19 ms·

Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

707 points by headalgorithm 7y ago

aurizon 7y ago
You should have this basic right to repair. If you are unable to repair it and even break it further, it will cost you more for the company to repair it. This right should have the right to have the repair company to connect it and scan it, for a nominal fee, and tell you what is broken and what they would charge. You can then decide. With the complexity of modern devices, you may have to go to another company with similar data assessent equipment to cary out the repair. Modern circuit boards are a sea of small surface mounted parts on both sides...
- feocco 7y ago
  Forcing a company to have a diagnostic tool or team to identify a problem you might not have them fix is silly IMO. So is forcing their hand on creating a repairable product. I don't expect Microsoft to be able to easily identify obscure hardware issues with a design like my Surface Book 2. I do expect them to create a hardware product that doesn't break easily. Supplying the specs is a big benefit in my purchase decision. But not something I think should be required since it will undoubtedly give competitors more of an edge in their own development. The onus is on me to purchase a product that matches my needs.
  - blotter_paper 7y ago
    This. I totally want to buy repairable products, and do when I can, but I don't wish to force other consumers to pay extra to cover the expenses of a feature I want.
    - quanticle 7y ago
      By that logic cars shouldn't have to abide by crash safety regulations. If you want a safe car, buy a Volvo. Everyone else can drive deathtraps that burst into flames if they're so much as dented.
      - feocco 7y ago
        Safety is important. Forcing a design of a product to your objectively high standards is not.
        patrick5415 7y ago
        Saying safety is important or repairablity is important are both subjective value judgements. I see zero reason why your estimation of the value of a safe car should force me to subsidize that safety when I buy a car, any more than me valuing a repairable design should force you to subsidize the extra documentation.
      - blotter_paper 7y ago
        Your selected example has a negative externality of being deadly to bystanders if driven on a public roadway, and a more measured man might make some stipulation about such a vehicle only being driven on private land, but this is fundamentally how I feel. If I want to die in a flaming wreck, or if I want to accept a chance of dying in a flaming wreck in exchange for a discount on material goods, I don't want well-meaning bureaucrats to gavel about telling me I can't do it because they know what's best for me. We all make tradeoffs and take chances in life, and you wouldn't like me telling you which tradeoffs and chances to take, so why should you get to tell me which tradeoffs and chances to take? An appeal to numbers (democracy -- that thing that got Hitler elected) won't get very far at changing my mind, nor will an appeal to the ideal social contract conceived of by an entity whose intelligence approaches the hypothetical limit (for more than one reason, but most simply because I generally accept the orthogonality thesis).
        JaimeThompson 7y ago
        Isn't not being able to replace / recycle the batteries in products a negative externality?
        blotter_paper 7y ago
        Without mounting an argument that others have to buy such products due to market forces, no, because the issue only affects the consumer and not those around them. A lack of security updates and no way to roll your own is more in the ballpark, since your IoT-whatever could be borged into a botnet and used to cause further damage, but even that seems like a reach compared to the danger of an exploding automobile.
  - quanticle 7y ago
    Forcing a company to have a diagnostic tool or team to identify a problem you might not have them fix is silly IMO. So is forcing their hand on creating a repairable product. That's not as self-evident as you imply. We force manufacturers' hands in so many other ways. We force automobile manufacturers to abide by crash safety and emissions regulations. Electronics manufacturers have to abide by lead-free solder rules and FCC regulations to ensure that their products don't cause harmful interference. I don't think that forcing repairability is as much of a stretch as you think. At the very least, we should ban EULA provisions that restrict the user from reverse-engineering the product.
    - feocco 7y ago
      Comparing safety regulations to enforced development guidelines? Do you not see the distinction of why the latter is ok?
  - thefiregecko 7y ago
    > Forcing a company to have a diagnostic tool or team to identify a problem you might not have them fix is silly IMO. As a counter point, OBD-2 works and everyone can use it.
    - cr0sh 7y ago
      As a counter to that point - unless you're willing to spend mega-$$$ on a high-end scan tool, you won't be able to read all of the OBD-2 codes. Even with such a scan tool - there may still be certain codes that are "manufacturer only" readable.
      - thefiregecko 7y ago
        The more I learn about this the more disappointed I am. In my own experience the standard codes have always been enough to show me what needed fixing. I'm not a mechanic though so my range of experience with it isn't that large.
  - laughinghan 7y ago
    forcing their hand on creating a repairable product. I don't believe any of the proposals mentioned by the OP nor the comment you're replying to are suggesting this. Supplying the specs is a big benefit in my purchase decision. But not something I think should be required since it will undoubtedly give competitors more of an edge in their own development. Competition is what I value about markets. Preventing anti-competitive behavior is a big thing I value about regulation. These seem like reasons for, not against, right-to-repair.
  - aurizon 7y ago
