28 ms·

A “right to repair” movement tools up

928 points by edward 9y ago

david-cako 9y ago
You can thank Louis Rossmann, in part, for this one. His livelihood does depend on it (although he has acknowledged that, as electronics get more disposable, he will inevitably end up having to shift into something like software or hardware design), but he has made a really admirable effort of actually going boots-on-the-ground and lobbying at political hearings.
- fapjacks 9y ago
  YES. And what an awesome channel he has. Very captivating and relaxing to watch him repair equipment.
  - david-cako 9y ago
    I love his personal philosophy videos. Really sharp guy.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      Only if you agree with a simplistic "taxes bad, equality bad, free markets good" philosophy. I find it rather tiresome and not very thoughtful.
      - david-cako 9y ago
        I'm neutral on his political stances. I think either a strong shift towards extremely free markets (i.e., healthcare and education highly privatized and non-subsidized), or towards highly regulated markets (i.e., healthcare and education fully publicized and price-regulated) would both be a step in the right direction. Either case seems like it lends towards cheaper services. There's something to be said for age old Adam Smith principles, but I think the "FEWER REGULATIONS!" statement requires more nuance than most people who espouse it tend to afford. I feel like we're at the very bottom of a parabolic curve right now where everyone is getting fucked due to fake money being injected into these systems. I think above all, what everyone can agree on, is that the individual should come first, and policy should follow. The amount of large businesses with their hands in politics is really the struggle he's crusading against. I can definitely see where he comes from as a small business owner -- it seems like the same injustice that individuals feel towards certain sections of the upper class is magnified. I think it's helpful to hear small-business owners' side of the argument, because they really are the ones who stand to be hurt most by moving further left, unless done with careful tact.
        KozmoNau7 9y ago
        Denmark is very left-wing compared to the US (still, though our "dear" government is trying to undo that), and yet has been rated one of the best countries to do business in. "Left-wing politics are anti-business" is a huge fallacy.
        fapjacks 9y ago
        Right. His philosophy is "anti-regulatory capture" which is a great philosophy all around.
- samkite 9y ago
  Louis is just an awesome guy. Very smart and just has a way of talking that really captivates me.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  He opened up my eyes too. He's honest, and seems like a moral person. He seems to love what he does, but we need people like him in politics. It's too bad just being honest is so rare these days.
- throwaway613834 9y ago
  He's freaking awesome. Have you seen the videos he has on the kinds of arguments Apple makes to prevent the right-to-repair become a thing? They're quite eye-opening and really gets to the heart of how ridiculous the whole situation is.
  - jackbravo 9y ago
    could you share one?
    - snuxoll 9y ago
      They basically all boil down to trade secrets and "it's dangerous to let people repair these sensitive products". Personally, I don't see how gerber files with board layouts and selling replacement components violates any trade secrets, considering the former is readily reverse-engineered (even if you can't easily determine exact routing for things in layers not on the board surface) and the latter poses them no risk either. As for what boils down to the "people are stupid" argument, that's just BS and they know it.
      - throwaway613834 9y ago
        > They basically all boil down to trade secrets and "it's dangerous to let people repair these sensitive products". Not sure where you saw that (link?), but no, they don't. Watch the video I just linked above on what their lobbyists say.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        > "it's dangerous to let people repair these sensitive products" One has to ask what's really more likely to destroy my life - the glass of the iPhone I clumsily tried to repair, or the shit I wrote on that iPhone...
    - throwaway613834 9y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eyidi2HaMY&t=11m38s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eyidi2HaMY&t=11m38s Listen from that timestamp till 13:10.
- M4v3R 9y ago
  His videos on YouTube when he teaches people how to do board-level Macbook repairs, for free (while advertising his own business of course): https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos Even though I'm a programmer and not really a hardware guy, I find watching him repairing stuff very interesting and oddly satisfying. He often even does all this on a live stream. PS. For some reason most of his videos get a "do you want a website" preroll ad, which is already a running joke on his streams.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > PS. For some reason most of his videos get a "do you want a website" preroll ad, which is already a running joke on his streams. Just got that ad... in Polish. Seriously, what's going on with that? Why always this ad?
MrQuincle 9y ago
Is there something a consumer electronics company can do allowing people to update or upgrade components or firmware in such a way that we are not basically forced to void the warranty?
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Provide breakout headers or pogo pads to the relevant chips. Like, if your pebble had its STM32F439's SWDIO and SWCLK pins broken out, you could probably flash it just like an Arduino if it weren't for the copy/write protection stuff that they likely used. I dunno, what about others? Make several small and removable boards rather than one a single large one? Don't use BGA components whenever possible? Publish your layout schematics, or at least pinouts? But as a manufacturer, why would you do any of that if you don't have to? It'll just let your competitors easily steal your hard work, and 99.9% of people will never use it. The problem comes when Apple makes that sort of thinking part of the zeitgeist when talking about iPhones, and before you know it fucking tractor companies are decides that 'licensing' a product is much better than selling one. I tell you what, I'm just waiting for a high-tech lathe that is 'owned' by some manufacturer to accidentally tear someone's arm off. Or worse, a semi-autonomous warehouse/assembly robot goes haywire around people. If the operator was just licensing it, the owner had better have good insurance.
  - pdelbarba 9y ago
    Most of these chips can actually be flashed no problem. They just have a fuse/bit that disables read over JTAG and to disable that you have to zero the entire device memory. This means that you can put whatever firmware on that you want, but you'll never have access to the old binary code that was running it, so making patches is impossible unless you can either A) rewrite all the firmware from scratch, B) find a way of tricking the existing software into dumping firmware over a port via some sort of overflow, etc or C) glitch the chip into allowing JTAG access with the bit/fuse set (used to be pretty common, more rare these days)
- Fej 9y ago
  In the United States, a company cannot necessarily void your warranty for repairing a device yourself. See the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warran... Of course, that doesn't stop them from trying, and usually succeeding, because the FTC has been de-clawed and no one bothers to sue.
stefco_ 9y ago
I hope at some point we'll start including recycling/disassembly and replacement externalities into price somehow. I don't know how you would do that in a fair way, but it is frustrating that there aren't a ton of corrective market forces to encourage manufacturers to make highly reusable, repairable, recyclable devices. All of this electronics churn is environmentally terrible, and it's frustrating that, as with carbon energy products, the entire world is forced to pay for the environmental externalities rather than the actual tech users. You can make an accelerationist argument about not discouraging tech development and dealing with the problems using more efficient tech in the future, I guess. But I'd honestly rather have electronics cost a bit more and know that manufacturers had a financial interest in maintaining rather than replacing.
- thechao 9y ago
  I always thought that a regulation along the lines of "if you sell it, you must give the customer the ability to dispose of it" would be nice. And, yes, I do think that means Amazon would have to have some sort of bricks-and-mortar operation: at minimum there must be a shop owned by someone, which Amazon has a deal with, that you'd be able to drop your discarded Amajunk off at. Also, I also think we should have a carbon recapture tax added to gasoline, but no one I know really wants to pay an additional tax of 7-10$/gallon.
  - Someone 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibili..., which, in the EU, led to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Substances_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electronic_Equipment_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electroni..., which puts the responsibility on manufacturers, rather than sellers. That takes care of that Amazon problem. As always in the EU, the exact effect of these differs by country (EU directives describe goals, and leave the means to get there to member countries)
  - 5555624 9y ago
SeanDav 9y ago
A long time ago I read a Science Fiction short story about a society where everything was unrepairable, throwaway and came with expiry dates. Does not seem too much like Science Fiction nowadays... EDIT: I wonder if anyone might remember the name of the story: The basic plot is a business man living in a throwaway society manages to convince a dying man to sell him his personally developed car. A car that has been built to last for decades. The business man eventually succeeds by promising to respect the philosophy of the dying man and the manufacturing of machines built to last. As he is driving the magnificent car away he starts thinking of the "improvements" he will make. That loud analogue clock on the dashboard could be replaced by a digital clock and that gear lever knob that could be made from a modern plastic....
- teddyh 9y ago
  You could always ask at https://scifi.stackexchange.com/ https://scifi.stackexchange.com/ and tag your question “story-identification”. It isn’t your story, but I am reminded of Philip K. Dick’s Pay for the Printer from 1956: https://web.archive.org/web/20150509063736/http://www.american-buddha.com/dick.phildickreader.18.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20150509063736/http://www.americ...
- rasz 9y ago
  Dont know that particular one, but Janusz A. Zajdel (one of the best Polish sf writers, up there with Lem of Solaris fame) wrote a short story about total planned obsolescence society "...et in pulverem reverteri" (published in https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7539053-ogon-diab-a https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7539053-ogon-diab-a ) You can read it thru google translate if you are brave enough :) https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=http://zajdel.dzaba.com/zajdel/etin.htm https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=http://... TLDR: Someone invents a catalyst able to revert any product back to dust after precisely set lifetime, every country adopts it to ensure steady employment across whole planet. Pants? 3 monts, wrist watch? 1 year, car? 2 years, etc. Can you guess what could and did go wrong? ;)
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  That seems like somewhat of a weak ending, because there's no reason digital clocks and plastic gear levers can't also last for decades. Also I'll link a sort of inverse to that tale: http://www.eldritchpress.org/owh/shay.html#line01 http://www.eldritchpress.org/owh/shay.html#line01
contingencies 9y ago
