Live data from Hacker News

One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

columbianewsservice.com

21–30 of 562 posts

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#22

Sadly, you and I watch a different YouTube than probably 95% of people. Almost nobody I've talked to has heard of Lex or Louis, or Bret Weinstein, or Sean Carroll, and so forth. Just open youtube.com in a private window and you'll understand. Even if the average person watched some of Louis Rossmann's videos on the right to repair, I just don't think the importance of the issue would compute with them. Almost nobody…

It's the same kind of tragedy that happens with free software. I once spent an entire year using nothing but free software, all the way down to the peripheral firmware. It's still important to me, but as I grow older I get more and more important things competing for time, money and attention. Especially things you do outside, away from technology, with other people.

It's all subject to the same FUD too. If every proprietary EULA was replaced with the GPL overnight, and if a webshop where you could buy all the parts to repair anything was to spring up overnight, everybody would still use the same software and devices they know and love, and would not be any worse off than before. But the opponents of either try to make it about protecting the consumers.

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#23
post #18
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s a good analogy. This is like being critiqued on your software architecture by someone who’s never written ‘Hello World’.

Seems more like being critiqued on your software architecture by someone who has to debug your code.

I’d hope that the person debugging my code had written at least one program of their own. If not, I wouldn’t be particularly interested in their opinions on software architecture.

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#24

Rossmann is seriously a national treasure. Along with Lex Fridman the two Youtube personalities irrefutably prove fair mindedness, humility & sincerity is valued. My fears that content online would eventually consist of nothing but selfies, food pics & competitive victimhood are somewhat reduced. I'd like to see Rossmann on Fridman's podcast.

I find Rossman insufferable due to his hyperbolic approach to shaming Apple and having a bone to pick with just about everyone- he's the definition of a narcissist. I agree in principle to "right to repair", but Rossman's motives are purely financial and self promoting. I've watched over 100 hours of his content and realized that his audience is primarily made up of anti-apple PC Master Race fanatics that just want to hear Louis troll apple for an hour.

Rossman always presents himself as the ultimate victim. Apple has it out for him, NY has it out for him, people less successful than him have it out for him. When you've watched as much of his content as I have, you start to see where his head is, and it's not a pretty place. Anyway, I have found other repair guys that are better than Rossman and don't have so much negativity on their channels. I can get a deeper understanding of repairing tech without the hyperbolic commentary.

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#25

Sadly, you and I watch a different YouTube than probably 95% of people. Almost nobody I've talked to has heard of Lex or Louis, or Bret Weinstein, or Sean Carroll, and so forth. Just open youtube.com in a private window and you'll understand. Even if the average person watched some of Louis Rossmann's videos on the right to repair, I just don't think the importance of the issue would compute with them. Almost nobody…

I'm surprised when people don't even know more mainstream science YouTubers like vsauce or veritasium. I've asked a class of ~20 college students whether they know vsauce and I was surprised no one knows him.

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#27

Rossmann is an important voice in the right to repair, however I do feel like he leaned into a certain audience, pandering to them a bit as a reliable target for ad impressions, and it has undermined his credibility. I hear about Rossmann most now when some vicious Apple detractor uses him as an authority on things having nothing to do with repair. For instance Rossmann did a video titled "Apple watching & logging EV…

And last week he released a video titled “The myth & fallacy that one brand is the problem”.

3 days ago “ASUS becomes a meme” with the thumbnail text “ASUS ARE YOU KIDDING”.

The guy runs a Mac repair store. That’s his day business. It doesn’t sound inauthentic that he would have more complaints about Apple products.

Further, as far as right to repair is concerned, it’s undeniable that Apple is easily the worst of the lot, and has used its massive market driving ability to move other companies in that direction as well (although you can still find complete hardware manuals for a Lenovo, HP, etc, which was never possible with Apple).

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#28

Sadly, you and I watch a different YouTube than probably 95% of people. Almost nobody I've talked to has heard of Lex or Louis, or Bret Weinstein, or Sean Carroll, and so forth. Just open youtube.com in a private window and you'll understand. Even if the average person watched some of Louis Rossmann's videos on the right to repair, I just don't think the importance of the issue would compute with them. Almost nobody…

> Just open youtube.com in a private window and you'll understand.

I often don't notice I've been logged out of my Google account until I visit YouTube. It's a bit frightening how dumbed down and scammy the content they recommend by default is.

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#29
post #25

Sadly, you and I watch a different YouTube than probably 95% of people. Almost nobody I've talked to has heard of Lex or Louis, or Bret Weinstein, or Sean Carroll, and so forth. Just open youtube.com in a private window and you'll understand. Even if the average person watched some of Louis Rossmann's videos on the right to repair, I just don't think the importance of the issue would compute with them. Almost nobody…

I'm surprised when people don't even know more mainstream science YouTubers like vsauce or veritasium. I've asked a class of ~20 college students whether they know vsauce and I was surprised no one knows him.

I think a factor is overestimating just how many people 'get into' YouTube culture. Only roughly 74% of American Adults use YouTube[0], and the average daily watch time is only 42 minutes[1], not much time to explore and watch videos outside of your own interests. Vsauce's videos are great (including the recent ones), but they're mostly a remnant of YouTube culture past, and 10-20 million views a video[2] is not a lot in the grand scheme of YouTube's 2 billion strong user base[3].

0: https://www.journalism.org/2021/01/12/news-use-across-social...

1: https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-youtube-advertising-202...

2: https://www.youtube.com/c/vsauce1/videos

3: https://blog.youtube/press/#:~:text=Features-,YouTube%20by,t...

Re: One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

#30
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> since he does circuit board repair for Apple devices. And thus, the insight comes from someone who only repairs the components, not someone who knows about designing them. I wouldn't trust my mechanic to tell me that my car's engine was designed badly because chances are that opinion is solely based on how easy/cheap it is to repair.

Mechanics are generally pretty knowledgeable about reliability of various vehicles and their components generally; many are genuinely interested in these things and not just repairability as it relates to their job. I would imagine something similar is true here

Mechanics can get a slightly biased view on things - for example, they’re more likely to like less reliable vehicle that’s dead simple to work on compared to a more reliable vehicle that’s harder to repair (or they rarely see).
Post reply on HN