    This is not so easy. The Surface Books are made with a number of snap together modules, via fine cable runs and multi-pin connectors. Each part is made with care and subjected to detailed tests, that include a term of power-on burn in for the major parts with infra-red smart vision that looks for any hot spots (that might lead to failure). Then they are assembled with in progress tests at some points until the final productis made and it is tested after they add the SSD with all the operating system installed. There are assorted areas partitioned on the SSD that might hold an OS recovery partition, as well as other software provided by others as choice ware (since so many people like this so called bloatware not installed). Then it will be placed on a burn-in rack at a higher temperatrure than room temp and some sort of test program will be run on a recurrent basis. Those that pass are packed and shipped, those that fail are analyzed for faults and any faulty part replaced and it is re-tested. A lemon with recurrent faults will probably be gutted to find the part with an enduring fault. Once in the field, it is rare for part level test and repair to be done. Those boards are marked as scrap with dye?? and sold in the scrap boards auction in schenzen. Buyers buy these boards and perform some analysis of them, or simply remove certain high value parts and sell them to other repris shops. Often many parts are tossed because these parts lack detailed information on them abd are not worth salvage. There are board maps online, so higher value parts like inductors, crystals, GPS etc have known locations and are removed and segregated for sale to hobby shops etc. https://hackernoon.com/the-gladiator-pit-of-hardware-startups-6f2451c385a9 https://hackernoon.com/the-gladiator-pit-of-hardware-startup... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leFuF-zoVzA&feature=youtu.be&t=471 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leFuF-zoVzA&feature=youtu.be... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUQzAhOVj70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUQzAhOVj70
s1512783 7y ago
"Providing open access to the technical specifications of consumer electronics would enable criminals to “more easily circumvent security protections, harming not only the product owner but also everyone who shares their network,” and "On the other end, John Deere argues that access to the company’s proprietary software could be used to bypass emissions controls or safety measures" Of course they're doing it all for our own safety. It makes me mad when people bring up security through obscurity as a reason for locking down devices. It's such a blatant lie.
- olliej 7y ago
  But you have to be careful about criminals. They’re always criming. I think there are many reasons for not supporting repair - some better some worse - but this is still the most stupid one.
- minipci1321 7y ago
  > It's such a blatant lie. yes and no. Most today's CE devices lose 3/4 of their utility when disconnected from their shared medium. People running such mediums usually require some sort of certification from the participant devices, and in case the device has been modified, a re-certification after modifications is usually required. Even replacing a couple of diodes by a looking-close-on-paper analogue might harm performance for neighboring participants in the communication. I let you imagine what one could do with arbitrary firmware images on a fully unlocked device. I'd be curious to see what solutions to that the infrastructure people work out when these laws are eventually adopted.
  - chipperyman573 7y ago
    If you design a system where remote users are impacted by other remote users' malicious actions, you've just created a bad system. "Criminals" can still do anything they want to the firmware of a JD, it's just illegal. Nothing actually stops them. But if JD designed a system that prevented local modification from affecting others, then they wouldn't have this problem.
    - 7y ago
woliveirajr 7y ago
Having my HP printer just failed because of something was wrong on the printer head (and replacing the printer head alone costs more than the printer, and is a easy job as it was made to be easily replaced), I'm always mad that a part costs equal or more than the whole thing. Any kind of "locked-in" to repair anything should always be against the law: no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole. And I think that only "right-to-repair" can make things correct and reduce those disposable electronics.
- s1512783 7y ago
  > no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole I think that's a dangerous route to follow. I completely agree with right to repair legislation, but I can also imagine a situation where a company makes ten thousand of something and sells it in a year through a retailer, and then keeps replacement parts available for a long time. Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs could easily make parts cost more than the original item. I once went to a lecture given by someone from Boeing. He said that when they use an obscure electronic part in their aircraft, and it reaches End of Life, they buy all the stock they can get hold of, store it in a very secure location, and charge a lot for it. The real value of this part is way larger than the original manufacturing costs would imply. It doesn't cost as much as a plane, but if your plane cannot fly without it, then it's pretty darn close.
  - woliveirajr 7y ago
