Apple backs national right-to-repair bill, offering parts, manuals, and tools

Yes, but as I was attempting to emphasize, the problem is that these same repairs represent "supply chain leaks."

If the operation available to users was to "release their device and all the parts inside it from tracking, such that these parts can then be used to repair any other device" — then these parts would disappear off the face of the earth from a supply-chain perspective, where they could then be stolen from the recycler, from the repair shop, or any number of other intermediaries, before finally making their way into a new device.

(The exception to this "leak" being the one kind of "recycling" that's already permitted: the one where you're releasing the parts from tracking because you're sending them back to the first-party OEM integrator, who can then keep internal supply-chain security for where the parts go from there. I.e., the Apple recycling program.)

The obvious way to prevent the "supply chain leak" would be to change the operation being permitted: rather than "de-identifying" parts so that they're owned by nobody indefinitely until put in a new device; instead, only permit instantaneous transfers, authorized by the current owner at point of transfer, from one device directly into another, such that at all points in time, every part that's left the factory has a legal owner.

I'm a decentralized-systems nerd, so I do realize that you can do something like this without there being one central party who keeps the current supply-chain state of all parts in their own proprietary database. You can use a federated "supply chain transparency" blockchain; design the system so that the validators of this system can elect third-party companies as delegated oracles to then enforce KYC-like identity verification upon signers before they're allowed to perform transactions; etc.

But decentralization in this direction is pointless toward your stated goals, because either it's not decentralized enough to permit individuals as participants (so you inevitably have to lean on some professional, "authorized" repair shop, meaning there is still no actual "right to repair" for individuals); or it's so decentralized that it allows individuals not motivated to repair entry into the system — at which point those individuals have a valuable good (their identity-stake in the system) that they can sell to malicious actors who want to use their identities as "burner identities" (see also: Amazon + eBay sellers buying "aged" and "brushed" accounts to use to perpetrate fraud; people who sell their own email/Discord/etc accounts on carding forums for about a dollar each; etc.) Note how none of the companies talking about "supply chain transparency" are proposing it for the secondary market — only for the primary factory-to-OEM-to-consumer logistical pipeline. For the primary market, it works, because there are a set of known actors who are supposed to be participants in the system, and anyone else is supposed to be kept out. But for the secondary market, this paradigm falls apart.

Alright, you had me doubled over in laughter for a second there. I hope to see John Deere argue the same when their anti-repair reckoning comes, the testimony would be legendary.

> But ignoring that, this "releasing of parts" still harms the end-user — because it gives the grey-market buyers of repair parts — the same ones buying from chop-shops — a channel by which to acquire a stock of the critical missing parts (logic boards!) required to build full new phones out of mostly-otherwise-stolen parts.

Two refutations:

- If this was Apple's end-goal, then they wouldn't stop users from replacing piecemeal components themselves and only use the DRM to prevent complete "ship of Theseus" situations as you are presenting. Even in that scenario, those iPhones are technically refurbished (like it or not) because their processors are OEM.

- By characterizing the secondhand market as gray, you are both acknowledging it has legitimate demand and is a market. If Apple is using their power as an original manufacturer to stop people beyond "minting" new iPhones, it should be stopped. I'm not saying this as a whistleblower, I'm saying this as a genuine regulatory and legislative suggestion.

> But now, by buying 90% chop-shop parts and 10% legitimate released-to-secondary-market logic boards

Then, as I said, force the end-user to authorize the release of the components. Make it some absolutely stupid security theater stuff, to really give people like you something to yap about. Make it a 48 hour process that involves 2 Genius Bar assistants and a remote expert who ensure that you aren't being held at gunpoint by using your Apple Watch to track your blood pressure. Then you both fix the market, give people a nice customer story to help them sleep at night, and let people repair their phones. I'm not asking for the world, it's a trillion-dollar business. Of course I'm going to expect the base-level benevolent conduct from them when regulators don't babysit their every move.

Alternatively, Apple could acknowledge that this is "not their problem" and trying to pretend otherwise is a good way of getting their anticompetitive clock cleaned.