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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

#411

Post by IronWolve »

jryan49 wrote: post #228

If you want to help support right to repair (in US) consider donating to Louis Rossmann's GoFundMe for right to repair: https://www.gofundme.com/f/lets-get-right-to-repair-passed?u...

Louis explains its a david vs goliath situation, tech companies pay lobbyists to argue against right to repair. Small working repair shops cant afford to travel to these meetings, and not get paid.

This is why the fund raiser, the public needs lobbyists to represent them against the corporate lobbyists.

Its also bad that these companies are funding/donating to politicians to go against the publics interest.

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

#412

Post by michaelmrose »

Spooky23 wrote: post #377
creaturemachine wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comparison does not work. Replaceable parts didn't make that IBM cost what it did.

I'm not talking about replacing a memory module. I'm talking about replacing a defective 4Kb memory chip on a $1000+, 384Kb ISA card. When I built PCs in the late 90s, the BOM included motherboard, cpu, graphics card, sound card, nic, sometimes a parallel port board, memory, hard disk, etc. At this point, it was only really feasible to repair modules that failed, few humans with the skill to replace a component would…

You seem to believe this specific example where you are literally making up the non public profit margin proves that for the entire class of consumer laptops making non serviceable parts greatly decreases the cost. First it was an hyperbolic 10x and now it decreases costs by half. All examples are not only fictional misuse of both real and hypothetical numbers they say nothing much about the entire class of things.

The M1 is a fresh design on a new iteration of an arch by very smart people and its likely that there are far more factors at play than presence or absence of sockets in terms of determining profitability.

What we are trying to do is determine all things being equal how much cheaper can the same machine be with and without replaceable parts. I don't have any numbers either but I strong doubt its 2-10x cheaper.

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

#413

Post by ryandrake »

thinkharderdev wrote: post #175
ryandrake wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with your "emperor for a day" solution, I'd like to point out that wanting to use a device I paid for longer than two years after I bought it is not an idiosyncratic choice. Apple's last OS update for the device (iOS 5.1.1) was a mere 2 years after the device's initial release. This is IMO totally unreasonable. I have a PC next to me that's 20 years old which still functions and runs a very recent Linux…

Did the device stop working or did they just stop updating it? If it actually stopped working then I agree it is really shitty of them and even if they stopped providing security updates it is kind of shitty of them. But I think the solution is to take your business elsewhere. It's not as if Apple has a monopoly on the smartphone market and you don't have other options.

It happens gradually. A vulnerability here, a service turned down there, an app no longer available on the app store. It adds up to a device that does not do what it was advertised to do when it was new.

Everything else I buy for my home (except for things with obvious wear items that physically wear out), I expect to function forever exactly as the day I purchased it, or be repairable. I have hand tools that were made 100 years ago, inherited from my grandpa, which work exactly as they are supposed to. Yet, we're expected to accept that software "wears out" after a few years.

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

#414

Post by michaelmrose »

scientismer wrote: post #267
creaturemachine wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comparison does not work. Replaceable parts didn't make that IBM cost what it did.

Yes it did. Computers became cheaper because more and more functionality can simply be combined on single chips. You can not replace parts of broken chips at home. Look into Apple's M1.

Average spend on a computer hasn't gone down recently. In the era when it actually did go down it was because volume and reliability went up, and cost of manufacturing went down as process improved.

Phones have been system on a chip since the dawn of the era of the smartphone and few computers are. The difference between repairable and not is the difference between glue and screws and sockets vs solder. You have basically misunderstood everything.

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

#415

Post by michaelmrose »

maxerickson wrote: post #182
alexvoda wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the documentation. As an example, this (1) is how the manual looks for a ~1970-1974 stereo record player I have. You have diagrams of the boards and lists of parts as in individual caps, etc. We should strive to move in that direction, not away from it. Permanently locked bootloaders, DRM for componets, etc. are a move in the oposite direction. To move the over…

Can't you do that without imposing it on everyone else? I care about consumption (I'm on my 2nd laptop since ~2003), but I don't particularly want to pay $15,000 to replace this one with one that is worse.

The average computer is around 700 including ones that are relatively repairable and ones that are not. Pretending that repairable laptops cost 20 times as much is disingenuous.