    > (...) when they use an obscure electronic part (...) it reaches End of Life, they buy all the stock (...) and charge a lot for it. But in this case there were other suppliers and they buy all those parts to be exclusive sellers, and for a thing (a plane) that is expected to have a long life. And still it's much more easy on the client than having a propertary chip with planned obsolescence (print 2,000 pages, or be cycled on-off 200 times, or wait 497 days, or be moved to another table 7 times, whatever happens first) and then fail without any trace on where was the wrongdoing of the costumer. And then have no third-party suppliers. And then charge 80% of the equipament for just one part that was made to be replaceable. I'm not talking for how long should HP, in my case, should store replacement parts, and I know that it implies some costs. What I consider the giant problem is that we complain that the environment is getting polluted but companies are allowed to sell things that will last just some choosen time. That we buy something but we don't own it since nobody knows when or why it will fail. I'm ok with a plastic breaking, with a chip releasing the magic smoke. I'm mad with a chip stop working for unknown reasons because it was designed to. I'm mad that I (or anybody else) can't fix it because programing it to fail after x pages is even copyrighted and the pokerfaced company says it is to protect me from hackers, from printing bad-looking pages, from spitting some ink in my desk... When I pay for something I'm giving my money so that the company uses it as they wish. But in return I'm just getting that I don't own, that I can't use as I want, and even is against the law if I try, because I'll be breaking some IP if I make my own chip. Anyone following the future of Java and how using the same method/signature/name for functions/API calling (whatever the name it takes) knows how it affects us, and can imagine how this can extends to the same reasoning when one company began claiming that "I have rights on the specific sequence of voltages that are applied to each pins of this print head, so anyone else can't make the same thing".
toomuchtodo 7y ago
PSA: Please support candidates and legislators who support right to repair laws at both state and federal levels! Call your representatives! https://repair.org/stand-up https://repair.org/stand-up
olliej 7y ago
I’m generally pro-right to repair bills but I’m not clear how far they can reasonably go - should companies that make phones or whatever with custom cpus (Apple, Samsung, etc with completely custom chips or custom configurations - arm licensees etc) be required to sell those chips freely? I’m not trying to be unreasonable: being able to replace a broken screen without replacing the entire device is reasonable, but there must Shirley* be a line across which repair is unreasonable. * :D
- zaksoup 7y ago
  Honestly every time I hear somebody throw out a hypothetical example of “is this [RTR Requirement] too far” my reaction is immediately “wow that sounds like a fantastic idea”
- Buttons840 7y ago
  In many scenarios, simply having the company not sue you if you did get your hands on a CPU replacent is an improvemt.
  - olliej 7y ago
    Except if the company doesn’t sell those cpus separately, in which case you know you’re buying stolen goods.
    - hombre_fatal 7y ago
      Well, they could be scavenged from existing devices that were already sitting around destined for trash.
    - JaimeThompson 7y ago
      So if I take a CPU and remove it from the motherboard than resell it separately it would be stolen if the CPU was only sold bundled with a board by the manufacturer?
- legohead 7y ago
  If they are still creating those chips, yes, why not?
JoshTko 7y ago
I think the main thing that Apple here is trying to avoid is an iPhone catching on fire due to a 3rd party battery installed by a Mall Kisok repair shop guy who was hired a week ago. They know that the nuance will get lost and the story will become - iPhones catch on fire.
- vuln 7y ago
  Samsung sold exploding batteries, no third party repair needed.
- someguydave 7y ago
  Why is that scenario Apple’s problem?
  - _1 7y ago
    Because people only read headlines
  - nomel 7y ago
    Or to put a more sinister way, it could be entirely prevented by Apple with full hardware signing. It could mean that having an iPhone in your hand means it's completely legitimate, increasing actual and perceived quality and resale value.
    - someguydave 7y ago
      “Full hardware signing” is easier said than done.
  - junipertea 7y ago
    It hurts Apple brand
    - brokenmachine 7y ago
      And? If you sell a product, you don't own it anymore. The owner owns it and should be able to do whatever they want with it. If someone is selling exploding batteries that fit an iphone, it's up to the government to shut them down for being unsafe, or the burn victims to sue the exploding battery repair shops. Despite their marketing, Apple is not the only company in the world that is capable of making a non-exploding battery. The FUD about iphones being some magical object carried down on the wings of angels and suddenly becoming unclean and flammable because a third-party battery was inserted is ridiculous. Laptops have had replaceable batteries for decades without the sky falling down - until the Apple reality-distortion field was successfully engaged to disable people's rational thinking.
ericabiz 7y ago
Here's another way Apple may be killing "right to repair": I own a chain of independent cell phone and computer repair shops. Last year, Google unilaterally took away AdWords in our industry. The day after Thanksgiving, we woke up to find none of our ads were running. Google claimed this was because "third-party tech support providers" were scamming customers--i.e. people were buying AdWords for virus removal and tech support queries and then trying to scam people for money. Google also claimed an independent verification service was coming for those of us who had actual physical repair shops and weren't scamming people. Despite Google's promises, none of this has been delivered. Our business has dropped significantly since AdWords disappeared 8 months ago. This Google action has really hurt legitimate small businesses. I write all of this because the prevailing theory in our industry is that this is Apple's way of fighting against right to repair. If only Apple authorized service providers are allowed to advertise on Google for repair-related keywords, Apple will have taken more teeth out of "right to repair." It reminds me of the quote from The Matrix: "Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call when you are unable to speak?" If independent repair shops can't be found on Google, is that Google and Apple's way of muting third-party repair? Right when Google ads disappeared, Amazon and Apple made a deal that meant third parties could no longer sell Apple products on Amazon: https://9to5toys.com/2018/11/09/apple-and-amazon-deal-iphone-ipad/ https://9to5toys.com/2018/11/09/apple-and-amazon-deal-iphone... This is just a reminder that Apple is fighting in every way possible against right to repair.