The real issue is that consumers are stupid and want to stay stupid which means modular products, being more complicated, are not something they are going to shell out for. It's a lot easier to say "buy this widget for $x a month for 48 months" (classic US example) than to say "what computer do you have? oh you don't know. why don't we arrange for me to have a look at it another day. uhuh. ok well i've taken a look and if we upgrade the graphics card, hard disk and ram we can probably get that working really nicely for you". People just don't care. They want a result now, they want it to have a name, they want it to be marketed, they want to show it off and lord it over their proverbial neighbor. Petty, stupid consumers are the real problem. Fixing this situation, which has accelerated under the influence of commercial media and dwindling state education budgets in many western countries essentially must begin with education and regulation.
- deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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- thatswrong0 9y ago
  Or maybe they aren't stupid and they're simply acting in their own self-interest, which means not wasting their time with unnecessarily more complicated products that offer little to them in return. Or maybe they do want the products they use to be status symbols. Or maybe they simply don't share your point of view. This doesn't mean they're necessarily stupid, it means they're different from you.
  - contingencies 9y ago
    OK so it was a strong choice of words, but anyone who doesn't care about the environment and waste is really shortsighted by definition. Is that 'stupid'? Maybe not. Maybe you can make an edge case and claim they are self-interested and that's OK from your philosophical stance. But I firmly believe that, in a world most intelligent people would like to live in, it is stupid.
  - 9y ago
walrus1066 9y ago
It's still doable, and lots of great online guides and videos on how to repair smartphones, laptops etc. I replaced my smartphone earpiece, following an ifixit.com guide. Was initially daunted, given the expense of the handset, but it just took a set of mini screwdrivers and a wedge, 20 minutes, and has been working good as new for the last 3 months. Very satisfying experience.
- Infernal 9y ago
  I had a similar experience, with my iPhone 6 wifi/bluetooth/GPS antenna. Started seeing degraded connectivity and Googled around till I had it narrowed down to that antenna. Was nervous about ripping it apart so first took it to the Apple store with my diagnosis - they said the only choice was to buy a new phone. So, I borrowed my buddy's pentalobe driver set and about an hour later had pulled the logic board out, replaced the antenna, and buttoned it all back up. That's been about a year ago and it's still working perfectly. And the new antenna was something like $6 on Amazon...
  - userbinator 9y ago
    ...and chances are that was simply a solder joint or similar that cracked from the vibration of normal use, since antennae absolutely do not "wear out" from just transmitting or receiving.
    - Infernal 9y ago
      Oh absolutely, it uses an attachment that is kind of like a very tiny 9-volt battery terminal, with a nub on one side and a circular spring clip on the other. The one of the four spring clips on the antenna broke off and remained attached to the logic board as I recall, so just had to pop the now-orphaned clip off the logic board after removing the antenna and snap the new one into place.
- jpindar 9y ago
  Yep. I replaced my Nexus 4's USB connector (and the separate little PCB it's mounted on). It was really easy. The hardest part was getting the case open, which took some patience.
yahna 9y ago
How about right to use your stuff how you want? Like not paying 10s of thousands for a Tesla that has a clause against using autopilot with ride sharing services other than Tesla.
- 4ad 9y ago
  Where do I find all this mythical stuff that I want? I want a new car with no software, no computers, no GPS, no radio, no power windows, no keyless entry, no thermostat. Where do I find it? Realistically I can only chose between crap I don't want. And if I buy an older car, not only I have to deal with problems that would otherwise be avoidable if I bought a new car, but the government doesn't want me to use old cars. Great freedom of choice. What a life.
  - zvpxdlk 9y ago
    Build your own car that fits your dreams perfectly. You have plenty of freedom to choose to do that
    - 4ad 9y ago
      Actually, no, you don't. Where I live it's almost impossible to make any kind of artisanal car street-legal.
  - leopoldo 9y ago
    You know what? I got your answer, I have this beautiful 0-mile device without all those gadgets and crap. No keyless entry, no GPS, no radio, no (power)windows, no thermostat, minor software and computers (just to control the engine and emmissions). If you want add-ons you add them yourself: - GPS -> mount your smartphone - Thermostat -> more/less clothes - Radio -> get a bluetooth headset for your helmet - The list can go on and on... You just described my motorcycle! Beautiful 0-miles engine (took it out of the dealership this week). It has no unnecessary stuff and that's what I love the most about it. I do pretty much all the maintenance myself and the community of motorcycle riders is very supportive and helpful to do so. Now... Why isn't there a car company that builds cars on the same level of complexity? I know comfort/luxury sells. But there should be a tier of cars that are easily serviceable. Meanwhile, I highly recommend you get a motorcycle :)
jokoon 9y ago
Planned obsolescence is why I will never invest more than 100 euros into a phone. I will always wait to buy low-priced, fast enough for me hardware. I still remember how my macbook pro started to be slow and unusable after OSX updates. My real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years. I know software is evolving quickly, but there comes a point where I don't think you need to upgrade your hardware, the hardware is just fast enough to do certain things with today's software. At one point, software should stop changing so often. Then maybe we won't need to toss hardware anymore. I don't like Apple products, but it surely is funny that they realized they were making durable products and started to see it as a problem.
- juanuys 9y ago
  > At one point, software should stop changing so often. Save for security fixes, but I agree. Sometimes software is "done".
- tjr 9y ago
  My current MacBook Pro is at about seven years; feeling like about time to replace it, just to be able to stay current.
- nicky0 9y ago
  In my recent experience, my Mac has got faster after each macOS update. They seem to be putting a lot of effort into performance. I'm just not seening the evidence of this "planned obsolescence". I would put it on the level of a conspiracy theory. Little hard evidence in favour, but anecdoes accepted as fact by those inclined to believe them. As a counter-anecdote, as it happens I'm typing this on my 2011 Mac mini, my main work machine, which is still going strong. Just upgraded to High Sierra - the seventh major OS version this machine has seen. It's working well and and no sign of Apple trying to force me to buy anything new.
  - alphaalpha101 9y ago
    Apple products don't really seem to display this much. Maybe it's why (or because) they cost twice as much as products from other manufacturers.
xoa 9y ago
I will admit that I am not a fan of the "right to repair" movement in terms of what I've seen from it so far when it comes to actual legislative proposals, and I also find a lot of the way it talks down to current consumers and market forces distasteful and short sighted. I can absolutely see how in some areas of production narrowly tailored rules might be beneficial in terms of efforts manufacturers make to prevent repair purely for anti-competitive reasons. But there are at least two critical, legitimate benefits/tradeoffs (and in turn questions) that more broad based efforts have to address in my opinion. I'm going to use Apple as an example here given they're a legitimate example of both and also big and broadly well known. 1: Security. The fact is that there is an absolutely enormous (and growing) amount of value in a fully trusted hardware stack. Apple has taken a lot of flack from "right to repair" over issues like not being able to "repair" the Touch ID, but I haven't seen any great answers over how to allow any random 3rd party to repair Touch ID without also meaning any random malicious 3rd party (including legitimate repair shops in some scenarios) could replace it with something hostile too. I actively do not want anyone but Apple to be able to mess with the hardware authentication chain on my iPhone, even though I do support legislation to (and have written to my reps in favor of) require manufactures to allow users to additionally add their own master keys for running software on top of it. Having the option to minimize the number parties who can alter your hardware is something that has value. I think a well crafted system might be able to square this via dual chains that an owner could pick on purchase and appropriate manufacturer liability mitigations. So for example you could choose "only Apple may ever modify the trusted core of this device" or "anyone with the key can" and in each case Apple would utilize a separate root private key. In the former case it'd be like right now where Apple never shares that, in the latter they'd offer signed leafs to anyone who asked so any 3rd party could make the repair (and sign off on it) instead. In the latter case Apple would also be relieved of all liability for any damage ever done due to a 3rd party Touch ID repair, though I suppose in practice they might still face legitimate PR damage (but that should be able to be minimized if it's clear enough that the owner willingly gave up protections). 2: Active/Dumb Matter ratios and dynamic flexibility: The other issue is that "repairability" in many of the formulations I see in HN and other tech community discussions comes with a lot of costs of its own that aren't address. A trivial, super common example is the battery. It's hard to go a single mobile phone discussion without somebody complaining about how they want the trivially replaceable batteries of yore. However, there are fundamental tradeoffs there in terms of actual basic physics. A user swappable battery has to have physical connectors capable of repeated usage. It cannot be soldered on. The battery itself must have its own safe case. The phone case must be altered to allow the swapping which requires structural compromises vs a solid piece. The battery must generally be a reasonably simple geometric shape, rather then whatever arbitrary shape the manufacturer wants to maximize volume in relation to other facts of the internal design. All of which ultimately boils down to lots of extra matter that isn't battery or phone. There isn't any way around that with current technology. A smartphone using a non-swappable battery will always fundamentally have more single capacity, be lighter, or both, and of course can still just utilize an external battery pack if bulk is not an issue and more between-charge run time is necessary. Swappable has its own use case, but it's not a slam dunk at all nor is it a conspiracy nor are regular consumers "stupid" for preferring a different balance of trade offs. This same sort of tradeoffs happens elsewhere, where more integration allows for fundamentally more efficient and superior performing designs at the cost of making it harder to repair. And this too is an environmental issue: across billions of phones, extra dead matter adds up all by itself. ---- I'm not saying that there isn't abuse, that complaints about John Deere and the like aren't justified, or that there is no room for better rules. But particularly with electronics a lot of these questions really do seem like they're best answered by the markets, and that legislation should first be focused purely on making those more efficient (by ensuring that externalities from total lifecycle costs are all in the price up front for example). Any legislation directly interfering should be treated cautiously and given a lot of careful consideration. I'm worried that much of the movement I've seen so far is too focused on its own narrow use cases rather then the general population, and not giving a sufficient level of thoughtfulness to how different areas of the overall world market face different use and threat scenarios. A lot of tech people have a bad habit of calling incredibly smart people "dumb" for sharing different priorities wrt technology, and failing in turn to consider whether their cases can be addressed without it being a zero-sum game. I don't want to see the proverbial baby thrown out with the bath water here is all.
