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Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair

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Re: Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair

#121

Post by haakonhr »

titzer wrote: post #74
haakonhr wrote: post #4

This is great, although it somehow seems to me to be starting in the wrong end. The underlying problem is that it is more profitable/cheaper to just give you a new product (if something breaks while under warrantee) and then just throw away the old instead of repairing it. I don't know if it is because the externalities of waste are not taxed properly or if it is because manufacturing products that are hard to repair…

> I don't know if it is because the externalities of waste are not taxed properly or if it is because manufacturing products that are hard to repair gives more robust products and less waste in the end. It's because our entire economic system is oriented toward growth and puts profit above everything else.

Profit is fine; the problem is that the true costs aren't borne by the consumers. We subsidize by polluting, by relying on forced labor, by relying on people working in dangerous environments and so on

Re: Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair

#122

Post by Fradow »

oauea wrote: post #106
globile wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone unlocking doesn't get much attention, but it is an integral part that no one wants to address or get their hands dirty with. There are many more locked phones in drawers or acting as mere paperweights than people actually care to disclose. Several years back we ran a poll to understand lifetime recycling habits. People aren't proud of dropping a phone and shattering the screen, but they are less proud of having…

I live in the EU and have never encountered a carrier locked phone. It's quite an amusing concept, and the first carrier to come up with it must truly have been evil.

I live in the EU too (France), and any phone you buy directly from a carrier (generally heavily discounted, but tied to a more expensive plan) is carrier-locked, and can only be unlocked after a set amount of time has passed, or earlier by paying a fee (regulated by the EU if my memory serves me well).

Perhaps it's because I was less financially literate in the past, but I remember that as being the only way in the 2000s. There might have been laws passed to limit that practice and its abuses.

The smart solution, provided you have enough money, is to buy the phone elsewhere, and take a plan without a phone. It's always less expensive in the long term.

Re: Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair

#123

Post by Nextgrid »

ckocagil wrote: post #118
Nextgrid wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here isn't just lobbying but that the people in the government that we entrust to make these decisions are complete idiots. The lobbyists' arguments are so flawed that anyone with half a brain or a bit of common sense should be able to say "hold on, this is bullshit!" and yet these people are swallowing it whole. I'd have more respect for them if they outright turned around and said "yeah we know we're sc…

Are they idiots, or do they get something out of it?

Some of the arguments made by the lobbyists deserve pushback even if you're secretly in their camp just because of how absurd they are.

Given this isn't happening, I'm not 100% convinced the senators are doing this on purpose or if they're legitimately too stupid to understand the argument at play. Furthermore I remember Louis Rossmann saying in one of his videos that one senator turned out to not even be checking his official government e-mail account... that's not someone I would entrust with understanding anything even remotely related to technology.

Re: Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair

#124

Post by acd »

We must mandate that all consumer devices can load open source operating systems. That manufacturers provide open design specifications and follow reasonable standards. That is after a few years, manufacturers do not have an incentive to fix the operating system of devices. Unless we can load open source operating systems, old devices will have security holes which is bad for security.

What I want to say is we should be able to fix and repair the hardware and software of devices.

I want to reach out and thank citizens of France for leading the way on repair index!

Re: Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair

#125

Post by nousermane »

dijit wrote: post #80
globile wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone unlocking doesn't get much attention, but it is an integral part that no one wants to address or get their hands dirty with. There are many more locked phones in drawers or acting as mere paperweights than people actually care to disclose. Several years back we ran a poll to understand lifetime recycling habits. People aren't proud of dropping a phone and shattering the screen, but they are less proud of having…

Selling locked phones in the UK and EU is already illegal UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54692179 EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_Commercial_Practices_Di...

SIM/operator locks have been already rare (in Europe) for a while, and that's great!

But there are Android phones that come with bootloader/OS lock, which often means old device is stuck with some ancient OS version (and some bundled bloatware), instead of being able to be reflashed to a recent LineageOS.