- komali2 7y ago
  Welp, there it is. As clear cut a case of the dangers of Google basically holding the keys to the internet for the masses as I've ever seen. How's the ads on Facebook and Instagram doing?
  - ericabiz 7y ago
    Awful, honestly. The last set we ran on Facebook cost us $40 per booked appointment...not even break-even for us. We are working on video ads for pre-roll YouTube, etc., but it takes $ for tools (like cameras) and production. On Google, we learned how to optimize our ads and we were doing really well.
artursapek 7y ago
I recently discovered Louis Rossman's Youtube channel and it planted a virus in my head to make me want to try much harder to repair things. Recently my water bottle leaked on my $2000 Thinkpad and fried the LAN card. Ubuntu started complaining that it couldn't find the Wireless adapter to find wifi networks. I think a couple years ago, I'd have just thrown in the towel right away and bought a new computer. Instead I did some research and found a $20 replacement card on Amazon. It took me 15 minutes to fix my laptop. I felt a great sense of pride afterwards for avoiding a great amount of environmental and financial waste. Same thing with my $200 coffee grinder. It stopped grinding beans properly. I did some research and found the usual cause was a thin plastic piece inside the grinder would crack and become loose. After 5 years of ownership I had previously considered just buying a new one because "well it's pretty old". But instead I found the small plastic part on Baratza's website and successfully repaired my grinder. It cost me $8 and 20 minutes of my time. I think I'm becoming a repair extremist and will probably start to annoy people by insisting on taking this route whenever possible. It seems like American culture cares very little about repairing/mending things. It seems like people expect everything to break and use it as a cue to buy a new one. It's really sad, especially because I think we were intentionally trained to think that way.
- henryfjordan 7y ago
  Usually things like coffee grinders or electric stand mixers that have a motor and a gearbox include a plastic piece that is intended to fail first precisely so they are easily and cheaply repaired. They honestly should advertise it on the box, but that'd cut into their repair business.
  - cr0sh 7y ago
    In some cases, this is attributed to bad design or bad materials choice; and maybe in some cases, it's done to make you purchase a new model. But in many cases, such breakable parts are put in place for a reason. They are called "mechanical fuses" - also known by a few other names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrificial_part https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrificial_part https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_pin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_pin They are designed to break if the machine comes under too much stress that could break more expensive parts of the machine if the "fuse" wasn't included. Instead, that part breaks, making it cheap and easy to replace. Indeed, if you ever find a Kitchen Aid stand mixer in the trash, it likely got there because a gear in the gearbox is designed for this reason; they are cheap and easy to replace for anyone with a modest amount of mechanical ability, and those mixers aren't inexpensive new.
patricius 7y ago
I would like, just for once, that a company comes out and straight up says: “We choose how to make our products, you choose whether you want to buy it.” That’s everything there is to it. Don’t use any other arguments like “We do it to protect you.”
- SamuelAdams 7y ago
  That works fine on a consumer level. Most products have competitors. But B2B customers have far less leeway. John Deere is a great example: they have (virtually) a monopoly on the farming business. As a result, farmers cannot purchase a competitors tractors / equipment. They either don't exist or require too many compromises, which ultimately impact profits. In the case of modern farming, "not buying John Deere" is the equivalent of going out of business.
  - laughinghan 7y ago
    I think the comment you're replying to is expressing frustration with disingenuous PR, not endorsing a market structure.
cyrksoft 7y ago
Does it violate the terms of use of the phone? iPhone, for example. If the terms make it clear you can't fix it outside their approved shops then there is no "right to repair". It's part of the contract you get into when buying the phone. I can't seem to find the terms of the iPhone anywhere.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  If you tried and couldn’t find the terms that preclude that, isn’t it reasonable to conclude that those terms are not being effectively communicated as part of the sale (regardless of whether those terms do or do not exist)?
- simion314 7y ago
  EULAs are not legal documents, they are used to cover their asses but it is not effective at that.
Zak 7y ago
> John Deere argues that access to the company’s proprietary software could be used to bypass emissions controls or safety measures. On an analog car, I can physically remove emissions control devices. I can short circuit the seat belt warning. I can pull a fuse and disable the (not quite analog) antilock brakes. I can fail to change the tires when they have an unsafe amount of tread. I'm less familiar with farm equipment, but I'm sure there are many parallel modifications possible for analog farm equipment. The courts and the public would not consider the manufacturer responsible in any of the above scenarios. It doesn't follow that it would be any different for users modifying digital systems.
- Topgamer7 7y ago
  Ah its a similar issue with Deere equipment, however they can just make the tool not function if a full systems check doesn't return with Deere approved values.
