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Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

nytimes.com

91–100 of 269 posts

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#91
post #37

That will end in another monstrosity like WEEE making entry for hardware startups harder and harder: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electro... Only big players with dedicated departments will comply easily. And about right to repair I have bad experience: broken cable is enough for lots of buyers to throw away electronic appliances. Let’s be honest: majority of users will cause more harm than do…

Which washing machine was that?

Which display was that?

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#92
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in my country and I know some things about it. Germany allows people to sell old cars in Eastern Europe. My country will take those cars without any limits. This is the Europe that I'm living in. Crossing the street in the morning is an exercise of how long can you hold your breath.

Most Eastern European countries are actually doing well compared to the big wealthy countries in terms of CO2. (Not necessarily in terms of other air quality stuff.) https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/greenhous... [see fig 4 about targets for 2020 and actual changes in emissions for 2017 and 2018]

CO2 is fine. The particles from the exhaust are the problem. Did you ever smell an intersection with 20-so diesel cars in it?

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in my country and I know some things about it. Germany allows people to sell old cars in Eastern Europe. My country will take those cars without any limits. This is the Europe that I'm living in. Crossing the street in the morning is an exercise of how long can you hold your breath.

My country also buys used cars off Germany, because people here kind of can't afford brand new ones.

Same thing in Finland. There are new cars here and there but if you take a stroll around a dealership's lot, there are lots of cars shipped from Germany that have been used for a few years.

I think the average age of a registered vehicle here is around 10 years; it's not uncommon at all to see >20yo cars in local traffic and parking lots.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#94
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe on paper they do. In reality you pay 20 Euro as bribe and you can get away with anything.

You should look into VW's scandal and check how much they got fined. Last time I checked it was multiple billions. Something like 10%+ of their annual profit. The only thing you might get away with is bribing a cop for a speeding ticket in some rural part of an eastern EU country. Anything else will eventually be discovered and you'll be fined accordingly. I could understand your personal point of view if you live ea…

I'm not sure what's so bad east of Poland but I'm not there.

However, as I said, with a small bribe you can take out any particle filter here. It's common knowledge.

Besides that, did those VW cars got banned from the streets? No! Does VW pay for my health issues? No! Those money are normal taxes to conduct business in Europe.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#95
post #31

Being guaranteed the right to repair from every manufacturer is great and, more importantly, much needed. Nonetheless, most people abide by the culture fabricated by those very corporations, which is defined by an annual release cycle of devices which are minimally upgraded deliberately, their selling point usually being something visibly different from the previous year's smartphones--currently, being foldable or ha…

Not everybody is changing the phone or computers as often. Say if someone gifts me an old iPhone and the battery is getting old I do not have any Apple store around to replace it, I will be forced to trash a working phone because sending it to the country capital for an approved person to install an approved battery is probably more expensive then buying a new phone.

It wouldn’t make much sense to trash it when the alternative is a battery installed by unapproved person. Or donate it yourself.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#96

This is bound to result in some interesting new paradigms to get around it

As far as I can tell,there is indeed a long-term goal behind this. The idea to shift the economy towards sustainable consumption and a proper circular economy that ideally reduces waste close to zero.

Here's the official website of the initiative: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-economy/index_en.h...

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#97
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Eastern European countries are actually doing well compared to the big wealthy countries in terms of CO2. (Not necessarily in terms of other air quality stuff.) https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/greenhous... [see fig 4 about targets for 2020 and actual changes in emissions for 2017 and 2018]

CO2 is fine. The particles from the exhaust are the problem. Did you ever smell an intersection with 20-so diesel cars in it?

Yeah. :/ I can't wait for banning ICE vehicles from cities.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#98

The article says this is needed in order to reduce greenhouse emissions. I don't feel that's true. In my country in Europe nothing is done to reduce pollution from the cars and plastic usage. Year after year more products are built with plastic instead of glass or metal.

You seem uninformed about multiple EU initiatives, we've been deploying reneables, cleaning up the grid, etc. Our car emissions standards are much stricter than US/China/Russia. Unlike in the US, exporting plastic to the third world is actually illegal. And plastic is a distinct and separate problem to CO2.

Here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gacGuWjqKco&t=579s

You could still argue they are not doing enough, but at least some credit is due.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#99
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should look into VW's scandal and check how much they got fined. Last time I checked it was multiple billions. Something like 10%+ of their annual profit. The only thing you might get away with is bribing a cop for a speeding ticket in some rural part of an eastern EU country. Anything else will eventually be discovered and you'll be fined accordingly. I could understand your personal point of view if you live ea…

I'm not sure what's so bad east of Poland but I'm not there. However, as I said, with a small bribe you can take out any particle filter here. It's common knowledge. Besides that, did those VW cars got banned from the streets? No! Does VW pay for my health issues? No! Those money are normal taxes to conduct business in Europe.

> I'm not sure what's so bad east of Poland but I'm not there

It's known for being a bit less strict and a bit more corrupt than the west. At least from what I gathered from my bulgarian, polish and greek friends and from my own experience over there.

Idk where you live but in France we have mandatory vehicle inspections every 2 years and you definitely can't bribe these guys. You'll get fined if you get caught, like everything else. How else would it work, we can't have daily inspections on every single thing that could potentially be made illegal.

I agree with your last point though, but that's the german auto mafia, these guys get away with a lot.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#100
post #80

When you buy a physical object, such as a home, a car, a shirt, or a smartphone, shouldn't you be be able to repair it, modify it however you want, use it for different purposes, loan it to friends, sell it to others, and so on -- you know, all the rights and benefits associated with the concept of private ownership ? And when you buy a software object, shouldn't you have the same rights and benefits?

Licensing is not the same as purchasing. I don’t think banning the concept of licensing would be helpful.

I think it would be very helpful to demand that all leases are labeled properly. Where we are it says "Buy" on the ad, "Buy" on the button, and "Lease" deep inside the 30-page Terms Of Service.

It's very reasonable to say that the vendors created an expectation of ownership to push their sale.

If you didn't notice that I called them "vendors" instead of "leasers", it adds to my point.

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