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The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

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Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#81

Post by thomastjeffery »

charcircuit wrote: post #44
zkmon wrote: post #23

I might need an ELI5 here. "Right to repair" as in "right to choose someone who repairs"? Don't think anyone stops you from repairing your own stuff yourself.

It's purpose is to legally force other companies to serve the interests repair shops over consumers. Instead of letting the free market, consumers, dictate what aspects of a device are important repair shops want to be able to profit off of every device and stay relevant even if it results in worse products for the consumer.

The entire point is that companies are vertically integrating the repairs market into their product business. This directly removes competition from the market. The regulation here is to preserve the free market you are advocating for here.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#82

Post by AnthonyMouse »

sokoloff wrote: post #40
glitchc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually this is probably the best way to ensure that price gouging does not happen. The fixed and NRE costs are already included in the price of the original device. Charging those again for replacements would be double-dipping. And the law still leaves it up to OEMs to decide how to cost the replacement, so there's some wiggle room there. This is an intelligently crafted bill.

I don’t agree that Gillette making a profit on razor blades is “double-dipping” and certainly not in a way that I want to prevent. The main point I made is the upthread summary (which appears to be unreviewed ChatGPT spew, adding noise rather than signal to the discussion) of the law is incorrect in an obvious way that the actual bill is not.

The razor blades thing is a problem specifically with the patent system.

The intent of a patent is that you invent something useful and get a temporary monopoly over it as the incentive for the invention. The premise is that the value of the patent is proportional to the value of the invention, and therefore the incentive we want to create for inventing it. If you invent something which is no improvement over the status quo then nobody is going to pay you a premium for it.

The problem comes when you patent an interface, like the connector between a razor handle and a blade. Because then even if the connector is nothing special, the replacement blades have to use that connector and then you get artificial demand for the connector, not because it's such a great connector but because the customer is in the market for blades for their existing razor. It's a mechanism of cheating the patent system by collecting a premium disproportionate to the value of what you invented.

This is even worse in tech products because a phone costs a lot more than a razor, so if you need a part, the amount they can stick you for because there is only one place to get the part is proportional to the value of a $900 phone instead of a $7 razor. And on top of that, they're not trying to sell you replacement parts, they're trying to turn your existing phone into slag so they can sell you a new phone.

Which is why the most important thing is that you can get repair parts from third parties, who both provide competition for parts and actually want to sell them because their primary business is selling repair parts instead of selling new phones.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#83

Post by charcircuit »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #81
charcircuit wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's purpose is to legally force other companies to serve the interests repair shops over consumers. Instead of letting the free market, consumers, dictate what aspects of a device are important repair shops want to be able to profit off of every device and stay relevant even if it results in worse products for the consumer.

The entire point is that companies are vertically integrating the repairs market into their product business. This directly removes competition from the market. The regulation here is to preserve the free market you are advocating for here.

It's possible consumers prefer the vertically integrated model of repair. Increasing competition doesn't necessarily make things better for consumers.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#84

Post by dylan604 »

connicpu wrote: post #73
alpb wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that include all home Starlink devices?

Plus Amazon's Kuiper when it eventually launches

I'm not familiar with BO's rocket offerings other than the New Glenn phallic thingy. I chuckled thinking they'd just have the passengers open the hatch and push the new satellites out and hope they push hard enough to reach orbit.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#86

Post by tomwheeler »

usui wrote: post #64
sleepybrett wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This law does not apply to tractors or game consoles. It's neutered as all fuck. From the article: Of course, these wins come with carve-outs. HB 1483 exempts: Video game consoles Medical devices Motor vehicles Agricultural and construction equipment Security systems and alarm equipment Internet and TV equipment from ISPs Off-road recreational vehicles Large-scale energy storage and solar gear Low earth orbit broadba…

Why do right-to-repair bills always have these kinds of exclusions? These are pretty important categories.

Lobbyists

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#87

Post by dylan604 »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #62
CrimsonCape wrote: post #16

It appears that the Washington bill excluded power tools whereas the Texas bill did not, which means that in Texas I should be able to swap dead lithium cells out of my expensive power tool batteries.

We've been using these at work and they are great! https://ceenr.com/

Just took a look here, and I didn't see anything over 20V offered. I'm in the market for 40V versions for some of my gear.

I also have Gold mount and V-mount type batteries that I'd love to have the cells replaced. If you think power tool batteries are expensive, take a look at film/video batteries!

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#88

Post by freedomben »

ender341341 wrote: post #63
ZeWaka wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting, there's a carveout for video game consoles: > Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to require any original manufacturer or authorized repair provider to make available any parts, tools, or documentation required for the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of a video game console and its components and peripherals. Wonder if Valve/Xbox/Nintendo asked for that, this being Washington State.

Given the support valve provides for the steam deck I'd be surprised if it was them. They seem much more interested in having a viable alternative to keep Microsoft from walling windows in such a way to kill steam than caring that they make the actual devices. I would 100% percent expect both Microsoft & Nintendo to have had a hand in that though.

Yes exactly. If anything, I would expect Valve to support this bill based on how repair-friendly they are. I will admit that over the years I've become a huge Valve fanboy because of their amazing contributions to Linux and making the Steam Deck an open platform, but Valve has really done a ton to make the world a better place. Yes it benefits their business too, but they definitely could have gone more evil than they did, so there's still reason to praise them.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#89

Post by thomastjeffery »

charcircuit wrote: post #83
thomastjeffery wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire point is that companies are vertically integrating the repairs market into their product business. This directly removes competition from the market. The regulation here is to preserve the free market you are advocating for here.

It's possible consumers prefer the vertically integrated model of repair. Increasing competition doesn't necessarily make things better for consumers.

The overwhelming majority of consumers are also employees.

What's better, low prices and low wages, or high prices and high wages? The "Chicago school of macroeconomics" holds the first position. I'm highly critical of that position.

Even if you do agree with the Chicago school, there is a problem: by vertically integrating the repairs market, you take away the consumer's ability to repair their own products. The consumer is forced to pay the business to do the repairs, instead of doing it themselves for free. That's objectively more expensive for the consumer.

By allowing companies to vertically integrate repairs into their product business, we have allowed them to create an entirely new market of rent-seeking. This both monopolizes a service (preventing competition) and adds extra cost to consumers. It doesn't matter what your ideological stance is on economics: this is objectively bad for consumers.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#90

Post by charcircuit »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #89
charcircuit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible consumers prefer the vertically integrated model of repair. Increasing competition doesn't necessarily make things better for consumers.

The overwhelming majority of consumers are also employees. What's better, low prices and low wages, or high prices and high wages? The "Chicago school of macroeconomics" holds the first position. I'm highly critical of that position. Even if you do agree with the Chicago school, there is a problem: by vertically integrating the repairs market, you take away the consumer's ability to repair their own products. The con…

Consumers can still by products they can repair themselves if they value such an aspect of a product. I'd it is an extra cost than that gives a competitive advantage to other products who aren't vertical integrated like that.
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