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

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

#91

Post by moron4hire »

have_faith wrote: post #80
me_me_me wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a character assassination post? It really feels like it. Rossmann opensourced his repair manuals and has detailed videos of how to repair equipment, you can literally start your own repair business of that. If that is not being for right to repair I don't know what is. Reading your post again it is a character assassination post. Shifting goalpost and attacking personal characteristics instead of the point.

OP seemed quite open that he sees his right to repair work as important and is simply commenting on the direction his YouTube channel is taking. Not sure what goal posts are being shifted exactly and I can't see what "personal characteristics" are being attacked in any way in what reads as a simple personal opinion.

The line "it has undermined his credibility" changes it from just a comment on personal opinion to an attack.

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

#92

Post by bogwog »

me_me_me wrote: post #67
defaultname wrote: post #3

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…

Is this a character assassination post? It really feels like it. Rossmann opensourced his repair manuals and has detailed videos of how to repair equipment, you can literally start your own repair business of that. If that is not being for right to repair I don't know what is. Reading your post again it is a character assassination post. Shifting goalpost and attacking personal characteristics instead of the point.

Strange how it's still the top comment in this thread, even though it's a personal attack that has nothing to do with the actual topic, or make any attempt to discuss his arguments.

Seems like the type of tactic you'd see from those lobbyist groups that pay money to release commercials claiming right to repair will lead to rape: https://youtu.be/EozPi1qmH44?t=59

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

#93

Post by rdedev »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #87
defaultname wrote: post #3

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…

Interesting. I only stumbled upon one of his repair videos a few years back — was frankly blown away by his meticulous identification and cross referencing of specific chips, his ability to replace surface-mount components. It left me with an appreciation for someone who can dedicate themselves to this depth of esoterica and make something I thought impossible look ... doable by an enthusiast? But from your comment I…

He had a couple of videos where he went looking for buying a new office space. Those were, in his words, the best performing videos of his channel. Real estate stuff. A lot of the people who watch his stuff relate to his frustrations on a personal level

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

#94

Post by VistaBrokeMyPC »

drumhead wrote: post #78
defaultname wrote: post #3

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…

This feels like one of those x is great but.... posts that you see you in NSA or GCHQ manuals about influencing the narrative in an online discussion. I saw a lot of it during the Israeli/Palestinian conflict last week. This post feels the same.

It's unfortunate that the type of "directed discussion" you are referring to works so well. It drives so much engagement to the comment it ends up derailing threads on other sites, i.e. 1000 comments but only a handful of top level ones. I doubt the number of commenters that read like they took a page out of the online misinformation manuals are actually on a payroll to do so, but damn I sure am seeing this stuff often lately.

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

#95

Post by emsy »

ravenstine wrote: post #8

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…

At least the US has personalities like this. In Germany we have all the YT clickbait BS and very few truly brilliant minds that go against the mainstream.

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

#96

Post by JKCalhoun »

protomyth wrote: post #15
judge2020 wrote: post #11

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.

You have a low opinion of your mechanic. Operational knowledge is very important and designs that look good at design time sometimes deal poorly with the world. The iPhone 6 and the butterfly keyboard show designs that were not good in actual operation. Mechanics worth their salt know great engine design beyond easy/cheap to repair. Please don't take this attitude as a developer towards your operations / support staf…

I agree with your comment/sentiment, but to be a little more nuanced: I can tell you that butterfly keyboards suck but I am not qualified to say how they should have been designed.

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

#97

Post by sircastor »

judge2020 wrote: post #11
henriquez wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “The horrible truth about Apple’s repeated engineering failures” This is totally in his wheelhouse and expertise since he does circuit board repair for Apple devices. You can thank YouTube’s algorithm for the inflammatory title.

> 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.

I think you’re not giving him his due credit. He may only be fixing there devices, but that gives him a unique perspective on how the design behaves in the field.

Having watched quite a lot of his videos, he is, at the very least a competent electrical engineer, if not a formally trained one. On top of explaining a problem, he narrates why the problem is happening, which is indicative of solid understanding.

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

#98

Post by neya »

defaultname wrote: post #3

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…

Careful, like another comment pointed out, this sounds like a polished way of character assassination/accusation - that he's trying to squeeze his userbase for monetary gains.

I would argue that most of his userbase is tech savvy and most of them (for example I also watch his videos for references on some ICs/upgrades) have ad-blockers in place.

He has immensely contributed so much to the repair community so much so that many shops in Asia wouldn't even exist if not for his videos. I had one of those keyboard faults on a brand new Macbook Pro. The so called "Genius" jokers didn't even know it was a known issue on their machines. I had to send them a Rossman video just to help them even understand that such a thing was going on. So, I think we should be careful here of not questioning anyone's character without proof/evidence. I mean, we could say the same about Tim Cook too, right? That's why I think this is a bad direction for discussion that will only lead to flame with little value for readers here.

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

#100

Post by xrd »

I wrote a book for O'Reilly that did really poorly in sales.

I added content to show the places I made mistakes in my assumptions about the process, and put in sections in chapters that showed how I troubleshot those errors, and corrected the code.

My editors asked me to remove that code. O'Reilly's brand, IMHO, is having the smartest people in the room talking to you. They don't want content that shows the author making mistakes. I felt like there was an audience for people who want a different voice, but who was I to argue with O'Reilly's success?

Rossman seems like he is talking to that audience, people who aren't experts, and still courageous enough to get something fixed on their own.

YouTube permits him to monetize that audience. I still think there is a huge gap in talking to people who are not experts and intimidated by the experts. There is a massive market for publishing there.

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