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

#416

Post by iotku »

soheil wrote: post #387

Should you have the right to repair the CPU inside your machine? Does that mean the manufacturer must design and manufacture the CPU in a way for you to be able to repair it? Where does one draw the line as things get more and more complex? Sadly, we don't live a horse and buggy world anymore where you could just get a new horse or fix a wheel if it stopped working.

> Should you have the right to repair the CPU inside your machine?

Sure, if a component in a CPU failed there shouldn't be any deliberate effort by the manufacturer to restrict it's replacement/repair (especially by entirely artificial means).

> Does that mean the manufacturer must design and manufacture the CPU in a way for you to be able to repair it?

That's unenforceable, but it is preferable for environmental reasons that manufacturers consider the reapairability of their products where possible.

What isn't acceptable is deliberately ensuring parts aren't available or are designed explicitly not to work with compatible or identical replacements.

>Where does one draw the line as things get more and more complex?

If something is actually unrepairable it shouldn't be too much of a burden on manufacturers because there would be no interest in purchasing replacement components for something that is actually irreparable.

>Sadly, we don't live a horse and buggy world anymore where you could just get a new horse or fix a wheel if it stopped working.

Bad faith argument.

Even so, the main argument in right to repair isn't "Oh my gosh everything is so hard and modern nobody can do anything if only we were still repairing something easy like wagons".

The argument is that we should have the right for repairs to occur without unreasonable impediments.

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

#417

Post by maxerickson »

michaelmrose wrote: post #415
maxerickson wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you do that without imposing it on everyone else? I care about consumption (I'm on my 2nd laptop since ~2003), but I don't particularly want to pay $15,000 to replace this one with one that is worse.

The average computer is around 700 including ones that are relatively repairable and ones that are not. Pretending that repairable laptops cost 20 times as much is disingenuous.

(In the comment) They want to be able to source a drop in cpu from 2 different supply chains.

And they want that for every piece and part on the thing.

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

#418

Post by OrwellianChild »

olliej wrote: post #369
6510 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturers want planned obsolesce more than anyone. The problem in my view is that we take limited resources and combine it with slave labor to create landfill. Those few years of usage are not even that relevant. Recycling should be the first goal then repair ability. I think we can do this without the manufacturers drawing the proverbial short straw. Maybe we should get a partial refund when returning expired de…

Apple maintains devices for more than five years, the devices themselves keep on working for far longer than that. It’s got nothing to do with planned obsolescence, new devices get new features because technology makes those features possible. You get non-serviceable devices because users want smaller, faster, better hardware. Any latches, connectors, or sockets are purely subtracting from battery life as that’s the…

I understand this thread is about "repairability" of different product designs, and there are definitely arguments on both sides of that issue that are valid...

I just want to make sure you're not confusing "repairability" with Right to Repair... R2R is not asking for changes to product design - only that replacement parts and documentation are made available in a compulsory way.

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

#419

Post by mentos »

jryan49 wrote: post #228

If you want to help support right to repair (in US) consider donating to Louis Rossmann's GoFundMe for right to repair: https://www.gofundme.com/f/lets-get-right-to-repair-passed?u...

Been a fan of his for years was more than happy to donate to his campaign.

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

#420

Post by ChrisLomont »

passivate wrote: post #348
ChrisLomont wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is glue is cheaper and works better at achieving all those disparate goals?

It doesn't though. It fails when it comes to repairability, re-use and reduction of e-waste. This is the topic of the primary article, and therefore the context for this thread. You can also weld an entire car together to make it cheaper, but this is not something we should celebrate or promote if it impacts the environment in terms of repair. But yes, I value your opinion so don't want to shut you out of the discuss…

>It fails when it comes to repairability, re-use and reduction of e-waste

Around 1.5 billion phones are sold a year. What percent of phones are thrown out due to breaking versus people want an upgrade? Then compare to the costs and waste of using inefficient assembly techniques.

It's also not hard or terribly expensive to get most broken phones fixed at plenty of repair shops.

I think you vastly overestimate the number of phones that become waste due to using glue on parts.

> I'm just saying there are more important things than making sure an executive at Apple or Google pockets a few more $100 bills

I think this type of simplistic framing makes the discussion end, not pointing out that there are good engineering merits for using glue.

I've worked on enough hardware design that needs MIL-SPEC ratings that I know it is highly non-trivial to make things rugged. And that things like glue go a long way towards making it so.

How much increased waste would there be if phones were significantly easier to break?

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