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

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

#391

Post by TeMPOraL »

ghaff wrote: post #289
echelon wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it'd rather treat devices as things that we lease for a low cost from a vertically-integrated company. This is a nightmare. I built my PC, I repair my phone and laptops. I replace joysticks and mod old gaming consoles. I fix my own car. I don't want the industry following Apple into the depths of hell. We used to be allowed to record tv shows on VHS legally. Look how far we've slid down the path of non-ownership. W…

>We used to be allowed to record tv shows on VHS legally. Look how far we've slid down the path of non-ownership. What's changed that prevents you from doing that today? I'm guessing the answer is: "But that's a crappy alternative to what people watching Netflix or even renting DVDs are doing." And I would agree with that. (Though in the case of music, owning versus renting is still very much a legitimate choice at l…

> What's changed that prevents you from doing that today?

What's changed is that technologies involved in modern video streaming are designed up front to prevent end-users from recording the stream, and are backed by regulations making some of the workarounds illegal.

MAFIAA may not be able to close the "analog hole" completely, but it doesn't stop them from achieving the next best thing - making it so hard to exploit that almost nobody bothers. This is a positive feedback loop, because the market in general doesn't like to serve small niches unless it has nothing more interesting to do. Thus: no VCRs for Netflix.

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

#392

Post by teachingassist »

giantrobot wrote: post #351
chmod775 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your response doesn't actually address the point you quoted. But yeah. You can either do thoughtful engineering and careful assembly... or you can achieve close to the same thing with glue.

The demand for smartphones is hundreds of millions per year. Manufacturing a hundred million of a complex thing is orders of magnitude more difficult than manufacturing ones of millions of a complex thing. A small complex thing with tight tolerances is harder yet. Setting a part in a jig, brushing a dab of glue, and setting a second part on top is much faster than the same process but fastening a couple screws to the…

> Setting a part in a jig, brushing a dab of glue, and setting a second part on top is much faster than the same process but fastening a couple screws to the appropriate tightness. It's also less error prone and creates a better bond between the parts.

In my imagining of this, a robot is doing it. Which makes me think the opposite is true: the tightness can be controlled and errors can be managed better with a screw, than with glue.

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

#393

Post by operator-name »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #32
scrose wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to have this right, but it feels like somewhere between 2010-2015, companies realized they could make more money by disallowing simple replacements. I used to make some money as a kid by buying batches of broken Iphone 3G/3GS's on ebay, replacing parts on them, and then re-selling them myself. Practically any part of that device could be replaced in less than 30 minutes with $15 worth of tools. I have a 2012M…

I draw the line at SMDs. We should go back to through-hole components — I can desolder and resolder those. Sorry, I'm not trying to mock you. Just saw an opportunity to be facetious, not facetious. And, actually, to sort of make a point: I don't buy into the idea that companies are intentionally doing this — intentionally disallowing replacement parts, although I maybe just be naive. I do in fact loathe SMDs (as a ho…

Apple is a very well documented example of companies intentially disallowing replacement parts.

Many of their parts are linked to the motherboard in software, and even a doner replacement from another decide restricts features.

There's a line between warning the user that the repair is potentially dangerous and removing their right of ownership to repair their product unless apple had authorised it.

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

#394

Post by giantrobot »

teachingassist wrote: post #392
giantrobot wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The demand for smartphones is hundreds of millions per year. Manufacturing a hundred million of a complex thing is orders of magnitude more difficult than manufacturing ones of millions of a complex thing. A small complex thing with tight tolerances is harder yet. Setting a part in a jig, brushing a dab of glue, and setting a second part on top is much faster than the same process but fastening a couple screws to the…

> Setting a part in a jig, brushing a dab of glue, and setting a second part on top is much faster than the same process but fastening a couple screws to the appropriate tightness. It's also less error prone and creates a better bond between the parts. In my imagining of this, a robot is doing it. Which makes me think the opposite is true: the tightness can be controlled and errors can be managed better with a screw,…

Robots do not in fact do most assembly on smartphones. There's a reason Foxconn's factories are the size of towns. It's thousands of meat robots doing a majority of the work.

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

#395

Post by amelius »

JoshTko wrote: post #122
leoedin wrote: post #53

PCs and even most laptops have been very repairable for decades. You can still run Windows or Linux on a 10+ (20+?) year old laptop without an issue. The idea that a 5 year old laptop would be unusable or not get the latest version of Windows is unacceptable. Yet phones cost similar amounts and have nowhere near the repairability. A decade ago you could argue that it wasn't that important - specs were changing so qui…

The trend for lack of reparability in smartphones is because of consumer preferences. Consumers are consistently choosing devices that are smaller, lighter, higher durability, waterproof, cheaper etc. vs. devices that are more repairable that do not have those features.

Even if the phone is glued shut, I should still be able to install a different OS on the thing after the vendor drops support for it.