shmerl 9y ago
DRM anti-circumvention provisions also should be repealed for good.
supernintendo 9y ago
Does anyone know what the best, most-serviceable laptop is in 2017? Looking for something with decent hardware and Linux support. It seems like the trend is toward soldered-on parts.
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Look into Clevo/Sager resellers. Places like System76. They can be hit-or-miss - I've had one excellent machine that lasted 6 years, but also one terrible experience with a borked GPU that put me off of them more or less permanently. Getting any sort of support or repairs for parts that you can't replace yourself is difficult. Still, they tend to have highly modular, easy-to-swap-out parts. Hard drives, wireless cards, RAM, keyboards, battery, it's usually all removable and they sell spares for custom parts like the keyboards. Many of their devices even have a full CPU socket on the motherboard, so you could keep a good one running for a very long time. If you luck out and get a good one.
  - userbinator 9y ago
    Those also tend to be very large, gaming-oriented, desktop replacement "laptops", so not ideal for everyone looking for something they can actually keep on their lap for any length of time. They're so modular because they're designed like a desktop, with lots of full-size parts and little emphasis on thinness. If by "borked GPU" you're referring to the nVidia BGA failures, those weren't the fault of the laptop manufacturer. HP and Toshiba, among others, were affected severely by that too.
    - leggomylibro 9y ago
      It's been a little while since I looked, but they did used to make smaller and more portable models even though their lines definitely skew towards hulking powerhouses. I remember the 11" W110ER fondly; it was tiny, but it still had a discrete GPU. Those were the days...as much as I love the small ARM Chromebooks, they do lack power for most sorts of realtime rendering applications. I'm not sure what the exact issue was, but I got a new machine with a card that hung under reproducible conditions (as well as seemingly random ones) over several operating systems and use cases. I thought that BGA issues mostly came after a little while of thermal stressing on the boards and the footprint. But you never know; shit happens.
deleted 9y ago
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amelius 9y ago
Why don't we just pay for services instead of buying products? This pushes the problem of maintenance to the service provider, thus making it more efficient and thus cheaper and more environment-friendly. Also, it completely eliminates the problem of planned obsolescence. There are some downsides, such as that usage of the service outside the contract becomes impossible, so contracts should be sufficiently broad (and not targeting just the average people). And you don't "own" your product (which could be a psychological problem). But I guess that's about it.
- BartSaM 9y ago
  Now, when Steam decides that you have violated their ToS in some way, they will close your account and lock you out of everything you bought. This happens, rarely, but happens. Do you want to be dependant on an idea of a corporation that they will treat you fair? Are you OK to give away your washing machine and oven just because you had troubles with finances and you missed one payment?
  - amelius 9y ago
    You have a point, but if the law catches up with this idea, then I don't think this should be a problem. I.e., stronger rights for people who use services.
    - TimTheTinker 9y ago
      Goods and services are always (and will always be) separate for those at the top of the economic food chain. Why should it be different for those who are less privileged? Looks like a likely avenue for exploiting or at least taking control/power/freedom from other people. Don’t count on service quality laws to make up the disparity caused by losing the right to full ownership of one’s property.
      - amelius 9y ago
        > Goods and services are always (and will always be) separate for those at the top of the economic food chain. Why should it be different for those who are less privileged? Looks like a likely avenue for exploiting or at least taking control/power/freedom from other people. Can you come up with a concrete scenario? > Don’t count on service quality laws to make up the disparity caused by losing the right to full ownership of one’s property. Yeah, but now we're fighting for the "right to repair". And we need to fight for the "right of a clean environment". And a "right of no planned obsolescence". Seems much more complicated to me than just getting the incentives right in the first place.
quickben 9y ago
As the era of high interest rates is about to return, this 'right to repair' will be more pronounced. Not because of some ideology, but because people will have to repair electronics.
feelin_googley 9y ago
"In the future, repairability is likely to become even more of an issue, says Kyle Wiens, iFixit's chief executive. Not only do firms want customers to use authorised dealers, but a growing number of products are also no longer stand-alone devices, but rather delivery vehicles for services that generate additional revenues." Gee, I wonder who started that trend?
- snuxoll 9y ago
  Hey, you think this is bad - look at enterprise networking gear. Cisco and Juniper try to convince people it's illegal to use "grey market" (resold) equipment because the software license is "non-transferrable", so even if you "own" the hardware you don't have a license for the software attached to it. Of course, this flies in the face of the first-sale doctrine and established case law, but they don't care. Just wait, somebody is going to try it with consumer devices sooner or later.
  - hydrogen18 9y ago
    So MegaCorp A buys a huge amount of Cisco gear to modern their internal networks in all their infrastructure. Two years later OmniCorp B enters into a deal to add them to their portfolio for whatever price they agreed upon. OmniCorp B now owns the physical Cisco gear but doesn't have a license to use it?
    - convolvatron 9y ago
      how big of a customer is OmniCorp?
      - hydrogen18 9y ago
        Someone on the scale of Atlas Copco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Copco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Copco
- mastax 9y ago
  Gillette? Having started to use a safety razor recently, I'm starting to think that the impetus for moving to cartridge razors was just to make the refills harder to interchange and less of a commodity.
valuearb 9y ago
If I want my laptop to be a lighter thinner appliance glued together in an aluminum body so tightly that it’s super tough and resistant to damage, will I still be able to have that?
- dx034 9y ago
  In reality, most parts will still not be glued but use screws. And even if it's glued, replacing it shouldn't be an issue if the company sells the equipment?
deleted 9y ago
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diego_moita 9y ago
Honorable mention to the coffee grinders' manufacturer Baratza. They publish detailed instructions on how to repair their grinders, make videos showing how it's done, sell replacement parts and recommend service centers. [0]https://www.baratza.com https://www.baratza.com
- dmerrick 9y ago
  Didn't know this, and I have one of these. They're expensive but worth it, and even more so know that I know this!
- pfooti 9y ago
  This actually factored into my purchasing decision when I got a baratza grinder. I'd been using a hand crank burr grinder for about a year, and figured it was worth getting an electric one. Mine is pretty easy to disassemble, there's mods available (mostly ways to trick it out) and I've taken it apart to adjust the grind already (plus to clean it and so on). For me, it was youtube videos of the grinders being used / reassembled / cleaned that made up my mind. I mean, if you're going to spend $200+ on a grinder, it's nice to know ahead of time that you can fiddle with it.
m3kw9 9y ago
You get more bulky and expensive device for the right to repair. Would not want that.
- NegativeLatency 9y ago
  Some people would, and do want that.
- bo1024 9y ago
  I think you are confusing two different problems with repair (the article does not do a great job distinguishing them). 1) Difficulty to repair because of physical design, e.g. goods that are physically challenging to open and modify or require specialized tools. This is often a reasonable side-effect of making devices as small or light as possible. I.e. making it physically difficult to repair. 2) Erecting legal barriers to repair by asserting that people may not legally attempt to repair or modify things they "own", using DMCA or copyright laws. I.e., making it illegal even to try. As far as I know, the right to repair movement is centered around #2 and does not address #1. If it does address #1, I would guess it's only for cases where a company purposely makes something physically more difficult to repair for a reason unrelated to functionality, e.g. invents a new fastener with no functional advantage over a screw but that requires a multi-thousand dollar device to open. But again, right-to-repair is almost exclusively about #2 as far as I know. (edit) actually, a lot of people in the thread are making the same conflation.
  - dx034 9y ago
    In addition to legal barriers, #2 can also be about specialised parts that are not documented and not sold (officially). E.g. inventing new screws just to make it harder to open a case.
noam87 9y ago
I've been thinking recently that there is exists a completely unxplored market in tech. Local shops based around FOSS / open hardware where designers, hardware and software people work together to build custom projects for their clients. I would call this person a "technology artisan", because the closest analogue I can think of is a tailor or a carpinter. So, for example, a family would go to their local technology artisan to put together a smart home system tailored specifically to their needs. Or perhaps a local band would commision some custom-made Raspberry Pi-based synthesizer with fancy lights for a show (https://youtu.be/_nBK8sAl9nw https://youtu.be/_nBK8sAl9nw) To the consumer, it would mean not only devices tailored to their needs, but also ones that are cheap and simple to get repaired and extended, because they would be based on open standards. No lock-ins, no secret surveilance. What makes me think this is possible is how big the hobby space is around all these hackable technologies (raspberry pi / arduino, 3D printing, electronics)... people are already building home media centres and farm bots in their back yard just for fun. Hacker spaces are already a thing -- make them a service!
- orf 9y ago
  Wouldn't that be insanely expensive compared to off the shelf solutions and result in a hodge-podge of insecure, half baked solutions?
  - seppin 9y ago
    yep
  - wtallis 9y ago
    > a hodge-podge of insecure, half baked solutions? That's exactly what the commercial market of Internet of Things devices is so far. You couldn't really make it worse by putting a replaceable ESP8266 or BeagleBone at the heart of each of these gadgets.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    After two or three similar people have had their custom thingy build the next person could use the "off the shelf" open source solution with a little customization.
microcolonel 9y ago