  - inetknght 7y ago
    > they can just make the tool not function if a full systems check doesn't return with Deere approved values That is the problem.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  It’s coming for cars too.
  - laughinghan 7y ago
    Preventing repair? It's possible, although it's worth noting that auto makers used to do more to prevent repair, but were forced to back down by a 2012 Massachusetts automotive right-to-repair law. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/automobiles/carmakers-to-share-repair-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/automobiles/carmakers-to-... via https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/right-to-repair-elizabeth-warren-antitrust.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/right-to-r... via OP
- 7y ago
kevmo 7y ago
Bernie Sanders has been swinging hard on this issue the last 4 years. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xzqmp/bernie-sanders-calls-for-a-national-right-to-repair-law-for-farmers https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xzqmp/bernie-sanders-cal...
867567838694 7y ago
It blows my mind that we have to grow support for this!
larkost 7y ago
I am generally in favor of being able to repair things, but this is complicated and I have yet to see a good discussion (let alone legislative proposal) that takes into account all of the nuance I see as necessary: 1. There has definitely been abuse of cryptographic locking by parties such as John Deer. I feel that places where such locking is used only to prevent third-party repairs it should be illegal. 2. I feel that manufacturers should have ways of showing that third-party repairs have been done, and so enable them to make reasonable denials of warranty claims when those repairs are the cause of damage (no idea how to codify that into law). 3. There are cases, such as the touch-id sensor on Apple's iPhone that are legitimate cases of cryptographic locking. Absent that there is no way for Apple to defend against hardware-based attacks without this locking, and they need to have some way of trusting technicians (and the hardware involved) who make replacements. There is a complicated conversation to be had here (an no-one seems to be having it). 4. Devices that are built to be repaired are in the general best-interests of everyone at large (e.g.: environmental issues), but the forces of capitalism are generally against reuse. So we clearly need some system to rebalance the scales a bit, but how to do this without killing progress seems difficult (e.g.: the system-on-a-chip makes most of the guts of a cell phone one piece, and that is the direction of better devices). (edited for better spacing)
- laughinghan 7y ago
  I love everything about your discussion. 1. 100% agree 2. I've thought a little bit about this. I think it would be fine if the warranty can't be voided if the consumer can show in court that there's a preponderance of evidence that the issue they're having is unrelated to the third-party repair. This might mean in practice warranties hard to enforce if you've gone in for third-party repair, but I feel like usually it's old devices that you're fixing with third-parties anyway. It's also possible there's a perverse incentive to make components very sensitive to the case being opened or something, but it seems unlikely that that's possible without making the device fragile overall in situations where it would still be covered by warranty, which would cost the manufacturer money and also make the device less popular in the first place. Another thing I was thinking, either instead of or supplemental to such a policy, is to require manufacturers of a certain size to have an open certification program that third-party repair shops can participate in, and to honor warrantees if repair has only been done by certified shops. This could be abused if the manufacturer makes the certification program really really shitty so no one does it, and if repairs by the manufacturer themselves is a huge revenue stream then that would almost certainly what would happen; but someone like Apple makes most their money selling new devices (I assume), so why risk the fines from regulators and the bad PR? And so while Apple won't have much incentive to make it easy to get certified, the fact that they have to honor warrantees of devices repaired by certified shops means they'll at least be incentivized to teach the certified shops not to break the devices. 3. I'm skeptical of the importance of this. The security should be in the entropy of my fingerprint, not the right fingerprint scanner being used, no? Like how locking down which keyboard are allowed to be connected to your laptop is not important to securing the password lock? Spyware on the touch ID sensor is worrisome, but no more than spyware on any of the other input sensors, and is there really anything the manufacturer can do, technically rather than legally, about someone who physical accesses to your device and then hands it back to you to put your fingerprint and password back into? 4. This seems to me like a lack of information problem and an incentives structure problem. In theory, if everyone had total information and knew which of the alternatives lasted the longest and therefore had the lowest total-cost-of-owernship, and some kind of financial engineering let them buy the product on lease or something so the upfront cost could be competitive with the cheaper, shorter-lived alternatives, then everyone would do that, right? The main theoretical problem here is designing the "lease" to incentivize the consumer to take good care of the product, without being predatory; if we had that, we wouldn't even need total information because it could be viable for the vendor to provide the product on lease or something with a low upfront cost. Obviously there's a lot of other practical problems like, people who buy new smartphones usually don't want it to last 10 years, they want the latest and greatest cutting edge device; but that seems like it could maybe be solved by saying, you pay $200 now and give us the phone back in 2 years; if you don't give it back then, in 2 years we charge you another $400 (or something?); and then reselling the refurbished phone? There's also the fact that lots of people who buy iPhones specifically like it in part for the status symbol, so they're not looking for the lowest upfront cost. But the idea that the right pricing structure should theoretically let a company that makes a long-lasting, repairable device with a low total-cost-of-ownership be competitive seems like it should be possible, no?
