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UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#21

Post by MaxBarraclough »

> Manufacturers will be legally obliged to make spare parts for products available to consumers for the first time – a new legal right for repairs.

I take it that third-parties will not get any new freedoms then, and that things like design patents will continue to apply there. I wonder if the law will have anything to say about price-point, if there's no competition.

I was surprised to see no mention of the matter of companies deliberately engineering their products to be hostile to user repairs. I was under the impression that forbidding that kind of thing was the main point of right-to-repair legislation.

(For example, one part of the system might verify that a peripheral has some cryptographic key to prove that it's an authentic first-party part. With this technique, third-party products either don't work, or are set upon by lawyers for breaking copyright law in cloning the key.)

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#22

Post by smitty1e »

Whither capitalism?

Why are companies not marketing along the lines of: "You can tinker with this. Our product does not treat you like the product."

I'd pay a 20% premium or so not to be spied upon and enslaved. "Freedom isn't free. There's a heavy [FLOWERBED] fee."

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#23

Post by foobar33333 »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #21

> Manufacturers will be legally obliged to make spare parts for products available to consumers for the first time – a new legal right for repairs. I take it that third-parties will not get any new freedoms then, and that things like design patents will continue to apply there. I wonder if the law will have anything to say about price-point, if there's no competition. I was surprised to see no mention of the matter o…

These laws might not go far enough but they might be more of a threat to corporations. Corps may start making their products just friendly enough to avoid new laws which would be stricter and out of their control.

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#24

Post by foobar33333 »

aboringusername wrote: post #13

I think any right to repair needs to solve 2 problems: 1: Fixing bad hardware (schematics and such) 2: Fixing old/buggy/broken software that renders said hardware useless. Without open kernels, drivers, frameworks your "right to repair" is meaningless. When you install a new camera to iPhone and it complains it's not genuine because the software says so, the right to repair becomes less useful as now Apple holds all…

I think the problem with unofficial repairs right now is where the parts come from. If you buy an iphone camera, where does that camera actually come from. I doubt there is an unoffical iphone camera factory. So those parts only have 2 sources, broken and stolen iphones.

What ideally would happen is each part on the iphone has a serial number and is registered with icloud. If a phone gets stolen, you get a message when you install the camera telling you this. And if the original user deregisters their phone on the icloud web ui, the camera works again. Then Apple should be forced to publicly sell this part for a reasonable price for x years.

Just these small steps would move us a long way to repairability.

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#25

Post by statstutor »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #17
aboringusername wrote: post #9

When everything is a commodity it's hard to see how this will be useful. When an appliance (fridge, cooker, washing machine) breaks, it's cheaper to replace. I cannot see how repairing a TV will ever be cheaper than just replacing it since they are so cheap brand new. This also applies to smartphones, none of the popular models have replaceable batteries so in the trash they go and they become worthless, even if the…

That's because this sort of legislation (in the UK and in the EU) is driven by superficial thinking and politics, not data-driven analysis and pragmatic considerations. People go " why don't they just make things simpler to repair? " like it was an obvious solution to problems (real or perceived) whereas the reality is obviously much more complex. Appliances are already quite durable and repairable. Making things 'mo…

> Making things 'more repairable' can increase cost and resources needed.

I don't think this is in dispute, is it?

The point is that manufacturers must now consider this cost in their calculations, rather than pass all the consequences on to the consumer without caring.

> People do not necessarily want to repair a broken old device

If the old device still has value, then both can happen - I can get a new device, and pass my old device on for repair and re-use.

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#26

Post by krapp »

smitty1e wrote: post #22

Whither capitalism? Why are companies not marketing along the lines of: "You can tinker with this. Our product does not treat you like the product." I'd pay a 20% premium or so not to be spied upon and enslaved. "Freedom isn't free. There's a heavy [FLOWERBED] fee."

>I'd pay a 20% premium or so not to be spied upon and enslaved. "Freedom isn't free. There's a heavy [FLOWERBED] fee."

Most people wouldn't, and there's more money in proprietary lock-in and servicing than there is marketing to the tinkering fringe.

Thither capitalism.