I think the trend of reclassifying popular commodities or opportunities as "rights" is pretty tacky, and ultimately counterproductive. What you should really want, if you like reparability, is a market for reparable goods. In general, it will be more costly than mass-produced integrated goods, but foisting repair opportunities onto every consumer product will ultimately make people less satisfied with the products on the market, and it will make those products less accessible (and more expensive). As for cars, I think there's a real market opportunity to make your cars exceptionally open to repair, but I don't think mandating it is a good idea. Especially as powertrain designs become more and more complex, the likelihood that you will be able to correctly reassemble them dwindles. The onus must remain on the customers and technicians to meet the technical demands of repair. A line in the sand must be drawn between "difficult to repair" and "illegal to repair". The first is at the hands of the customer, the second, the legislature. As for software, sure, the DMCA is unfair, it should have been struck down long ago. It is being abused constantly, and serves little or no practical purpose except to enable abuse.
- LambdaComplex 9y ago
  Nothing is being "reclassified." Look at John Deere tractors - thanks to the licensing of the software running on those tractors, combined with the DMCA, people do not have the right to repair them. Yes, they bought the tractor, but they will be breaking the law if they fix the tractor themselves. Being able to work on a machine you own sounds much more like a "right" than an "opportunity" to me.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    I'm specifically not arguing for the DMCA provisions which legally protect physical objects based on the copyright on data encoded in them. That is not the whole of what is being argued for, though. Repair is not a right, ownership is. The problem here is that the DMCA allows something that you consider your property to be ultimately owned by somebody else even after you purchase it. The problem with smartphones is entirely separate, it's a question of convenience and practicality for third-party repair shops and people who can afford repair tooling for their own devices. I object to the idea that manufacturers should have a duty to package and sell separately replacement parts for their goods on the open market.
jxramos 9y ago
This article taught me about Liam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYshVbcEmUc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYshVbcEmUc "It is also investing in technology that makes it easier to recycle its products, such as Liam, a robot for disassembling iPhones." Very cool!
karllager 9y ago
I am the proud owner of a Laptop, that I can enjoy for years to come, since I can upgrade and replace disks, RAM and battery (hint: it's the last Macbook Pro that allowed this). Recently my smartphone battery died and I could order a new one for less than $10 and replace it in 20 seconds. Both devices are more that four years old but I am not going to replace them with something, that does not have at least this amount of repairability. Smartphones and laptops with soldered batteries, RAM or SSD? Come on, these things are not throwaway devices - even if this is what marketing wants you to believe.
altitudinous 9y ago
I did not read the article. However with the rise of denser technologies and mass assembly by machines in order to achieve a price point and manufacturing volume it is inevitable that we won't be able to repair items ourselves. That is just the way it is. I wouldn't want to overanalyse it. You might want to repair something yourself but you are in a minority and the market wants to buy products for cheap and throw them away at end of life.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  The market is not God, and what it wants is not cast in stone. The current market practices are wasteful, antisocial and unsustainable, but the market only gives a damn if there's enough pressure for it.
a1studmuffin 9y ago
I'd be willing to replace my one-off expensive tech purchases with a subscription model for a specific hardware manufacturer instead. The subscription would get you your device (smartphone, car, fridge etc.) and ongoing support & servicing. You'd be entitled to an upgrade at a predetermined interval. I'd hope this scheme would be good for the consumer as they'd find it easier to budget (spread out regular payments), good for the environment as manufacturers would no longer have any incentive to make things hard to repair (forced upgrade cycles, ecosystem lock-in), and good for the manufacturer as they could focus less on forced upgrade cycles and more on a quality product to keep the consumer subscribed.
- driverdan 9y ago
  You're describing the traditional cell phone financing model in the US. It's not good because it costs more and locks you into the provider.
AceyMan 9y ago
Anyone in this thread know or should know THE GUY who tackles these considerations from the orthogonal position — AvE ("Arduinio vs Evil"). He cracks gear open before he's ever turned it on to look for build quality and/or any janky crap, then reassembles and runs it after. (No, he's not batting 1.000, but he's good.) Classic teardown here of some sweet gear from the <hint> fourth smallest country (area) in Europe (0m37s, 1m06s & 1m21s are +1 moments, btw.) URL, https://youtu.be/Yt2z6hEnQBs https://youtu.be/Yt2z6hEnQBs I'm behind on the comments but I hope someone linked back to the "It Should Last Fifty Years" thread from the past ~12 mo or so: highly relevant to the topic at hand.
- thix0tr0pic 9y ago
  for the curious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13909365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13909365
  - AceyMan 9y ago
    That's the one. It's action packed mech eng banter, in a good way.
kartickv 9y ago
Won't the issue take care of itself if: 1) Companies are taxed for the all the environmental pollution they case and 2) The minimum warranty period is 5 years. If the device fails before that, the company should lend you a replacement for the remainder of the warranty period, or refund a prorated amount.
- yann63 9y ago
  > The minimum warranty period is 5 years Why 5 years? Why not 4 or 6? Actually, I think the warranty period should increase, always. For example by one month every year. So a product sold in 2017 has a warranty of 2 years (24 months). A product sold in 2018 would have a warranty of 25 months. A product sold in 2019 would have a warranty of 26 months. And so on... This would encourage (force!) companies R&D to always improve products, but at a sustainable speed. Of course the figures given above should be tweaked better, maybe start at 3 or 4 years warranty very soon, increase by 1, 2 or 3 months per year, I don't know.
  - kartickv 9y ago
    > Why 5 years? Why not 4 or 6? Maybe it can be 6 instead of 5. That's an unnecessary detail for you to obsess about at this point. Instead focus on the larger issue, which is that governments should force companies to give a much longer warranty period than the typical 1 year. That will make companies design for longevity, reducing costs for customers and environmental damage.
winterismute 9y ago
Can't read the article, but for the folks in London or around in the UK, you should check out this company, they organize events to promote repair culture and workshop (also as company events) where experts will teach you how to fix common problems: https://therestartproject.org/ https://therestartproject.org/
- J_Sherz 9y ago
  This is really cool, the data collection part reminds me of those water fountains at airports that tell you how many plastic water bottles they've kept out of landfill - that kind of feedback is very motivating. Would love to know if something like this exists in New York.
NicoJuicy 9y ago
Well, i love Mercedes as a car. I only don't like the electronics. Some franchise here in my neighboorhood ( belgium) has bought every garage in 50 km's. Since they are ridiculous expensive ( eg. my uncle got charged 80 € for grabbing a part from the garage, that was excluding the part cost ...). It's me last Benz, my cousins also. Except if i can find one without electronics.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  Get an old 1977-85 240d or 300d. It will be slow (like, seriously slow), but will run basically forever with maintenance that is mostly very DIY friendly, and it will be surprisingly frugal, partly because of the diesel engine and partly because it will kill any ambition to speed. The OM616 and OM617 are some of the most reliable car engines ever produced.
gjem97 9y ago
I really get frustrated at how many small appliances I end up throwing out. It just doesn't make sense to repair a food processor that breaks. This stuff that's made with a plastic housing doesn't last more than 5 years in my house. Then I look over at my Kitchenaid mixer. You know the iconic one that would look right at home in the kitchen of the 1960s. It's constructed durably, it's repairable, and people go out of their way to spend more to get it. I can get it repaired if it breaks. Why can't all appliances be like my Kitchenaid mixer?
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Because people would complain at spending Kitchenaid mixer prices for a toaster. But, that being said, I completely agree with you.
  - gjem97 9y ago
    You could sell a Kitchenaid-mixer quality toaster for much less than a Kitchenaid mixer.
- GhostVII 9y ago
  > Why can't all appliances be like my Kitchenaid mixer? Because people don't like to spend extra for quality products. For most appliances, there are brands that sell quality versions which will last for years, but lots of people just look for the lowest priced one with the features that they want, and buy it.
  - kps 9y ago
    Because people have been bitten by products and brands being milked, keeping higher price but not higher quality.
  - jpindar 9y ago
    Also most stores prefer to stock lower priced items.
  - gjem97 9y ago
ghostly_s 9y ago
Why do links to paywalled articles get posted here?
api_or_ipa 9y ago
I will say I particularly enjoy the Jeep communities DIY or die attitude about fixing their vehicles. The dealership may not support them anymore, but plenty of great individuals pick up the slack and sell parts that often improve on original flaws. Mr Blaine from Black Magic Brakes is a great example. http://www.blackmagicbrakes.com/ http://www.blackmagicbrakes.com/
- tmccrmck 9y ago
  My 1995 Jeep Cherokee is the reason why I'm weary of too much electronics in cars. And I'm a serial electronics tinkerer. Need a new engine? Do it yourself. Need a new alternator? No problem. Install larger tires? There's a million kits out there ready for anyone to do it. And since there's so many enthusiasts out there it's really cheap. I needed a new door so I bought one for a hundred bucks and installed it myself in 20 minutes.
theyregreat 9y ago
As mentioned, Louis Rossmann and others has been out there campaigning for R2R. http://youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup http://youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup The bigger problem is it is unlikely to happen in the current political climate because of corrupting money of big corporations buying politicians. Campaign finance reform and kick out the billionaires’ lackeys: crooked politicians and their lobbyist pimps, is a necessary prerequisite to getting public commonwealth issues addressed with sensible policies. Only when DC is cleaner can actual legislation benefiting the people happen instead of subsidizing the very rich even more.
Chiba-City 9y ago
These are complex consumer taxing drip feeds of information, upgrades, service faults, repair services and so forth. It seems to mostly feed dumps. Slightly industrial grade hardware is often field repairable. I go for new or refurbed durable low depreciation tools worth mastering. Emacs, weather sealed camera gear or even cookware are examples. Otherwise I use low power almost disposable Chromebook, Chromecast and Moto-G away from a Linux box with cheap reasonable dumb screens and bluetooth speakers. The haptics of consumer tools are churned far too easily for business models. Windows XP showed how too slowly depreciating good enough assets in the field upset vendors. Constant maintenance and futzing are taxes outside actually advancing any state of the art. I don't drive living in a midstory DC building together saving about +50% of typical American transport and HVAC power budgets. And I don't sport shop or even eat energy intensive packaged food mysteries. Good and operationally efficient habits can go well enough with software and city living.