naikrovek 7y ago
I hate that Deere is singularly picked on, here. Other vehicle manufacturers have followed in John Deere's footsteps with this, and no one cites those manufacturers' actions; only John Deere. I guess it's because they were first?
- noelsusman 7y ago
  People like farmers, and John Deere is the closest to having a monopoly in their industry.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  Hammering down the nail that sticks out sends the strongest message to the rest.
  - naikrovek 7y ago
    John Deere was hit pretty hard immediately, and continues to be; it doesn't seem to have been a factor preventing other manufacturers who decided to follow in Deere's footsteps on this matter. Nails can't receive messages from hammers, neither literally nor figuratively, apparently.
- magduf 7y ago
  Do you have any actual examples showing how Deere's competitors are as bad? No, "other vehicle manufacturers" don't count; this whole thing started because farmers couldn't get their machinery working and harvest crops on time, so Mercedes or BMW doing something similar is irrelevant since they don't make farm equipment.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
nimbius 7y ago
For those who are having trouble finding reasons why farmers care about right to repair, its not just the tractors themselves but the PTO accessories in most cases. For example, many PTO links on newer John Deer or Ferguson tractors contain a set of over torque sensors designed to shut off ot disconnect to prevent stallout and engine damage. if you repaired a spreader or a mower assembly from a John Deere, it needs to have all the original sensors on it to operate from the cab, and those sensors need to all return normal "john deere" values/codes for the implement. if not, you need to pay John Deere for another farm implement. Farmers want the right to upgrade the firmware in-cab or make exceptions to allow repaired equipment.
jrockway 7y ago
This all shows what an absolute disaster the DMCA was; how poorly thought out it was, how unconsidered the consequences were, and how badly our legislators failed us... to give Hollywood a little extra cash. We should be outraged. It all started as "hey, these damn kids are stealing our musics". So they made a law with "broad bipartisan support" to punish those evil evil people that were sharing their CDs with other people. But then other people realized, "hey, we can use this to make money." Now it's copyright infringement to repair your tractor. They keep the DMCA alive by carving out tiny exemptions every few years... but never addressing the core of the law. We should not accept random tweaks and amendments to this toxic law. I think it's time to move to a post-DMCA world. It was illegal to pirate stuff before the DMCA. Just go prosecute that if you think it's a policing priority. We don't need a special law, as it clearly makes possible too much abuse. Don't like someone? DMCA their website. Want extra money for your tractor? Make repairing it "circumventing a content protection system." This is actively harmful to society, and the special interest group that is Hollywood just doesn't matter enough for it to be a good compromise. Get the DMCA out of here.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  I wonder if one could start a business where you buy used John Deere tractors, entirely reflash the software, and re-sell at the unlocked price. Presumably once the your own firmware works, the marginal profit would be great, and first-sale doctrine would prevent them from having legal cause. Can't be circumventing a system that you've already removed wholesale.
- snowwrestler 7y ago
  The DMCA is what exempts ISPs and content platforms from direct liability for the copyright violations of their users. Without the DMCA, it's doubtful the Internet could have grown the way it did, and almost certain we would not have user-generated content platforms like Youtube, Instagram, heck, even HN. They all would have been sued out of existence as soon as copyrighted stuff was posted by their users. The anti-circumvention provisions, to which you're referring, have caused all sorts of problems. But the bill was passed as a whole, and those provisions were part of what was traded off for the copyright safe harbor provisions. You have to look at the whole bill to see the balance that was struck. All that said, I fully support the right to repair movement.
Proven 7y ago
Let me make it simple because that seems to be very necessary for this audience 1) People such as article author have now clue what a right is 2) You have the "right" to recycle your toilet paper, but you don't have the right to make me help you do it. 3) You also have no right to enlist State in coercing me to help you do it, or create laws that coerce me to do it, or design and make products that make it possible for you to do it. How hard is it to understand this? It shouldn't be. But, declining levels of intelligence means increasing support for this and similar nonsense ideas. Good luck people.
Just147 7y ago
Do you need hackers for hire? Do you need to keep an eye on your spouse by gaining access to their emails? As a parent do you want to know what your kids do on a daily basis on all social networks in others to make sure they're not getting into trouble? Whatever it is, Ranging from Bank Jobs, Flipping cash, Criminal records, removal of mugshots ,DMV, Taxes, crypto currency fraud investigation Name it, they can get the job done .contact at www.assuredhacks.com .. its that easy . try them out today .

