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A “right to repair” movement tools up

economist.com

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Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#261

Post by drdaeman »

Veratyr wrote: post #126
karllager wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, for example, a family would go to their local technology artisan to put together a smart home system tailored specifically to their needs. I am a software developer and consultant and you do not figure how insanely expensive I am - when your family comes through the doors of my artisanal soldering boutique and demands a custom built home automation system, I would suggest them to invest the money in a long, lon…

Sure but you wouldn't pay a chainsaw sculptor to cut down a tree, you'd pay a lumberjack. You can already go to a hackerspace and pay a guy a couple hundred bucks to build you something basic so long as it's mildly ineresting. With kids growing up playing with Raspberry Pis, in 10-20 years I don't think your comment's parent is such a farfetched idea.

Unfortunately, that's also the story of how Internet of Things (well-known by other nouns) was born.

This works perfectly well for non-so-smart stuff (thermostats, automatic cat doors, etc etc) but when you increase complexity (smart home system) you need engineers with higher qualifications and better expertise. And that's expensive (unless someone volunteers and works for pennies, but that quickly gets stressful - literally not worth it).

(Not like off-the-shelf solutions are any better. They were also born that way - by lowest spending necessary.)

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#262

Post by mcguire »

jokoon wrote: 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 real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years."

My current System76 Gazelle is going on 6 years old. The battery has been mostly dead (I can change outlets without shutting down but not much more) and the NVidia graphics have never actually worked right under Linux, but with 16GB and a 2800MHz i7 it's fine for development and I haven't found anything to replace it with.

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#263

Post by the8472 »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #219
wiz21c wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

Warranty for 6 months, right to complain for 18 months after that. The difference is the burden of proof. For the initial 6 months, the manufacturer/store has to prove the item was not somehow defective from the beginning, due to manufacturing errors or similar mishaps, even if it broke 5 months and 29 days after the sale. In the following 18 months, the burden of proof shifts to the buyer, to prove that the fault di…

In theory maybe. In practice handing it in to a seller with for example a faulty PSU or dead backlight your implicit claim as the buyer is that it was not manufactured to spec (to last at least those two years) and they would have a hard time fighting that claim unless there are obvious traces of mechanical abuse.

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#264

Post by thomastjeffery »

vkou wrote: post #252
thomastjeffery wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, I also think we should have a carbon recapture tax added to gasoline That can't work for any country that has "country". In the US, the vast majority of goods are delivered using trucks that burn diesel. You can't have a gas tax without a diesel tax. Everyone would just switch over. If you tax gas, you effectively tax everything , and that's not okay for any economy.

> If you tax gas, you effectively tax everything, and that's not okay for any economy. Why? The purpose of the carbon tax is to capture the negative externality of carbon pollution, and to encourage more energy-efficient industries. Not all parts of the economy use equal amounts of energy, and we should encourage the energy-efficient ones. I burn carbon when I drive my car to work. I burn much less carbon when I take…

> I burn much less carbon when I take the bus to work.

I understand that. It's the obvious reasoning behind a gas tax.

My entire point is that there are also other effects.

If gas prices raise significantly, then the price of everything - groceries, medication, clothing, cleaning supplies, solar panels, everything - raises, meaning simple things that everyone relies on suddenly become unaffordable to low-wage workers, so their employers suddenly need to raise profits to accommodate the price hike, and raise wages for the bulk of their employees, or (more likely) simply fail, resulting in a significant unemployment increase.

You can't just magically fix climate change by putting the poor out of work, nor should you.

> encourage more energy-efficient industries.

This can be done with much more reasonable methods. Don't forget that transportation is not the only significant source of carbon emissions. The best legislative efforts we can make are to support clean energy (nuclear, wind, solar).