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#27

Post by foobar33333 »

edent wrote: post #19
aboringusername wrote: post #9

When everything is a commodity it's hard to see how this will be useful. When an appliance (fridge, cooker, washing machine) breaks, it's cheaper to replace. I cannot see how repairing a TV will ever be cheaper than just replacing it since they are so cheap brand new. This also applies to smartphones, none of the popular models have replaceable batteries so in the trash they go and they become worthless, even if the…

I repaired a new-ish TV - cost me £30. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/10/replacing-the-motionengine-... If you can find me a new TV at that price, please let me know! Yes, getting in a professional at £X per hour means it is probably not economical to repair a cheap washing machine. But if the parts and manuals are easily available, it suddenly becomes a lot quicker and easier to repair it yourself rather than replace…

The problem is you need to be highly skilled to do that repair. So many times I have ordered replacement parts and then either broken something like a plastic ribbon cable connector, or I have installed the new part and it still doesn't work.

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#28

Post by ed_balls »

aboringusername wrote: post #9

When everything is a commodity it's hard to see how this will be useful. When an appliance (fridge, cooker, washing machine) breaks, it's cheaper to replace. I cannot see how repairing a TV will ever be cheaper than just replacing it since they are so cheap brand new. This also applies to smartphones, none of the popular models have replaceable batteries so in the trash they go and they become worthless, even if the…

> When an appliance (fridge, cooker, washing machine) breaks, it's cheaper to replace

In a lot of cases it's not, but people don't want to troubleshoot or 3rd part makes more money by replacing it.

I try to fix my suff not for economical reasons, but environmental. In many instances I also save time as well. A few examples:

- car service wanted to replace windshield wipers on my car. I took a piece of sandpaper and cleaned up wax and oxidised rubber. They could last an extra year.

- Microwave stopped working. I cleaned up the connector to the magnetron. I took me less time than buying a new one.

- Plumbing under the sink. Pretty sure the plumber would like to replace everything and charge me a lot, plus it would take a few hours to find a guy, book him and be at home at that time.

I think I save about 10h and over $500 per year. It's often fun to replace something.

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#29

Post by keerk43 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #17
aboringusername wrote: post #9

When everything is a commodity it's hard to see how this will be useful. When an appliance (fridge, cooker, washing machine) breaks, it's cheaper to replace. I cannot see how repairing a TV will ever be cheaper than just replacing it since they are so cheap brand new. This also applies to smartphones, none of the popular models have replaceable batteries so in the trash they go and they become worthless, even if the…

That's because this sort of legislation (in the UK and in the EU) is driven by superficial thinking and politics, not data-driven analysis and pragmatic considerations. People go " why don't they just make things simpler to repair? " like it was an obvious solution to problems (real or perceived) whereas the reality is obviously much more complex. Appliances are already quite durable and repairable. Making things 'mo…

Right to repair or upgrade may not make sense for all appliances, but for some it definitely does. For example, early 2010's Macbook Pro's remain perfectly usable when upgraded with SSD and more RAM, while more modern ones don't allow any upgrade whatsoever and will become obsolete much faster. For many electronic devices repairability is easy to implement, at least for a little extra cost, and is certainly more environmentally friendly than recycling them.

So, I think for many classes of products right to repair makes sense, and should be implemented even if it raises the cost of buying a new device, since the boost in second-hand options will eventually be good for people who don't have so much money.

Recycling is good too, but not as good using a device longer since not all can be recycled, and the process typically requires energy.

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#30

Post by lnsru »

foobar33333 wrote: post #24
aboringusername wrote: post #13

I think any right to repair needs to solve 2 problems: 1: Fixing bad hardware (schematics and such) 2: Fixing old/buggy/broken software that renders said hardware useless. Without open kernels, drivers, frameworks your "right to repair" is meaningless. When you install a new camera to iPhone and it complains it's not genuine because the software says so, the right to repair becomes less useful as now Apple holds all…

I think the problem with unofficial repairs right now is where the parts come from. If you buy an iphone camera, where does that camera actually come from. I doubt there is an unoffical iphone camera factory. So those parts only have 2 sources, broken and stolen iphones. What ideally would happen is each part on the iphone has a serial number and is registered with icloud. If a phone gets stolen, you get a message wh…

Would you pay additional 5% for the traceability of the parts? Serial numbers must be stored somewhere. We print now them on the enclosure of the component. Actually be print batch number, individual parts cannot be identified. Putting numbers into silicon wouldn’t make things cheaper.
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