707 points by headalgorithm 7y ago

You should have this basic right to repair. If you are unable to repair it and even break it further, it will cost you more for the company to repair it. This right should have the right to have the repair company to connect it and scan it, for a nominal fee, and tell you what is broken and what they would charge. You can then decide. With the complexity of modern devices, you may have to go to another company with similar data assessent equipment to cary out the repair. Modern circuit boards are a sea of small surface mounted parts on both sides...

feocco 7y ago
Forcing a company to have a diagnostic tool or team to identify a problem you might not have them fix is silly IMO. So is forcing their hand on creating a repairable product. I don't expect Microsoft to be able to easily identify obscure hardware issues with a design like my Surface Book 2. I do expect them to create a hardware product that doesn't break easily. Supplying the specs is a big benefit in my purchase decision. But not something I think should be required since it will undoubtedly give competitors more of an edge in their own development. The onus is on me to purchase a product that matches my needs.
- blotter_paper 7y ago
  This. I totally want to buy repairable products, and do when I can, but I don't wish to force other consumers to pay extra to cover the expenses of a feature I want.
  - quanticle 7y ago
    By that logic cars shouldn't have to abide by crash safety regulations. If you want a safe car, buy a Volvo. Everyone else can drive deathtraps that burst into flames if they're so much as dented.
    - feocco 7y ago
      Safety is important. Forcing a design of a product to your objectively high standards is not.
      - patrick5415 7y ago
        Saying safety is important or repairablity is important are both subjective value judgements. I see zero reason why your estimation of the value of a safe car should force me to subsidize that safety when I buy a car, any more than me valuing a repairable design should force you to subsidize the extra documentation.
    - blotter_paper 7y ago
      Your selected example has a negative externality of being deadly to bystanders if driven on a public roadway, and a more measured man might make some stipulation about such a vehicle only being driven on private land, but this is fundamentally how I feel. If I want to die in a flaming wreck, or if I want to accept a chance of dying in a flaming wreck in exchange for a discount on material goods, I don't want well-meaning bureaucrats to gavel about telling me I can't do it because they know what's best for me. We all make tradeoffs and take chances in life, and you wouldn't like me telling you which tradeoffs and chances to take, so why should you get to tell me which tradeoffs and chances to take? An appeal to numbers (democracy -- that thing that got Hitler elected) won't get very far at changing my mind, nor will an appeal to the ideal social contract conceived of by an entity whose intelligence approaches the hypothetical limit (for more than one reason, but most simply because I generally accept the orthogonality thesis).
      - JaimeThompson 7y ago
        Isn't not being able to replace / recycle the batteries in products a negative externality?
        blotter_paper 7y ago
        Without mounting an argument that others have to buy such products due to market forces, no, because the issue only affects the consumer and not those around them. A lack of security updates and no way to roll your own is more in the ballpark, since your IoT-whatever could be borged into a botnet and used to cause further damage, but even that seems like a reach compared to the danger of an exploding automobile.
- quanticle 7y ago
  Forcing a company to have a diagnostic tool or team to identify a problem you might not have them fix is silly IMO. So is forcing their hand on creating a repairable product. That's not as self-evident as you imply. We force manufacturers' hands in so many other ways. We force automobile manufacturers to abide by crash safety and emissions regulations. Electronics manufacturers have to abide by lead-free solder rules and FCC regulations to ensure that their products don't cause harmful interference. I don't think that forcing repairability is as much of a stretch as you think. At the very least, we should ban EULA provisions that restrict the user from reverse-engineering the product.
  - feocco 7y ago
    Comparing safety regulations to enforced development guidelines? Do you not see the distinction of why the latter is ok?
- thefiregecko 7y ago
  > Forcing a company to have a diagnostic tool or team to identify a problem you might not have them fix is silly IMO. As a counter point, OBD-2 works and everyone can use it.
  - cr0sh 7y ago
    As a counter to that point - unless you're willing to spend mega-$$$ on a high-end scan tool, you won't be able to read all of the OBD-2 codes. Even with such a scan tool - there may still be certain codes that are "manufacturer only" readable.
    - thefiregecko 7y ago
      The more I learn about this the more disappointed I am. In my own experience the standard codes have always been enough to show me what needed fixing. I'm not a mechanic though so my range of experience with it isn't that large.
- laughinghan 7y ago
  forcing their hand on creating a repairable product. I don't believe any of the proposals mentioned by the OP nor the comment you're replying to are suggesting this. Supplying the specs is a big benefit in my purchase decision. But not something I think should be required since it will undoubtedly give competitors more of an edge in their own development. Competition is what I value about markets. Preventing anti-competitive behavior is a big thing I value about regulation. These seem like reasons for, not against, right-to-repair.
- aurizon 7y ago
  This is not so easy. The Surface Books are made with a number of snap together modules, via fine cable runs and multi-pin connectors. Each part is made with care and subjected to detailed tests, that include a term of power-on burn in for the major parts with infra-red smart vision that looks for any hot spots (that might lead to failure). Then they are assembled with in progress tests at some points until the final productis made and it is tested after they add the SSD with all the operating system installed. There are assorted areas partitioned on the SSD that might hold an OS recovery partition, as well as other software provided by others as choice ware (since so many people like this so called bloatware not installed). Then it will be placed on a burn-in rack at a higher temperatrure than room temp and some sort of test program will be run on a recurrent basis. Those that pass are packed and shipped, those that fail are analyzed for faults and any faulty part replaced and it is re-tested. A lemon with recurrent faults will probably be gutted to find the part with an enduring fault. Once in the field, it is rare for part level test and repair to be done. Those boards are marked as scrap with dye?? and sold in the scrap boards auction in schenzen. Buyers buy these boards and perform some analysis of them, or simply remove certain high value parts and sell them to other repris shops. Often many parts are tossed because these parts lack detailed information on them abd are not worth salvage. There are board maps online, so higher value parts like inductors, crystals, GPS etc have known locations and are removed and segregated for sale to hobby shops etc. https://hackernoon.com/the-gladiator-pit-of-hardware-startups-6f2451c385a9 https://hackernoon.com/the-gladiator-pit-of-hardware-startup... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leFuF-zoVzA&feature=youtu.be&t=471 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leFuF-zoVzA&feature=youtu.be... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUQzAhOVj70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUQzAhOVj70

s1512783 7y ago

"Providing open access to the technical specifications of consumer electronics would enable criminals to “more easily circumvent security protections, harming not only the product owner but also everyone who shares their network,” and "On the other end, John Deere argues that access to the company’s proprietary software could be used to bypass emissions controls or safety measures" Of course they're doing it all for our own safety. It makes me mad when people bring up security through obscurity as a reason for locking down devices. It's such a blatant lie.

