Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows • Hacker News Board

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#231

Post by cycrutchfield » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

laughinghan wrote: post #230

cycrutchfield wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, thanks. They must not have covered that topic in all of the Economics classes I took in college. Thank goodness you were here to regurgitate the definition of such a basic concept to me on this fateful day. I will be forever grateful.

I was clarifying. Interesting that you clearly read this and the other reply yet you don't have a substantive response.

Because it’s silly. The cost of disposing of or recycling a cell phone is negligible compared to its margins. What are the margins on an iPhone?

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#232

Post by jeffchien » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #217

jeffchien wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By extension, are you proposing a ban on water filters and filter cartridges? Keurigs and their cartridges? Or are you just concerned with printers, or base things that you consider fragile and wasteful? Where would you draw the line? I don't think I've ever had one of my consumer printers break (and I use third-party ink so I'm not even subsidizing them in the end), so the extremity of this argument is surprising. I…

> By extension, are you proposing a ban on water filters and filter cartridges? Not necessarily. But filters are cheap pieces of plastics, whereas the whole magic is in the cartridges, so the pricing structure seems OK. > Keurigs and their cartridges? Definitely. Keurig deserves to be dissolved for DRMing coffee and for being an ecological disaster. > I don't think I've ever had one of my consumer printers break (and…

I guess what I'm getting at is that it seems difficult to draw the line about what kind of business model you're trying to ban. How would you legislate the difference between water filters and inkjet printers? Even though yes, most of the nontrivial stuff is in the filters themselves, I would think the filter jug is subsidized in some form by the filter, no matter how small the amount.

Another example: Sony sold the PS3 at a loss and recouped the cost through games [1].

If you're concerned about the ecological cost, I think it's better to ban items based on ecological cost (when considering durability and whether it's consumed once or repeatedly) directly. There's no sense in banning certain good printers if they're actually durable. Even your concern with Keurig is not really caused by their base item, but the consumable, right? I think that's the current trend we're following with plastic bags and straws anyway.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2006/11/8239/

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#233

Post by solatic » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 8:03 PM UTC

s1512783 wrote: post #11

woliveirajr wrote: post #4

Having my HP printer just failed because of something was wrong on the printer head (and replacing the printer head alone costs more than the printer, and is a easy job as it was made to be easily replaced), I'm always mad that a part costs equal or more than the whole thing. Any kind of "locked-in" to repair anything should always be against the law: no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges…

> no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole I think that's a dangerous route to follow. I completely agree with right to repair legislation, but I can also imagine a situation where a company makes ten thousand of something and sells it in a year through a retailer, and then keeps replacement parts available for a long time. Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs cou…

> Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs could easily make parts cost more than the original item.

Leave delivery costs out for a second; all that you're really arguing for is that instead of warehousing/inventorying old parts, it should be much easier to order individual parts on-demand from local boutique fabrication suppliers. Sure, that costs more per-part than the original (which benefited from the cost reduction of mass production), but as much as the whole? My gut is pretty doubtful on that.

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#234

Post by aurizon » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 11:02 PM UTC

feocco wrote: post #10

aurizon wrote: post #2

You should have this basic right to repair. If you are unable to repair it and even break it further, it will cost you more for the company to repair it. This right should have the right to have the repair company to connect it and scan it, for a nominal fee, and tell you what is broken and what they would charge. You can then decide. With the complexity of modern devices, you may have to go to another company with s…

Forcing a company to have a diagnostic tool or team to identify a problem you might not have them fix is silly IMO. So is forcing their hand on creating a repairable product. I don't expect Microsoft to be able to easily identify obscure hardware issues with a design like my Surface Book 2. I do expect them to create a hardware product that doesn't break easily. Supplying the specs is a big benefit in my purchase dec…

This is not so easy. The Surface Books are made with a number of snap together modules, via fine cable runs and multi-pin connectors. Each part is made with care and subjected to detailed tests, that include a term of power-on burn in for the major parts with infra-red smart vision that looks for any hot spots (that might lead to failure). Then they are assembled with in progress tests at some points until the final productis made and it is tested after they add the SSD with all the operating system installed. There are assorted areas partitioned on the SSD that might hold an OS recovery partition, as well as other software provided by others as choice ware (since so many people like this so called bloatware not installed). Then it will be placed on a burn-in rack at a higher temperatrure than room temp and some sort of test program will be run on a recurrent basis. Those that pass are packed and shipped, those that fail are analyzed for faults and any faulty part replaced and it is re-tested. A lemon with recurrent faults will probably be gutted to find the part with an enduring fault. Once in the field, it is rare for part level test and repair to be done. Those boards are marked as scrap with dye?? and sold in the scrap boards auction in schenzen. Buyers buy these boards and perform some analysis of them, or simply remove certain high value parts and sell them to other repris shops. Often many parts are tossed because these parts lack detailed information on them abd are not worth salvage. There are board maps online, so higher value parts like inductors, crystals, GPS etc have known locations and are removed and segregated for sale to hobby shops etc.