928 points by edward 9y ago

You can thank Louis Rossmann, in part, for this one. His livelihood does depend on it (although he has acknowledged that, as electronics get more disposable, he will inevitably end up having to shift into something like software or hardware design), but he has made a really admirable effort of actually going boots-on-the-ground and lobbying at political hearings.

fapjacks 9y ago
YES. And what an awesome channel he has. Very captivating and relaxing to watch him repair equipment.
- david-cako 9y ago
  I love his personal philosophy videos. Really sharp guy.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    Only if you agree with a simplistic "taxes bad, equality bad, free markets good" philosophy. I find it rather tiresome and not very thoughtful.
    - david-cako 9y ago
      I'm neutral on his political stances. I think either a strong shift towards extremely free markets (i.e., healthcare and education highly privatized and non-subsidized), or towards highly regulated markets (i.e., healthcare and education fully publicized and price-regulated) would both be a step in the right direction. Either case seems like it lends towards cheaper services. There's something to be said for age old Adam Smith principles, but I think the "FEWER REGULATIONS!" statement requires more nuance than most people who espouse it tend to afford. I feel like we're at the very bottom of a parabolic curve right now where everyone is getting fucked due to fake money being injected into these systems. I think above all, what everyone can agree on, is that the individual should come first, and policy should follow. The amount of large businesses with their hands in politics is really the struggle he's crusading against. I can definitely see where he comes from as a small business owner -- it seems like the same injustice that individuals feel towards certain sections of the upper class is magnified. I think it's helpful to hear small-business owners' side of the argument, because they really are the ones who stand to be hurt most by moving further left, unless done with careful tact.
      - KozmoNau7 9y ago
        Denmark is very left-wing compared to the US (still, though our "dear" government is trying to undo that), and yet has been rated one of the best countries to do business in. "Left-wing politics are anti-business" is a huge fallacy.
      - fapjacks 9y ago
        Right. His philosophy is "anti-regulatory capture" which is a great philosophy all around.
samkite 9y ago
Louis is just an awesome guy. Very smart and just has a way of talking that really captivates me.
icantdrive55 9y ago
He opened up my eyes too. He's honest, and seems like a moral person. He seems to love what he does, but we need people like him in politics. It's too bad just being honest is so rare these days.
throwaway613834 9y ago
He's freaking awesome. Have you seen the videos he has on the kinds of arguments Apple makes to prevent the right-to-repair become a thing? They're quite eye-opening and really gets to the heart of how ridiculous the whole situation is.
- jackbravo 9y ago
  could you share one?
  - snuxoll 9y ago
    They basically all boil down to trade secrets and "it's dangerous to let people repair these sensitive products". Personally, I don't see how gerber files with board layouts and selling replacement components violates any trade secrets, considering the former is readily reverse-engineered (even if you can't easily determine exact routing for things in layers not on the board surface) and the latter poses them no risk either. As for what boils down to the "people are stupid" argument, that's just BS and they know it.
    - throwaway613834 9y ago
      > They basically all boil down to trade secrets and "it's dangerous to let people repair these sensitive products". Not sure where you saw that (link?), but no, they don't. Watch the video I just linked above on what their lobbyists say.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      > "it's dangerous to let people repair these sensitive products" One has to ask what's really more likely to destroy my life - the glass of the iPhone I clumsily tried to repair, or the shit I wrote on that iPhone...
  - throwaway613834 9y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eyidi2HaMY&t=11m38s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eyidi2HaMY&t=11m38s Listen from that timestamp till 13:10.
M4v3R 9y ago
His videos on YouTube when he teaches people how to do board-level Macbook repairs, for free (while advertising his own business of course): https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos Even though I'm a programmer and not really a hardware guy, I find watching him repairing stuff very interesting and oddly satisfying. He often even does all this on a live stream. PS. For some reason most of his videos get a "do you want a website" preroll ad, which is already a running joke on his streams.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > PS. For some reason most of his videos get a "do you want a website" preroll ad, which is already a running joke on his streams. Just got that ad... in Polish. Seriously, what's going on with that? Why always this ad?

MrQuincle 9y ago

Is there something a consumer electronics company can do allowing people to update or upgrade components or firmware in such a way that we are not basically forced to void the warranty?

leggomylibro 9y ago
Provide breakout headers or pogo pads to the relevant chips. Like, if your pebble had its STM32F439's SWDIO and SWCLK pins broken out, you could probably flash it just like an Arduino if it weren't for the copy/write protection stuff that they likely used. I dunno, what about others? Make several small and removable boards rather than one a single large one? Don't use BGA components whenever possible? Publish your layout schematics, or at least pinouts? But as a manufacturer, why would you do any of that if you don't have to? It'll just let your competitors easily steal your hard work, and 99.9% of people will never use it. The problem comes when Apple makes that sort of thinking part of the zeitgeist when talking about iPhones, and before you know it fucking tractor companies are decides that 'licensing' a product is much better than selling one. I tell you what, I'm just waiting for a high-tech lathe that is 'owned' by some manufacturer to accidentally tear someone's arm off. Or worse, a semi-autonomous warehouse/assembly robot goes haywire around people. If the operator was just licensing it, the owner had better have good insurance.
- pdelbarba 9y ago
  Most of these chips can actually be flashed no problem. They just have a fuse/bit that disables read over JTAG and to disable that you have to zero the entire device memory. This means that you can put whatever firmware on that you want, but you'll never have access to the old binary code that was running it, so making patches is impossible unless you can either A) rewrite all the firmware from scratch, B) find a way of tricking the existing software into dumping firmware over a port via some sort of overflow, etc or C) glitch the chip into allowing JTAG access with the bit/fuse set (used to be pretty common, more rare these days)
Fej 9y ago
In the United States, a company cannot necessarily void your warranty for repairing a device yourself. See the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warran... Of course, that doesn't stop them from trying, and usually succeeding, because the FTC has been de-clawed and no one bothers to sue.

stefco_ 9y ago

I hope at some point we'll start including recycling/disassembly and replacement externalities into price somehow. I don't know how you would do that in a fair way, but it is frustrating that there aren't a ton of corrective market forces to encourage manufacturers to make highly reusable, repairable, recyclable devices. All of this electronics churn is environmentally terrible, and it's frustrating that, as with carbon energy products, the entire world is forced to pay for the environmental externalities rather than the actual tech users. You can make an accelerationist argument about not discouraging tech development and dealing with the problems using more efficient tech in the future, I guess. But I'd honestly rather have electronics cost a bit more and know that manufacturers had a financial interest in maintaining rather than replacing.

thechao 9y ago
I always thought that a regulation along the lines of "if you sell it, you must give the customer the ability to dispose of it" would be nice. And, yes, I do think that means Amazon would have to have some sort of bricks-and-mortar operation: at minimum there must be a shop owned by someone, which Amazon has a deal with, that you'd be able to drop your discarded Amajunk off at. Also, I also think we should have a carbon recapture tax added to gasoline, but no one I know really wants to pay an additional tax of 7-10$/gallon.
- Someone 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibili..., which, in the EU, led to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Substances_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electronic_Equipment_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electroni..., which puts the responsibility on manufacturers, rather than sellers. That takes care of that Amazon problem. As always in the EU, the exact effect of these differs by country (EU directives describe goals, and leave the means to get there to member countries)
- 5555624 9y ago

SeanDav 9y ago

A long time ago I read a Science Fiction short story about a society where everything was unrepairable, throwaway and came with expiry dates. Does not seem too much like Science Fiction nowadays... EDIT: I wonder if anyone might remember the name of the story: The basic plot is a business man living in a throwaway society manages to convince a dying man to sell him his personally developed car. A car that has been built to last for decades. The business man eventually succeeds by promising to respect the philosophy of the dying man and the manufacturing of machines built to last. As he is driving the magnificent car away he starts thinking of the "improvements" he will make. That loud analogue clock on the dashboard could be replaced by a digital clock and that gear lever knob that could be made from a modern plastic....

teddyh 9y ago
You could always ask at https://scifi.stackexchange.com/ https://scifi.stackexchange.com/ and tag your question “story-identification”. It isn’t your story, but I am reminded of Philip K. Dick’s Pay for the Printer from 1956: https://web.archive.org/web/20150509063736/http://www.american-buddha.com/dick.phildickreader.18.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20150509063736/http://www.americ...
rasz 9y ago
Dont know that particular one, but Janusz A. Zajdel (one of the best Polish sf writers, up there with Lem of Solaris fame) wrote a short story about total planned obsolescence society "...et in pulverem reverteri" (published in https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7539053-ogon-diab-a https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7539053-ogon-diab-a ) You can read it thru google translate if you are brave enough :) https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=http://zajdel.dzaba.com/zajdel/etin.htm https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=http://... TLDR: Someone invents a catalyst able to revert any product back to dust after precisely set lifetime, every country adopts it to ensure steady employment across whole planet. Pants? 3 monts, wrist watch? 1 year, car? 2 years, etc. Can you guess what could and did go wrong? ;)
Dylan16807 9y ago
That seems like somewhat of a weak ending, because there's no reason digital clocks and plastic gear levers can't also last for decades. Also I'll link a sort of inverse to that tale: http://www.eldritchpress.org/owh/shay.html#line01 http://www.eldritchpress.org/owh/shay.html#line01

contingencies 9y ago

The real issue is that consumers are stupid and want to stay stupid which means modular products, being more complicated, are not something they are going to shell out for. It's a lot easier to say "buy this widget for $x a month for 48 months" (classic US example) than to say "what computer do you have? oh you don't know. why don't we arrange for me to have a look at it another day. uhuh. ok well i've taken a look and if we upgrade the graphics card, hard disk and ram we can probably get that working really nicely for you". People just don't care. They want a result now, they want it to have a name, they want it to be marketed, they want to show it off and lord it over their proverbial neighbor. Petty, stupid consumers are the real problem. Fixing this situation, which has accelerated under the influence of commercial media and dwindling state education budgets in many western countries essentially must begin with education and regulation.

