3 ms·

I haven't read the text of this bill, but the push for Right to Repair isn't that companies need to design their products differently - but they need to provide

I haven't read the text of this bill, but the push for Right to Repair isn't that companies need to design their products differently - but they need to provide documentation and components so people other than the manufacturer can perform repairs on them. Apple doesn't repair logic boards, if you have a bad backlight controller on your MacBook Pro and it's out of warranty you can expect to pay $700+ for a logic board replacement - repair shops can replace the backlight controller for a much more reasonable fee. Right now Apple products are the most popular market for these 3rd party repair shops exactly because Apple charges so damned much for out-of-warranty repairs, and they work in a legal gray area because Apple won't give out board schematics or sell replacement components. Without schematics troubleshooting issues ranges from anywhere to a pain to impossible, without parts anything that can't be readily sourced from a manufacturer (thankfully they use bog-standard Texas Instrument controllers for the LCD backlight that you can buy reels of, but other components like the SMC, GPU, etc. you are pulling off boards that were dumped from the factory or if you can somehow find "new" ones the chances that they are DOA is dubious since they're often factory rejects). Nobody wants to make life more difficult for companies designing their products, the Right to Repair crowd just wants to be able to fix their own devices provided they have the skills to do so.

RandallBrown 9y ago
Providing that documentation and the components is a non-zero cost.
- snuxoll 9y ago
  How so? Apple already has detailed schematics, repair shops have been getting them through shady FTP servers for years - making them accessible at this point is the cost of putting them up for download. Hell, ANYBODY making consumer electronics has detailed schematics or at least the gerber file for the PCB. Components? Sure, but you bake that into the cost you sell them at. You're already buying them in massive quantities, so let repair shops order some from you - nobody is going to complain about having to pay x% over cost of materials to cover your expenses.
- wfo 9y ago
  Technically it costs bandwidth and electricity I suppose to make information available... Not suing people for repairing or tinkering with your hardware is also a "cost" I suppose if you want to phrase it that way, because of the lost revenue you would have gotten from locking down the market and only providing overpriced replacements yourself. It's a cost in the same way that a law against stealing purses imposes a "non-zero cost" on all of us, since we don't have that potential source of revenue available to us anymore...

RandallBrown 9y ago

Providing that documentation and the components is a non-zero cost.

snuxoll 9y ago
How so? Apple already has detailed schematics, repair shops have been getting them through shady FTP servers for years - making them accessible at this point is the cost of putting them up for download. Hell, ANYBODY making consumer electronics has detailed schematics or at least the gerber file for the PCB. Components? Sure, but you bake that into the cost you sell them at. You're already buying them in massive quantities, so let repair shops order some from you - nobody is going to complain about having to pay x% over cost of materials to cover your expenses.
wfo 9y ago
Technically it costs bandwidth and electricity I suppose to make information available... Not suing people for repairing or tinkering with your hardware is also a "cost" I suppose if you want to phrase it that way, because of the lost revenue you would have gotten from locking down the market and only providing overpriced replacements yourself. It's a cost in the same way that a law against stealing purses imposes a "non-zero cost" on all of us, since we don't have that potential source of revenue available to us anymore...