Re: Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair

#126

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

b06tmm wrote: post #112
Nextgrid wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carrier locks are an absolute scam. The argument is that it allows carriers to offer subsidised phones and “repossess” them if the customer defaults on their bill by making it unusable. However, in reality, not only does the carrier not mind if the phone keeps being used (as long as it’s on the carrier’s network) but the lock doesn’t expire once the customer pays off their plan. Furthermore the process for unlocking…

> However, in reality, not only does the carrier not mind if the phone keeps being used (as long as it’s on the carrier’s network) but the lock doesn’t expire once the customer pays off their plan. I recently paid off my AT&T iPhone X and the process to unlock it couldn't have been easier. https://www.att.com/deviceunlock/

That's if you meet the terms and conditions:

https://www.att.com/support/article/wireless/KM1262649

Notably, you have to have been paid up (somewhat understandable), active for 60 days if postpaid (not really reasonable at all), or if prepaid, active for 6 months (absolutely not reasonable). This basically precludes someone selling a phone secondhand entirely if they haven't unlocked it first by holding the value of the phone hostage (phones are worth less when locked). Completely anti-consumer. And AT&T isn't even the worst about this. I once tried to unlock a phone through Rogers and they wanted $120 to do it! This was back around 2011 so their policy might have changed but given Canada's terrible telco situation I doubt it has changed much.

Re: Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair

#127

Post by Ericson2314 »

mc32 wrote: post #11
fridek wrote: post #5

I can't describe how much I hope something comes out of it. Not because I have some illusion of this tackling corporate greed, or helping the environment - devices will likely become more expensive and bulkier as a result, supply chain of replacement parts is generating heaps of waste too. I simply am surrounded by tens and hundreds of sort-of-broken devices that don't force me to replace yet, but are not fixable eit…

Part of the problem with electronics is often a brand new unit costs less than replacing a faulty part on an old unit due to miniaturization and having everything on chip combined with economics of scale. Still it’s a worthwhile pursuit. At some point pocket PCs/phones will be good enough, just as for many a 2014 laptop is still good enough.

If we properly accounted for environmental externalities, and frankly, the rat race of labor arbitrage (is a good use of people's time in the 2nd world to work 9 days a week to crank out replacements for this shit?), I think we would get there faster.

Though yes, thank goodness the end of Moore's law is here to help.

Re: Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair

#128

Post by macspoofing »

Scoundreller wrote: post #98
macspoofing wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When repair labor costs more than automated production, then it's cheaper to replace whole units than mend parts We're not there yet. There are profitable businesses that can do repair and/or replacement of broken soldered IC chips in laptops and smartphones (see YouTube channels of Jessa Jones and Louis Rossmann). So cost of repair is not a barrier in many cases. The problems they highlight, that should be very eas…

Yes and no, supply chain restrictions leads to some funny outcomes. When I parted out my 2012 MacBook Air in 2016, I came close to covering the full cost of my brand new 2016 MB Air.

Sure - there are repairs where the costs are higher than replacement. There are repairs where the costs are lower than replacement. The latter should be a low-hanging fruit for regulation to assist with. And we have a model how this could be done - car repair. Because of historical factors, there are regulations that mandate car manufacturers to provide diagnostic tools and replacement parts to independent mechanics and though car manufacturers gripe about it, the system works well. And yes, in some cases, your mechanic will tell you that a particular repair isn't worth it because the car isn't worth it.

Independent mechanic shops are also a sizable market (around 150k+ businesses in US alone) providing good paying blue-collar jobs for hundreds of thousands of people .. and this competition also lowers repair costs for consumers.

No reason why it couldn't be the case for electronics.

Re: Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair

#129

Post by fab1an »

This is to be commended, though I wish the market itself would provide this value as an emergent feature as it does in some other areas (e. g. Leica cameras and lenses, hundreds of thousands of which are still being used after _decades_ - I'm not sure if it's true, but read somewhere that the used market for Leicas is several multiples of Leicas revenue on new stuff)

Re: Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair

#130

Post by harrierpigeon »

onli wrote: post #25
syshum wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My phone today is completely usable but the carrier has decided to stop issuing updates to the phone.... This is the worst kind of planned obsolesces

Right. Repairable hardware is just the one side, security updates needs to be available as well. We need mandated open sourcing of device software (including firmware and drivers + unlocking of the bootloader) after the support timerange, or at the very least alternatively the obligation to continue security updates for decades.

OTOH, you can wind up with stuff like installing an OS that requires more than the device has to offer- like installing the most recent version of Ubuntu Desktop on a Intel Core2 Duo isn't going to go well, nor did installing iOS 7 on iPhone 4's- which I remember eagerly installing without realizing the major slowdown all the new features added that I couldn't undo.
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