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#265

Post by wcarron »

userbinator wrote: post #104
wcarron wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also ride a motorcycle. Just got a new sportster and love it. I'll agree that it is wonderful not ever having to adjust a damn radio, roll windows up or worry about broken AC. It's great for all the reasons you described. I also agree with your point that there __should__ be a market for a no-frills car of the same design philosophy. However, I would NEVER recommend that someone get a motorcycle. You and I both kno…

I think it's actually pretty irresponsible to recommend them to other people. I disagree. It's the old freedom vs. security/safety argument. I have no qualms about recommending motorcycles or even just older and simpler cars, because safety is not the only factor and a lot of the time it's used as an argument to take away freedom. You can be perfectly safe by spending your entire life locked away in a jail cell... an…

It's not that I think people should not ride motorcycles. It's that WE are aware of the heightened level of danger, extra things to watch for, etc. Most people are not and recommending motorcycles casually to people who may not grasp the risks is setting them up to get fucked, pardon the language.

I do think an amendment to my original statement is needed, though: I would NEVER recommend them to other people without firmly impressing upon them the value of safety courses and the risks involved.

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#266

Post by mcguire »

lloeki wrote: post #191
10000100001010 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a documented problem [1]. That does not mean that every company does it though. [1] http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/g202/planned-obso...

What? Apart for ink cartridges, for which some manufacturers are know to have some hard counters, this list is beyond ridiculous. Planned obsolescence means a conscious design to fail at a certain mark, a carefully evaluated MTBF in order to extract financial gain. 1. Just a description: "planned obsolescence" is wilful design into failure that makes one turn a greater profit at the expense of consumers. 2. Some ink…

"New editions strive to streamline the experience, fix mishaps, and comply with legal requirements and state-mandated education programs."

True story: I was ICDCS '98, perusing the textbooks with my advisor and some of his ex-students, and see the new (6th?) edition of Silberschatz's OS book. "Oh, yeah", one of my advisor's older students says, "Avi does have another kid going to college this year."

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#267

Post by rsync »

noam87 wrote: 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…

"So, for example, a family would go to their local technology artisan to put together a smart home system tailored specifically to their needs."

... and the artisan would refuse, and explain how much simpler and functional their lives would be without any "smart" systems or appliances ?

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#268

Post by thomastjeffery »

GhostVII wrote: post #253
thomastjeffery wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, I also think we should have a carbon recapture tax added to gasoline That can't work for any country that has "country". In the US, the vast majority of goods are delivered using trucks that burn diesel. You can't have a gas tax without a diesel tax. Everyone would just switch over. If you tax gas, you effectively tax everything , and that's not okay for any economy.

> If you tax gas, you effectively tax everything, and that's not okay for any economy. Why not, we already tax everything as it is right now? And lots of places have carbon taxes, it works fine.

Because everyone would have to suddenly react.

Businesses that rely on low wage workers suddenly have two major problems:

1. They have to find more profit to accommodate shipping expenses

2. They have to pay their workers more

Both of those problems are incredibly difficult to some, and both of them together are deadly to business.

A gas tax would significantly harm the livelihood of poor hard working people.

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#269

Post by efreak »

pc86 wrote: post #255
Filligree wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can a user prove they didn't misuse an item, though?

That would depend on the specific item, I'm sure. For example you can tell if a phone has ever been wet because there will be signs on the interior. No situation will be perfect but at some point the burden of proof has to shift from the company to the user. I think six months is probably a bit soon but sometime between that and two years seems reasonable to me.

Six months, not two years. I personally tend to ignore warranty periods of under a year anyways, since products with such short warranty periods (30-90 days is common here in the US) tend to be cheaper to replace than to get warranty service on anyways.

On the other hand, warranty here in the US can be annoying to deal with anyways--I've failed twice at getting replacements for Samsung flash memory cards that have been in production for less than their warranty period. There a some problems (microsd becoming read-only) that can't be caused by user misuse. That might be more reflective of Samsung as a company, however I've had similar issues with other companies as well.

Re: A “right to repair” movement tools up

#270

Post by efreak »

tzs wrote: post #209
mrighele wrote: post #201

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). 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?

The recycling tax is for the product you're buying, so it doesn't matter if you're bringing one to be recycled or not.
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