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

#396

Post by GordonS »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #314
GordonS wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hunting for a new laptop just now, and just about everything has at least one DIMM soldered, with many having both soldered. Driving me nuts! Is there a convincing technical reason why everybody is doing this nowadays?

To make it thinner. And I 100% blame Apple for this. IMO, Apple is not a tech company, but a fashion company. Or more accurately, they produce technology that's optimized to be fashionable. Thin laptops are more sleek, but to make them thinner will require parts to be soldered to the motherboard, since an actual slot will add 3mm or whatever. Other companies feel like they have to match Apple, and so they follow suit…

I'm with you on this - the marketing spiel of thinness at the expense of all else drivers me nuts!

I do want a thin laptop, and as someone who travelled a lot for work while living with a physically disabling medical condition, lightness is important to me too. But I don't care half a shit if it's 16mm thick instead of 16.1mm, if you've disabled the device to do it!

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

#397

Post by dvdkon »

djoldman wrote: post #281

I believe that this right to repair stuff is really a reflection of a superceding market breakdown: oligopolistic power. Consumers want to do what they like with the things they own and some want the information needed to repair those things. Some companies don't have to offer this information or can get away with locking down their devices because they are immune from competition. This immunity is generally acquired…

I agree, more competition would be the ideal solution, but I'm not sure we can achieve that goal without drastic changes. In my opinion, having competition on details like "does it have a headphone jack?" or "is it repairable?" requires competing manufacturers to be able to create near-identical products that only differ in those details, with the price delta reflecting only that one difference and not other complex market conditions. However, creating such "clones" is something our copyright and patent system is designed to prevent. There's some merit to it: preventing clones will force more global diversity. But in the common situation where the user has already decided on one area of the market ("I want iOS and a great camera"), these systems force the user into one choice, not letting them choose in important details.

The way I see it, we either tear up all IP laws to allow for drastically lower costs of entry and hope that solves the problem (and other ones too), or we pass laws requiring some minimum standard of repairability. Or maybe a little bit of both (aggressive unbundling laws?).

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

#398

Post by michaelmrose »

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…

Perhaps compulsory software updates at least as far as security issues for a reasonable time frame after selling a particular device as new to stores. I'd say 5 years to go with the 5 year warranty against defects in manufacture. This would discourage waste and improve the second hand market.

So moto, samsung, et all would be obligated to provided fixes for 5 years after they sold the last unit. If an oem can't meet that obligation just forbid their import.

We presume a right to the product of other people's labor for the privilege of doing business here all the time. See every product in existence.

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

#399

Post by giantrobot »

passivate wrote: post #360
giantrobot wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The demand for smartphones is hundreds of millions per year. Manufacturing a hundred million of a complex thing is orders of magnitude more difficult than manufacturing ones of millions of a complex thing. A small complex thing with tight tolerances is harder yet. Setting a part in a jig, brushing a dab of glue, and setting a second part on top is much faster than the same process but fastening a couple screws to the…

Assuming you've already researched the time and material costs - Why does it matter if more effort is required? We should put the environment and our own interests as a society ahead of the profits of these already obscenely profitable companies. We don't allow industries to pollute the planet, we require expensive filters and waste-treatment for chemical plant effluents and catalytic converters for cars, and what no…

> We should put the environment and our own interests as a society ahead of the profits of these already obscenely profitable companies.

It's not necessarily about overall profit. Apple profits on iPhones because they sell them for many times their cost. A marginal cost increase in manufacturing wouldn't impact them much.

The problem for Apple (and other large manufacturers) is production volume. It is a massive (and expensive) undertaking to mass produce something like an iPhone in the volumes Apple does. There's a lot of orchestration between component suppliers, component transport, assembly, packaging, and channel distribution. Contracts covering all of those things are signed years in advance to reserve capacity.

If final product assembly volume drops because a worker has to spend five seconds screwing parts rather than two seconds gluing that back pressure affects everything. Supply chains are such that there's literally no warehouse space available to store backed up components or finished products.

That doesn't affect profitability but just economic feasibility of whole lines of products. There's massive demand for smartphones and there's only so many ways to get the production volume to meet that demand.

Consider PC shipments in terms of production. The global demand is tens of millions of units a year vs hundreds of millions of phones per quarter. Like I said, there's challenges to making a hundred million complex widgets that simply don't exist at smaller scales. Screws might be fine in laptops but they're a volume killer for phones.

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

#400

Post by fsflover »

google234123 wrote: post #382
fsflover wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the purpopse of apples closed update system was to shorten the useful life, rather than as a side effect of other product and design goals So what is the reason to prevent updates of software after the support is over? This is a classical software anti-feature.

IT's a ton of work to make and push updates.

I am not speaking about making updates. I am speaking about preventing users from making them.
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