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thatswrong0 9y ago
Or maybe they aren't stupid and they're simply acting in their own self-interest, which means not wasting their time with unnecessarily more complicated products that offer little to them in return. Or maybe they do want the products they use to be status symbols. Or maybe they simply don't share your point of view. This doesn't mean they're necessarily stupid, it means they're different from you.
- contingencies 9y ago
  OK so it was a strong choice of words, but anyone who doesn't care about the environment and waste is really shortsighted by definition. Is that 'stupid'? Maybe not. Maybe you can make an edge case and claim they are self-interested and that's OK from your philosophical stance. But I firmly believe that, in a world most intelligent people would like to live in, it is stupid.
- 9y ago

walrus1066 9y ago

It's still doable, and lots of great online guides and videos on how to repair smartphones, laptops etc. I replaced my smartphone earpiece, following an ifixit.com guide. Was initially daunted, given the expense of the handset, but it just took a set of mini screwdrivers and a wedge, 20 minutes, and has been working good as new for the last 3 months. Very satisfying experience.

Infernal 9y ago
I had a similar experience, with my iPhone 6 wifi/bluetooth/GPS antenna. Started seeing degraded connectivity and Googled around till I had it narrowed down to that antenna. Was nervous about ripping it apart so first took it to the Apple store with my diagnosis - they said the only choice was to buy a new phone. So, I borrowed my buddy's pentalobe driver set and about an hour later had pulled the logic board out, replaced the antenna, and buttoned it all back up. That's been about a year ago and it's still working perfectly. And the new antenna was something like $6 on Amazon...
- userbinator 9y ago
  ...and chances are that was simply a solder joint or similar that cracked from the vibration of normal use, since antennae absolutely do not "wear out" from just transmitting or receiving.
  - Infernal 9y ago
    Oh absolutely, it uses an attachment that is kind of like a very tiny 9-volt battery terminal, with a nub on one side and a circular spring clip on the other. The one of the four spring clips on the antenna broke off and remained attached to the logic board as I recall, so just had to pop the now-orphaned clip off the logic board after removing the antenna and snap the new one into place.
jpindar 9y ago
Yep. I replaced my Nexus 4's USB connector (and the separate little PCB it's mounted on). It was really easy. The hardest part was getting the case open, which took some patience.

yahna 9y ago

How about right to use your stuff how you want? Like not paying 10s of thousands for a Tesla that has a clause against using autopilot with ride sharing services other than Tesla.

4ad 9y ago
Where do I find all this mythical stuff that I want? I want a new car with no software, no computers, no GPS, no radio, no power windows, no keyless entry, no thermostat. Where do I find it? Realistically I can only chose between crap I don't want. And if I buy an older car, not only I have to deal with problems that would otherwise be avoidable if I bought a new car, but the government doesn't want me to use old cars. Great freedom of choice. What a life.
- zvpxdlk 9y ago
  Build your own car that fits your dreams perfectly. You have plenty of freedom to choose to do that
  - 4ad 9y ago
    Actually, no, you don't. Where I live it's almost impossible to make any kind of artisanal car street-legal.
- leopoldo 9y ago
  You know what? I got your answer, I have this beautiful 0-mile device without all those gadgets and crap. No keyless entry, no GPS, no radio, no (power)windows, no thermostat, minor software and computers (just to control the engine and emmissions). If you want add-ons you add them yourself: - GPS -> mount your smartphone - Thermostat -> more/less clothes - Radio -> get a bluetooth headset for your helmet - The list can go on and on... You just described my motorcycle! Beautiful 0-miles engine (took it out of the dealership this week). It has no unnecessary stuff and that's what I love the most about it. I do pretty much all the maintenance myself and the community of motorcycle riders is very supportive and helpful to do so. Now... Why isn't there a car company that builds cars on the same level of complexity? I know comfort/luxury sells. But there should be a tier of cars that are easily serviceable. Meanwhile, I highly recommend you get a motorcycle :)

jokoon 9y ago

Planned obsolescence is why I will never invest more than 100 euros into a phone. I will always wait to buy low-priced, fast enough for me hardware. I still remember how my macbook pro started to be slow and unusable after OSX updates. My real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years. I know software is evolving quickly, but there comes a point where I don't think you need to upgrade your hardware, the hardware is just fast enough to do certain things with today's software. At one point, software should stop changing so often. Then maybe we won't need to toss hardware anymore. I don't like Apple products, but it surely is funny that they realized they were making durable products and started to see it as a problem.

juanuys 9y ago
> At one point, software should stop changing so often. Save for security fixes, but I agree. Sometimes software is "done".
tjr 9y ago
My current MacBook Pro is at about seven years; feeling like about time to replace it, just to be able to stay current.
nicky0 9y ago
In my recent experience, my Mac has got faster after each macOS update. They seem to be putting a lot of effort into performance. I'm just not seening the evidence of this "planned obsolescence". I would put it on the level of a conspiracy theory. Little hard evidence in favour, but anecdoes accepted as fact by those inclined to believe them. As a counter-anecdote, as it happens I'm typing this on my 2011 Mac mini, my main work machine, which is still going strong. Just upgraded to High Sierra - the seventh major OS version this machine has seen. It's working well and and no sign of Apple trying to force me to buy anything new.
- alphaalpha101 9y ago
  Apple products don't really seem to display this much. Maybe it's why (or because) they cost twice as much as products from other manufacturers.

xoa 9y ago

I will admit that I am not a fan of the "right to repair" movement in terms of what I've seen from it so far when it comes to actual legislative proposals, and I also find a lot of the way it talks down to current consumers and market forces distasteful and short sighted. I can absolutely see how in some areas of production narrowly tailored rules might be beneficial in terms of efforts manufacturers make to prevent repair purely for anti-competitive reasons. But there are at least two critical, legitimate benefits/tradeoffs (and in turn questions) that more broad based efforts have to address in my opinion. I'm going to use Apple as an example here given they're a legitimate example of both and also big and broadly well known. 1: Security. The fact is that there is an absolutely enormous (and growing) amount of value in a fully trusted hardware stack. Apple has taken a lot of flack from "right to repair" over issues like not being able to "repair" the Touch ID, but I haven't seen any great answers over how to allow any random 3rd party to repair Touch ID without also meaning any random malicious 3rd party (including legitimate repair shops in some scenarios) could replace it with something hostile too. I actively do not want anyone but Apple to be able to mess with the hardware authentication chain on my iPhone, even though I do support legislation to (and have written to my reps in favor of) require manufactures to allow users to additionally add their own master keys for running software on top of it. Having the option to minimize the number parties who can alter your hardware is something that has value. I think a well crafted system might be able to square this via dual chains that an owner could pick on purchase and appropriate manufacturer liability mitigations. So for example you could choose "only Apple may ever modify the trusted core of this device" or "anyone with the key can" and in each case Apple would utilize a separate root private key. In the former case it'd be like right now where Apple never shares that, in the latter they'd offer signed leafs to anyone who asked so any 3rd party could make the repair (and sign off on it) instead. In the latter case Apple would also be relieved of all liability for any damage ever done due to a 3rd party Touch ID repair, though I suppose in practice they might still face legitimate PR damage (but that should be able to be minimized if it's clear enough that the owner willingly gave up protections). 2: Active/Dumb Matter ratios and dynamic flexibility: The other issue is that "repairability" in many of the formulations I see in HN and other tech community discussions comes with a lot of costs of its own that aren't address. A trivial, super common example is the battery. It's hard to go a single mobile phone discussion without somebody complaining about how they want the trivially replaceable batteries of yore. However, there are fundamental tradeoffs there in terms of actual basic physics. A user swappable battery has to have physical connectors capable of repeated usage. It cannot be soldered on. The battery itself must have its own safe case. The phone case must be altered to allow the swapping which requires structural compromises vs a solid piece. The battery must generally be a reasonably simple geometric shape, rather then whatever arbitrary shape the manufacturer wants to maximize volume in relation to other facts of the internal design. All of which ultimately boils down to lots of extra matter that isn't battery or phone. There isn't any way around that with current technology. A smartphone using a non-swappable battery will always fundamentally have more single capacity, be lighter, or both, and of course can still just utilize an external battery pack if bulk is not an issue and more between-charge run time is necessary. Swappable has its own use case, but it's not a slam dunk at all nor is it a conspiracy nor are regular consumers "stupid" for preferring a different balance of trade offs. This same sort of tradeoffs happens elsewhere, where more integration allows for fundamentally more efficient and superior performing designs at the cost of making it harder to repair. And this too is an environmental issue: across billions of phones, extra dead matter adds up all by itself. ---- I'm not saying that there isn't abuse, that complaints about John Deere and the like aren't justified, or that there is no room for better rules. But particularly with electronics a lot of these questions really do seem like they're best answered by the markets, and that legislation should first be focused purely on making those more efficient (by ensuring that externalities from total lifecycle costs are all in the price up front for example). Any legislation directly interfering should be treated cautiously and given a lot of careful consideration. I'm worried that much of the movement I've seen so far is too focused on its own narrow use cases rather then the general population, and not giving a sufficient level of thoughtfulness to how different areas of the overall world market face different use and threat scenarios. A lot of tech people have a bad habit of calling incredibly smart people "dumb" for sharing different priorities wrt technology, and failing in turn to consider whether their cases can be addressed without it being a zero-sum game. I don't want to see the proverbial baby thrown out with the bath water here is all.