https://hackernoon.com/the-gladiator-pit-of-hardware-startup...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leFuF-zoVzA&feature=youtu.be...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUQzAhOVj70

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#235

Post by neop1x » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 11:14 PM UTC

isolli wrote: post #33

ericabiz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awful, honestly. The last set we ran on Facebook cost us $40 per booked appointment...not even break-even for us. We are working on video ads for pre-roll YouTube, etc., but it takes $ for tools (like cameras) and production. On Google, we learned how to optimize our ads and we were doing really well.

Have you tried advertising on DuckDuckGo? There's not as much traffic, but it could be worth it.

I've heard that Bing also works well

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#236

Post by lioeters » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 11:25 PM UTC

nullc wrote: post #195

ericabiz wrote: post #18

Here's another way Apple may be killing "right to repair": I own a chain of independent cell phone and computer repair shops. Last year, Google unilaterally took away AdWords in our industry. The day after Thanksgiving, we woke up to find none of our ads were running. Google claimed this was because "third-party tech support providers" were scamming customers--i.e. people were buying AdWords for virus removal and tec…

Next thing you're going to do is tell us that Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, and eBay were making explicit back room deals to rig employee compensation and using the threat of patent litigation to force competition in line, resulting in the transfer of literally tens of billions of dollars of wealth transferred from employees to shareholders, considering the secondary effects of depressed wages industry…

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#237

Post by neop1x » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 11:30 PM UTC

s1512783 wrote: post #11

woliveirajr wrote: post #4

Having my HP printer just failed because of something was wrong on the printer head (and replacing the printer head alone costs more than the printer, and is a easy job as it was made to be easily replaced), I'm always mad that a part costs equal or more than the whole thing. Any kind of "locked-in" to repair anything should always be against the law: no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges…

> no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole I think that's a dangerous route to follow. I completely agree with right to repair legislation, but I can also imagine a situation where a company makes ten thousand of something and sells it in a year through a retailer, and then keeps replacement parts available for a long time. Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs cou…

I don't think it is dangerous. If manufacturers were required to sell parts at price loser than the whole they would have to adapt. Worst case, they can disassemble whole products back to spare parts!

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#238

Post by neop1x » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 11:39 PM UTC

JoshTko wrote: post #13

I think the main thing that Apple here is trying to avoid is an iPhone catching on fire due to a 3rd party battery installed by a Mall Kisok repair shop guy who was hired a week ago. They know that the nuance will get lost and the story will become - iPhones catch on fire.

No, it is just one of the arguments they are making off to support their monopolistic power. Just like that underclocking-on-old-battery trick. They are not making some special batteries, their chargers don't provide "magical 5V which is different than my 5V". They have some quality standards but they are not unique in this, li-ion is an industry standard.

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#239

Post by brandonmenc » Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 2:02 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #218

brandonmenc wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I print like ten pages a year, and I'd rather not have to drop half a grand or more on a printer like in the old days just for that.

If you print ten pages a year, I'd rather you go to a print shop instead of being yet another person whose inkjet printer will end up in a landfill in a year.

I have a cheap laser printer that will probably last me years.

Also, what's the carbon footprint of driving to Kinkos ten times a year vs a printer?

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#240

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 3:57 AM UTC

magduf wrote: post #225

naikrovek wrote: post #124

I hate that Deere is singularly picked on, here. Other vehicle manufacturers have followed in John Deere's footsteps with this, and no one cites those manufacturers' actions; only John Deere. I guess it's because they were first?

Do you have any actual examples showing how Deere's competitors are as bad? No, "other vehicle manufacturers" don't count; this whole thing started because farmers couldn't get their machinery working and harvest crops on time, so Mercedes or BMW doing something similar is irrelevant since they don't make farm equipment.

[deleted]