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It's your device, you should be able to repair it

bbc.com

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Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#151

Post by thinkharderdev »

quotemstr wrote: post #108
css wrote: post #2

This article moves the goalposts on what "right to repair" is several times. It generally means that manufacturers should not hide schematics from device users or disallow third party manufacturing of first party parts. However, the author states: > The law doesn't yet cover smartphones and tablets that she says are getting harder to fix. One problem is keeping older devices updated with new software. Now "right to r…

Why are you surprised? This is the common pattern of tech activism: start with a kernel of a legitimate grievance, grow it into a whole crop of outrage, and harvest that outrage to make new rules that actually make everything a bit worse. Designing for repairability has costs both monetary and functional. Why should everyone have to pay these costs on the say-so of a few people whose main claim to legitimate authorit…

I tend to agree with this position. This all feels a bit like "I want everyone else to finance my niche desire to hack on my device." It seems like if this were really a thing that a lot of consumers wanted then someone would be filling that market demand. But I suspect that the overwhelming majority of consumers don't in fact want this. They want a secure device that just works and they upgrade regularly before their old device is EOL.

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#153

Post by splix »

ska wrote: post #67
fsflover wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That isn’t planned obsolescence. Yes, it is. Even though Apple devices last longer, after the support is ended, I cannot do anything with them. I cannot update, install anything. They effectively become bricks. If this is not planned obsolescence, then what is?

It's only planned obsolescence if the lifetime of a product is artificially shortened by design choices. It's not clear this applies here.

I cannot replace a battery on a perfectly working iPad otherwise, and Apple is charging almost a price of a new device to replace it for me, i.e. they are basially forcing me to buy a new one.

Wondering, can that be called a planned obsolescence or not?

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#154

Post by rasz »

GuB-42 wrote: post #62
css wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the European definition of "right to repair" entail, then?

Not exactly the answer to your question but France recently adopted a repairability score that has to be shown, just like the energy efficency class or nutrition labels. The criteria are: 1- Documentation 2- Ease of disassembly, with a subsection on the necessary tools and a focus on the parts that are most likely to be serviced (for smartphones: battery, screen, ...) 3- Availability of spare parts 4- Price of spare…

and Apple devices score 7 out of 10 and up. Its all self assessment. This law is a farce.

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#155

Post by scrose »

TideAd wrote: post #47
scrose wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think that repairability is better for sustainability in general Sorry, but what? Being able to repair a device means that you can (and usually will) be able to prevent demand spiking for a brand new device that uses as many or more materials than the last. For starters, imagine a world where vehicles were not repairable. I'd argue that any mass-produced thing benefits from repairability.

I suspect that a minority of people would choose to repair their old phones even if they were more repairable. When your phone dies, it's a good opportunity to buy something new and more fun. I don't know for sure but I don't think this would stop that much consumption.

> I suspect that a minority of people would choose to repair their old phones even if they were more repairable.

Repair shops exist for this purpose. I’m not saying every individual will repair their device themself if it breaks. That would be as out of touch as saying most people will just buy a brand new phone anytime theirs has an issue.

Making things less repairable means that whether you’re willing to pay someone else or not to fix something, you will be unable to.

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#156

Post by spaced-out »

segmondy wrote: post #98
II2II wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the author kept moving the goalpost since we have lost so much over the years. Take that legacy software. For many technologies the software is not distinguishable from the hardware to the end user, yet faulty software could present a security risk or even pose physical danger. At the same time, vendors are dropping support for software at an accelerated rate while making it impossible to use third party fixe…

Are they also going to force "the right to sell" instead of rent? Nothing is stopping companies from renting instead of selling their products. We already see that with software, no one is trying to sell software these days, it's all subscriptions. It could happen with hardware, in which case you don't have the right to repair since it never belonged to you.

I've been wondering if we're going to need to do something like that some day.

With the way tech is increasingly getting locked down, what if we end up in a future where all the major computer vendors won't sell you anything, only lease it to you under strict terms, which include the right for them to brick it for any reason. Sure, you can still buy parts and build your own computer, but you can't use it for any bank or credit card transaction or government website because it's not SECURE. If fact, even wanting to own your own computer makes you a suspicious person to law enforcement because why do you need it? Are you trying to distribute child porn? In fact, child porn is the reason Comcast stated to justify a new policy that will go into effect soon, which will only allow devices running on trusted hardware/OS to connect to the internet at all...

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#157

Post by rasz »

gohbgl wrote: post #152

As far as there exist unjust laws that prevent people from repairing their devices, by all means, get rid of them (IP laws especially). But by all means, do not add more regulation.

“All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what has regulation ever done for us?”

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#158

Post by hilbert42 »

omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #137
css wrote: post #2

This article moves the goalposts on what "right to repair" is several times. It generally means that manufacturers should not hide schematics from device users or disallow third party manufacturing of first party parts. However, the author states: > The law doesn't yet cover smartphones and tablets that she says are getting harder to fix. One problem is keeping older devices updated with new software. Now "right to r…

It is goalpost moving, but I also agree with the author. If a device is no longer supported by a company, or that company goes under, there should be some mechanism to make any software needed to modify software on the device available. Take the essential ph-1 as an example. Now that the company is gone, if a device bricks during an update, that's it. Having the firehose file would make it possible to unblock it, but…

"a bricked phone is just spare parts (less the main board)."

The main board should be just as repairable as any other device. If that requires changes to copyright law, the DMCA and or even WIPO treaties then that will eventually happen.

It's not that many years ago—certainly well within my lifetime—that 'deep' repairs of this kind were not only commonplace but actually encouraged by manufacturers. (If you want examples then I'll provide some).

By such action, we would only be returning to the status quo as it was some 40 or more years ago.

(To detractors of this comment, I accept and understand that you never lived through that time to see it in action, if you had then very likely you'd have a changed point of view.)

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#159

Post by 34679 »

whereis wrote: post #132

Counterpoint: We're all safer by using devices that can't be repaired/tampered with by end users.

That's not always true. Take the case of a company that determines the cost of fixing a flaw is worse for profits than letting the flaw continue into production. Remington famously allowed a flawed trigger in one of their rifles for decades, even after being made aware of it and its 5 cent fix by the designer of the rifle, before it went on sale.

https://www.guns.com/news/2016/11/18/trove-of-internal-docum...

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