shmerl 9y ago

DRM anti-circumvention provisions also should be repealed for good.

supernintendo 9y ago

Does anyone know what the best, most-serviceable laptop is in 2017? Looking for something with decent hardware and Linux support. It seems like the trend is toward soldered-on parts.

leggomylibro 9y ago
Look into Clevo/Sager resellers. Places like System76. They can be hit-or-miss - I've had one excellent machine that lasted 6 years, but also one terrible experience with a borked GPU that put me off of them more or less permanently. Getting any sort of support or repairs for parts that you can't replace yourself is difficult. Still, they tend to have highly modular, easy-to-swap-out parts. Hard drives, wireless cards, RAM, keyboards, battery, it's usually all removable and they sell spares for custom parts like the keyboards. Many of their devices even have a full CPU socket on the motherboard, so you could keep a good one running for a very long time. If you luck out and get a good one.
- userbinator 9y ago
  Those also tend to be very large, gaming-oriented, desktop replacement "laptops", so not ideal for everyone looking for something they can actually keep on their lap for any length of time. They're so modular because they're designed like a desktop, with lots of full-size parts and little emphasis on thinness. If by "borked GPU" you're referring to the nVidia BGA failures, those weren't the fault of the laptop manufacturer. HP and Toshiba, among others, were affected severely by that too.
  - leggomylibro 9y ago
    It's been a little while since I looked, but they did used to make smaller and more portable models even though their lines definitely skew towards hulking powerhouses. I remember the 11" W110ER fondly; it was tiny, but it still had a discrete GPU. Those were the days...as much as I love the small ARM Chromebooks, they do lack power for most sorts of realtime rendering applications. I'm not sure what the exact issue was, but I got a new machine with a card that hung under reproducible conditions (as well as seemingly random ones) over several operating systems and use cases. I thought that BGA issues mostly came after a little while of thermal stressing on the boards and the footprint. But you never know; shit happens.

deleted 9y ago

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amelius 9y ago

Why don't we just pay for services instead of buying products? This pushes the problem of maintenance to the service provider, thus making it more efficient and thus cheaper and more environment-friendly. Also, it completely eliminates the problem of planned obsolescence. There are some downsides, such as that usage of the service outside the contract becomes impossible, so contracts should be sufficiently broad (and not targeting just the average people). And you don't "own" your product (which could be a psychological problem). But I guess that's about it.

BartSaM 9y ago
Now, when Steam decides that you have violated their ToS in some way, they will close your account and lock you out of everything you bought. This happens, rarely, but happens. Do you want to be dependant on an idea of a corporation that they will treat you fair? Are you OK to give away your washing machine and oven just because you had troubles with finances and you missed one payment?
- amelius 9y ago
  You have a point, but if the law catches up with this idea, then I don't think this should be a problem. I.e., stronger rights for people who use services.
  - TimTheTinker 9y ago
    Goods and services are always (and will always be) separate for those at the top of the economic food chain. Why should it be different for those who are less privileged? Looks like a likely avenue for exploiting or at least taking control/power/freedom from other people. Don’t count on service quality laws to make up the disparity caused by losing the right to full ownership of one’s property.
    - amelius 9y ago
      > Goods and services are always (and will always be) separate for those at the top of the economic food chain. Why should it be different for those who are less privileged? Looks like a likely avenue for exploiting or at least taking control/power/freedom from other people. Can you come up with a concrete scenario? > Don’t count on service quality laws to make up the disparity caused by losing the right to full ownership of one’s property. Yeah, but now we're fighting for the "right to repair". And we need to fight for the "right of a clean environment". And a "right of no planned obsolescence". Seems much more complicated to me than just getting the incentives right in the first place.

quickben 9y ago

As the era of high interest rates is about to return, this 'right to repair' will be more pronounced. Not because of some ideology, but because people will have to repair electronics.

feelin_googley 9y ago

"In the future, repairability is likely to become even more of an issue, says Kyle Wiens, iFixit's chief executive. Not only do firms want customers to use authorised dealers, but a growing number of products are also no longer stand-alone devices, but rather delivery vehicles for services that generate additional revenues." Gee, I wonder who started that trend?

snuxoll 9y ago
Hey, you think this is bad - look at enterprise networking gear. Cisco and Juniper try to convince people it's illegal to use "grey market" (resold) equipment because the software license is "non-transferrable", so even if you "own" the hardware you don't have a license for the software attached to it. Of course, this flies in the face of the first-sale doctrine and established case law, but they don't care. Just wait, somebody is going to try it with consumer devices sooner or later.
- hydrogen18 9y ago
  So MegaCorp A buys a huge amount of Cisco gear to modern their internal networks in all their infrastructure. Two years later OmniCorp B enters into a deal to add them to their portfolio for whatever price they agreed upon. OmniCorp B now owns the physical Cisco gear but doesn't have a license to use it?
  - convolvatron 9y ago
    how big of a customer is OmniCorp?
    - hydrogen18 9y ago
      Someone on the scale of Atlas Copco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Copco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Copco
mastax 9y ago
Gillette? Having started to use a safety razor recently, I'm starting to think that the impetus for moving to cartridge razors was just to make the refills harder to interchange and less of a commodity.

valuearb 9y ago

If I want my laptop to be a lighter thinner appliance glued together in an aluminum body so tightly that it’s super tough and resistant to damage, will I still be able to have that?

dx034 9y ago
In reality, most parts will still not be glued but use screws. And even if it's glued, replacing it shouldn't be an issue if the company sells the equipment?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

diego_moita 9y ago

Honorable mention to the coffee grinders' manufacturer Baratza. They publish detailed instructions on how to repair their grinders, make videos showing how it's done, sell replacement parts and recommend service centers. [0]https://www.baratza.com https://www.baratza.com

dmerrick 9y ago
Didn't know this, and I have one of these. They're expensive but worth it, and even more so know that I know this!
pfooti 9y ago
This actually factored into my purchasing decision when I got a baratza grinder. I'd been using a hand crank burr grinder for about a year, and figured it was worth getting an electric one. Mine is pretty easy to disassemble, there's mods available (mostly ways to trick it out) and I've taken it apart to adjust the grind already (plus to clean it and so on). For me, it was youtube videos of the grinders being used / reassembled / cleaned that made up my mind. I mean, if you're going to spend $200+ on a grinder, it's nice to know ahead of time that you can fiddle with it.

m3kw9 9y ago

You get more bulky and expensive device for the right to repair. Would not want that.

NegativeLatency 9y ago
Some people would, and do want that.
bo1024 9y ago
I think you are confusing two different problems with repair (the article does not do a great job distinguishing them). 1) Difficulty to repair because of physical design, e.g. goods that are physically challenging to open and modify or require specialized tools. This is often a reasonable side-effect of making devices as small or light as possible. I.e. making it physically difficult to repair. 2) Erecting legal barriers to repair by asserting that people may not legally attempt to repair or modify things they "own", using DMCA or copyright laws. I.e., making it illegal even to try. As far as I know, the right to repair movement is centered around #2 and does not address #1. If it does address #1, I would guess it's only for cases where a company purposely makes something physically more difficult to repair for a reason unrelated to functionality, e.g. invents a new fastener with no functional advantage over a screw but that requires a multi-thousand dollar device to open. But again, right-to-repair is almost exclusively about #2 as far as I know. (edit) actually, a lot of people in the thread are making the same conflation.
- dx034 9y ago
  In addition to legal barriers, #2 can also be about specialised parts that are not documented and not sold (officially). E.g. inventing new screws just to make it harder to open a case.

noam87 9y ago

I've been thinking recently that there is exists a completely unxplored market in tech. Local shops based around FOSS / open hardware where designers, hardware and software people work together to build custom projects for their clients. I would call this person a "technology artisan", because the closest analogue I can think of is a tailor or a carpinter. So, for example, a family would go to their local technology artisan to put together a smart home system tailored specifically to their needs. Or perhaps a local band would commision some custom-made Raspberry Pi-based synthesizer with fancy lights for a show (https://youtu.be/_nBK8sAl9nw https://youtu.be/_nBK8sAl9nw) To the consumer, it would mean not only devices tailored to their needs, but also ones that are cheap and simple to get repaired and extended, because they would be based on open standards. No lock-ins, no secret surveilance. What makes me think this is possible is how big the hobby space is around all these hackable technologies (raspberry pi / arduino, 3D printing, electronics)... people are already building home media centres and farm bots in their back yard just for fun. Hacker spaces are already a thing -- make them a service!

orf 9y ago
Wouldn't that be insanely expensive compared to off the shelf solutions and result in a hodge-podge of insecure, half baked solutions?
- seppin 9y ago
  yep
- wtallis 9y ago
  > a hodge-podge of insecure, half baked solutions? That's exactly what the commercial market of Internet of Things devices is so far. You couldn't really make it worse by putting a replaceable ESP8266 or BeagleBone at the heart of each of these gadgets.
- adrianN 9y ago
  After two or three similar people have had their custom thingy build the next person could use the "off the shelf" open source solution with a little customization.

microcolonel 9y ago

I think the trend of reclassifying popular commodities or opportunities as "rights" is pretty tacky, and ultimately counterproductive. What you should really want, if you like reparability, is a market for reparable goods. In general, it will be more costly than mass-produced integrated goods, but foisting repair opportunities onto every consumer product will ultimately make people less satisfied with the products on the market, and it will make those products less accessible (and more expensive). As for cars, I think there's a real market opportunity to make your cars exceptionally open to repair, but I don't think mandating it is a good idea. Especially as powertrain designs become more and more complex, the likelihood that you will be able to correctly reassemble them dwindles. The onus must remain on the customers and technicians to meet the technical demands of repair. A line in the sand must be drawn between "difficult to repair" and "illegal to repair". The first is at the hands of the customer, the second, the legislature. As for software, sure, the DMCA is unfair, it should have been struck down long ago. It is being abused constantly, and serves little or no practical purpose except to enable abuse.

