? Having started to use a safety razor recently, I'm starting to think that the impetus for moving to cartridge razors was just to make the refills harder to interchange and less of a commodity.

I said "fuck it" and bought a $30 corded trimmer, 5 years ago. It's still perfectly sharp enough to take of my beard and hair, it just needs a drop of oil once in a while.

Since male-pattern hair loss runs heavy in my family anyway, I decided to just buzzcut myself once a week on the lowest setting. For the limited shaving I do (sometimes my head, but usually just the edges of my beard), safety razors are so much better than cartridges.

They're cheaper, they last longer and it's so much easier to do accurate beard edges.

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#206
post #6

I hope at some point we'll start including recycling/disassembly and replacement externalities into price somehow. I don't know how you would do that in a fair way, but it is frustrating that there aren't a ton of corrective market forces to encourage manufacturers to make highly reusable, repairable, recyclable devices. All of this electronics churn is environmentally terrible, and it's frustrating that, as with car…

The main issue is this: We need to reduce consumption overall! It is well known that Americans consume far more natural resources and live much less sustainably than people from any other large country of the world. “A child born in the United States will create thirteen times as much ecological damage over the course of his or her lifetime than a child born in Brazil,” reports the Sierra Club’s Dave Tilford, adding…

In Europe, any thing one buys must be guaranteed by the supplier for 2 years. If one could just push that up to, say, 4 years, it'd nice....

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What country? This sounds like a great way to poison a court system with bullshit lawsuits.

The UK has this law, and I believe it's standardised across the EU.

In Europe I think it's 2 years, which is quite low.

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#208
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Poland, and I believe it's an EU regulation, every seller is obligated to take your old appliances when you buy new ones in the same category. For example when you buy a freezer you can drop your old one for recycling free of charge (so the cost is included in the retail price). Sometimes it's even used in marketing ("bring your old TV, get new one 10% cheaper"), maybe because they need to meet some quotas so they…

> In Poland, and I believe it's an EU regulation, every seller is obligated to take your old appliances when you buy new ones in the same category. For example when you buy a freezer you can drop your old one for recycling free of charge (so the cost is included in the retail price). In Italy is the same. Keep in mind that the retail price includes a tax to cover the costs of recycling, so it is not really free :-).…

> Keep in mind that the retail price includes a tax to cover the costs of recycling, so it is not really free :-)

They didn’t say they thought it was free. In fact they said

> so the cost is included in the retail price

And you quoted that!

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#209
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Poland, and I believe it's an EU regulation, every seller is obligated to take your old appliances when you buy new ones in the same category. For example when you buy a freezer you can drop your old one for recycling free of charge (so the cost is included in the retail price). Sometimes it's even used in marketing ("bring your old TV, get new one 10% cheaper"), maybe because they need to meet some quotas so they…

> In Poland, and I believe it's an EU regulation, every seller is obligated to take your old appliances when you buy new ones in the same category. For example when you buy a freezer you can drop your old one for recycling free of charge (so the cost is included in the retail price). In Italy is the same. Keep in mind that the retail price includes a tax to cover the costs of recycling, so it is not really free :-).…

What happens if you do not want to return your old appliance when you buy a new one? Do you still pay the recycling tax?

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#210
post #99

I've been thinking recently that there is exists a completely unxplored market in tech. Local shops based around FOSS / open hardware where designers, hardware and software people work together to build custom projects for their clients. I would call this person a "technology artisan", because the closest analogue I can think of is a tailor or a carpinter. So, for example, a family would go to their local technology…

Custom software development is not an unexplored market. There are literally thousands of companies, many of them small & local, offering those services. It's just that we do so to other businesses, since it's way too expensive to develop custom stuff for single individuals. I've built a coin-operated electric candle stand[1] for a local theater group. I'm just an amateur at electronic circuits, and I'm sure a profes…

Completely off-topic but you sure don't want to work for free (hint: the problem with that has nothing to do with the money)
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