Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

My argument was from the standpoint of consumer protection. If environmental protection is your goal, then I would point out a few issues.

Newer products are often more efficient. It's not clear to me that supporting older products is always better for the environment. For example, newer tractors may be orders of magnitude more efficient in fuel consumption and pollution control. I don't know this for a fact but I think there is sufficient precedent to make this assumption for at least some products. Many consumers will favor short-term gains (not having to pay the cost of a new tractor) over long-term solutions (upgrading and recycling equipment).

Leaving aside products that fit into the above category, lets look at an example of a product commonly discarded before it's usable life. Laptops, for example.

Here again it's not clear to me that legislating requirements for spare parts and security updates would make much difference. After 5 years or so all the laptops of average users that I've encountered are in terrible shape. Tons of spyware, extremely slow, and almost unusable. In this case I would usually just erase and reinstall. Now add a broken part to the list. Especially on cheap laptops, components are increasingly integrated so a single broken part could mean replacing essentially 50% of the machine. Laptops are so cheap. What do you think the consumer will chose: pay for the repair and cleanup of an essentially useless machine, or just buy a new one? So often it's the later.

The closed ecosystems that have sprung up thanks to the App Store have actually improved this, but still, in my experience, people tend to just buy something newer (and better) rather than deal with (and wait for) a repair.

I'm not claiming there would be no impact in legislating around this, but I believe it would be small, riddled with holes and problems, and that there are better approaches (to solving environment problems).

Just a wacky example but consider the following.

Manufactures typically design for a particular lifespan (such that no more than a certain % of devices would fail within a specified number of years). The idea is to reduce the amount of devices being trashed, so perhaps we could create tax incentives to encourage (a) longer life spans and (b) better recyclabiltiy.

Ehhh, I'm thinking more along the lines of Stuxnet here. i.e. could something be done that doesn't necessarily destroy the attacked equipment itself, but instead impacts the output in a negative (and hard to trace) form.

Well, sure its grey but it's a finite and definable quantity

Addressing known and reported vulnerabilities would be a start - many routers and phones have known vulnerabilities and can be pwned in minutes.

Then I would include degradation of service - example, I have samsung bluray box that came with YouTube functionality. Withing 1 year that didnt work any more because of changes to youtube. Withing a period of time they should be judged to maintain such software degradations.

Kenwood and Dualit kitchen equipment and Linn hi-fi. Still support products they made in the sixties and seventies, and have provided upgrade routes and repairs for later improvements. In each case those flagship products still exist, are still being made, perhaps with vastly better materials and technology almost incomparable with the original, and spare and repairs are still readily available.

Not too different with Hoover vacuums in the era of the Hoover Senior and Junior -- they stuck around, being repaired and reconditioned easily for decades. Had Hoover or Dyson not gone with cheap throwaway plastic for everything when cyclones meant capability improved in post 1980/1990 models we might have those lasting 30+ years easily too. As is they self destruct in a decade or less as more and more bits break. The (cheap plastic) spares that are available are priced such that you're heavily incentivised to replace. One or two commercial brands still make products that might last a while...

Most of the current kitchen appliance brands are mainly now just worthless logos, usually owned en masse in a larger group, probably after a leveraged hostile buyout. Now made in the same single factory and generate churn with new models every year - for the sake of difference not because there is any improvement, just deliberately changed from the previous. Spare parts might be just filter, lamp or element, often deliberately unique to model, and will be available at vastly inflated price for limited time only.

No end of other examples from hand tools, garage equipment, and home goods through to the most complex products.

That's just an American-centered view-point though. Just because an accent dominates doesn't mean it's not an accent.