LambdaComplex 9y ago
Nothing is being "reclassified." Look at John Deere tractors - thanks to the licensing of the software running on those tractors, combined with the DMCA, people do not have the right to repair them. Yes, they bought the tractor, but they will be breaking the law if they fix the tractor themselves. Being able to work on a machine you own sounds much more like a "right" than an "opportunity" to me.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  I'm specifically not arguing for the DMCA provisions which legally protect physical objects based on the copyright on data encoded in them. That is not the whole of what is being argued for, though. Repair is not a right, ownership is. The problem here is that the DMCA allows something that you consider your property to be ultimately owned by somebody else even after you purchase it. The problem with smartphones is entirely separate, it's a question of convenience and practicality for third-party repair shops and people who can afford repair tooling for their own devices. I object to the idea that manufacturers should have a duty to package and sell separately replacement parts for their goods on the open market.

jxramos 9y ago

This article taught me about Liam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYshVbcEmUc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYshVbcEmUc "It is also investing in technology that makes it easier to recycle its products, such as Liam, a robot for disassembling iPhones." Very cool!

karllager 9y ago

I am the proud owner of a Laptop, that I can enjoy for years to come, since I can upgrade and replace disks, RAM and battery (hint: it's the last Macbook Pro that allowed this). Recently my smartphone battery died and I could order a new one for less than $10 and replace it in 20 seconds. Both devices are more that four years old but I am not going to replace them with something, that does not have at least this amount of repairability. Smartphones and laptops with soldered batteries, RAM or SSD? Come on, these things are not throwaway devices - even if this is what marketing wants you to believe.

altitudinous 9y ago

I did not read the article. However with the rise of denser technologies and mass assembly by machines in order to achieve a price point and manufacturing volume it is inevitable that we won't be able to repair items ourselves. That is just the way it is. I wouldn't want to overanalyse it. You might want to repair something yourself but you are in a minority and the market wants to buy products for cheap and throw them away at end of life.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
The market is not God, and what it wants is not cast in stone. The current market practices are wasteful, antisocial and unsustainable, but the market only gives a damn if there's enough pressure for it.

a1studmuffin 9y ago

I'd be willing to replace my one-off expensive tech purchases with a subscription model for a specific hardware manufacturer instead. The subscription would get you your device (smartphone, car, fridge etc.) and ongoing support & servicing. You'd be entitled to an upgrade at a predetermined interval. I'd hope this scheme would be good for the consumer as they'd find it easier to budget (spread out regular payments), good for the environment as manufacturers would no longer have any incentive to make things hard to repair (forced upgrade cycles, ecosystem lock-in), and good for the manufacturer as they could focus less on forced upgrade cycles and more on a quality product to keep the consumer subscribed.

driverdan 9y ago
You're describing the traditional cell phone financing model in the US. It's not good because it costs more and locks you into the provider.

AceyMan 9y ago

Anyone in this thread know or should know THE GUY who tackles these considerations from the orthogonal position — AvE ("Arduinio vs Evil"). He cracks gear open before he's ever turned it on to look for build quality and/or any janky crap, then reassembles and runs it after. (No, he's not batting 1.000, but he's good.) Classic teardown here of some sweet gear from the <hint> fourth smallest country (area) in Europe (0m37s, 1m06s & 1m21s are +1 moments, btw.) URL, https://youtu.be/Yt2z6hEnQBs https://youtu.be/Yt2z6hEnQBs I'm behind on the comments but I hope someone linked back to the "It Should Last Fifty Years" thread from the past ~12 mo or so: highly relevant to the topic at hand.

thix0tr0pic 9y ago
for the curious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13909365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13909365
- AceyMan 9y ago
  That's the one. It's action packed mech eng banter, in a good way.

kartickv 9y ago

Won't the issue take care of itself if: 1) Companies are taxed for the all the environmental pollution they case and 2) The minimum warranty period is 5 years. If the device fails before that, the company should lend you a replacement for the remainder of the warranty period, or refund a prorated amount.

yann63 9y ago
> The minimum warranty period is 5 years Why 5 years? Why not 4 or 6? Actually, I think the warranty period should increase, always. For example by one month every year. So a product sold in 2017 has a warranty of 2 years (24 months). A product sold in 2018 would have a warranty of 25 months. A product sold in 2019 would have a warranty of 26 months. And so on... This would encourage (force!) companies R&D to always improve products, but at a sustainable speed. Of course the figures given above should be tweaked better, maybe start at 3 or 4 years warranty very soon, increase by 1, 2 or 3 months per year, I don't know.
- kartickv 9y ago
  > Why 5 years? Why not 4 or 6? Maybe it can be 6 instead of 5. That's an unnecessary detail for you to obsess about at this point. Instead focus on the larger issue, which is that governments should force companies to give a much longer warranty period than the typical 1 year. That will make companies design for longevity, reducing costs for customers and environmental damage.

winterismute 9y ago

Can't read the article, but for the folks in London or around in the UK, you should check out this company, they organize events to promote repair culture and workshop (also as company events) where experts will teach you how to fix common problems: https://therestartproject.org/ https://therestartproject.org/

J_Sherz 9y ago
This is really cool, the data collection part reminds me of those water fountains at airports that tell you how many plastic water bottles they've kept out of landfill - that kind of feedback is very motivating. Would love to know if something like this exists in New York.

NicoJuicy 9y ago

Well, i love Mercedes as a car. I only don't like the electronics. Some franchise here in my neighboorhood ( belgium) has bought every garage in 50 km's. Since they are ridiculous expensive ( eg. my uncle got charged 80 € for grabbing a part from the garage, that was excluding the part cost ...). It's me last Benz, my cousins also. Except if i can find one without electronics.

KozmoNau7 9y ago
Get an old 1977-85 240d or 300d. It will be slow (like, seriously slow), but will run basically forever with maintenance that is mostly very DIY friendly, and it will be surprisingly frugal, partly because of the diesel engine and partly because it will kill any ambition to speed. The OM616 and OM617 are some of the most reliable car engines ever produced.

gjem97 9y ago

I really get frustrated at how many small appliances I end up throwing out. It just doesn't make sense to repair a food processor that breaks. This stuff that's made with a plastic housing doesn't last more than 5 years in my house. Then I look over at my Kitchenaid mixer. You know the iconic one that would look right at home in the kitchen of the 1960s. It's constructed durably, it's repairable, and people go out of their way to spend more to get it. I can get it repaired if it breaks. Why can't all appliances be like my Kitchenaid mixer?

JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Because people would complain at spending Kitchenaid mixer prices for a toaster. But, that being said, I completely agree with you.
- gjem97 9y ago
  You could sell a Kitchenaid-mixer quality toaster for much less than a Kitchenaid mixer.
GhostVII 9y ago
> Why can't all appliances be like my Kitchenaid mixer? Because people don't like to spend extra for quality products. For most appliances, there are brands that sell quality versions which will last for years, but lots of people just look for the lowest priced one with the features that they want, and buy it.
- kps 9y ago
  Because people have been bitten by products and brands being milked, keeping higher price but not higher quality.
- jpindar 9y ago
  Also most stores prefer to stock lower priced items.
- gjem97 9y ago

ghostly_s 9y ago

Why do links to paywalled articles get posted here?

api_or_ipa 9y ago

I will say I particularly enjoy the Jeep communities DIY or die attitude about fixing their vehicles. The dealership may not support them anymore, but plenty of great individuals pick up the slack and sell parts that often improve on original flaws. Mr Blaine from Black Magic Brakes is a great example. http://www.blackmagicbrakes.com/ http://www.blackmagicbrakes.com/

tmccrmck 9y ago
My 1995 Jeep Cherokee is the reason why I'm weary of too much electronics in cars. And I'm a serial electronics tinkerer. Need a new engine? Do it yourself. Need a new alternator? No problem. Install larger tires? There's a million kits out there ready for anyone to do it. And since there's so many enthusiasts out there it's really cheap. I needed a new door so I bought one for a hundred bucks and installed it myself in 20 minutes.

theyregreat 9y ago

As mentioned, Louis Rossmann and others has been out there campaigning for R2R. http://youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup http://youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup The bigger problem is it is unlikely to happen in the current political climate because of corrupting money of big corporations buying politicians. Campaign finance reform and kick out the billionaires’ lackeys: crooked politicians and their lobbyist pimps, is a necessary prerequisite to getting public commonwealth issues addressed with sensible policies. Only when DC is cleaner can actual legislation benefiting the people happen instead of subsidizing the very rich even more.

Chiba-City 9y ago

These are complex consumer taxing drip feeds of information, upgrades, service faults, repair services and so forth. It seems to mostly feed dumps. Slightly industrial grade hardware is often field repairable. I go for new or refurbed durable low depreciation tools worth mastering. Emacs, weather sealed camera gear or even cookware are examples. Otherwise I use low power almost disposable Chromebook, Chromecast and Moto-G away from a Linux box with cheap reasonable dumb screens and bluetooth speakers. The haptics of consumer tools are churned far too easily for business models. Windows XP showed how too slowly depreciating good enough assets in the field upset vendors. Constant maintenance and futzing are taxes outside actually advancing any state of the art. I don't drive living in a midstory DC building together saving about +50% of typical American transport and HVAC power budgets. And I don't sport shop or even eat energy intensive packaged food mysteries. Good and operationally efficient habits can go well enough with software and city living.