olliej 7y ago
But you have to be careful about criminals. They’re always criming. I think there are many reasons for not supporting repair - some better some worse - but this is still the most stupid one.
minipci1321 7y ago
> It's such a blatant lie. yes and no. Most today's CE devices lose 3/4 of their utility when disconnected from their shared medium. People running such mediums usually require some sort of certification from the participant devices, and in case the device has been modified, a re-certification after modifications is usually required. Even replacing a couple of diodes by a looking-close-on-paper analogue might harm performance for neighboring participants in the communication. I let you imagine what one could do with arbitrary firmware images on a fully unlocked device. I'd be curious to see what solutions to that the infrastructure people work out when these laws are eventually adopted.
- chipperyman573 7y ago
  If you design a system where remote users are impacted by other remote users' malicious actions, you've just created a bad system. "Criminals" can still do anything they want to the firmware of a JD, it's just illegal. Nothing actually stops them. But if JD designed a system that prevented local modification from affecting others, then they wouldn't have this problem.
  - 7y ago

woliveirajr 7y ago

Having my HP printer just failed because of something was wrong on the printer head (and replacing the printer head alone costs more than the printer, and is a easy job as it was made to be easily replaced), I'm always mad that a part costs equal or more than the whole thing. Any kind of "locked-in" to repair anything should always be against the law: no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole. And I think that only "right-to-repair" can make things correct and reduce those disposable electronics.

s1512783 7y ago
> no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole I think that's a dangerous route to follow. I completely agree with right to repair legislation, but I can also imagine a situation where a company makes ten thousand of something and sells it in a year through a retailer, and then keeps replacement parts available for a long time. Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs could easily make parts cost more than the original item. I once went to a lecture given by someone from Boeing. He said that when they use an obscure electronic part in their aircraft, and it reaches End of Life, they buy all the stock they can get hold of, store it in a very secure location, and charge a lot for it. The real value of this part is way larger than the original manufacturing costs would imply. It doesn't cost as much as a plane, but if your plane cannot fly without it, then it's pretty darn close.
- woliveirajr 7y ago
  > (...) when they use an obscure electronic part (...) it reaches End of Life, they buy all the stock (...) and charge a lot for it. But in this case there were other suppliers and they buy all those parts to be exclusive sellers, and for a thing (a plane) that is expected to have a long life. And still it's much more easy on the client than having a propertary chip with planned obsolescence (print 2,000 pages, or be cycled on-off 200 times, or wait 497 days, or be moved to another table 7 times, whatever happens first) and then fail without any trace on where was the wrongdoing of the costumer. And then have no third-party suppliers. And then charge 80% of the equipament for just one part that was made to be replaceable. I'm not talking for how long should HP, in my case, should store replacement parts, and I know that it implies some costs. What I consider the giant problem is that we complain that the environment is getting polluted but companies are allowed to sell things that will last just some choosen time. That we buy something but we don't own it since nobody knows when or why it will fail. I'm ok with a plastic breaking, with a chip releasing the magic smoke. I'm mad with a chip stop working for unknown reasons because it was designed to. I'm mad that I (or anybody else) can't fix it because programing it to fail after x pages is even copyrighted and the pokerfaced company says it is to protect me from hackers, from printing bad-looking pages, from spitting some ink in my desk... When I pay for something I'm giving my money so that the company uses it as they wish. But in return I'm just getting that I don't own, that I can't use as I want, and even is against the law if I try, because I'll be breaking some IP if I make my own chip. Anyone following the future of Java and how using the same method/signature/name for functions/API calling (whatever the name it takes) knows how it affects us, and can imagine how this can extends to the same reasoning when one company began claiming that "I have rights on the specific sequence of voltages that are applied to each pins of this print head, so anyone else can't make the same thing".

toomuchtodo 7y ago

PSA: Please support candidates and legislators who support right to repair laws at both state and federal levels! Call your representatives! https://repair.org/stand-up https://repair.org/stand-up

olliej 7y ago

I’m generally pro-right to repair bills but I’m not clear how far they can reasonably go - should companies that make phones or whatever with custom cpus (Apple, Samsung, etc with completely custom chips or custom configurations - arm licensees etc) be required to sell those chips freely? I’m not trying to be unreasonable: being able to replace a broken screen without replacing the entire device is reasonable, but there must Shirley* be a line across which repair is unreasonable. * :D

zaksoup 7y ago
Honestly every time I hear somebody throw out a hypothetical example of “is this [RTR Requirement] too far” my reaction is immediately “wow that sounds like a fantastic idea”
Buttons840 7y ago
In many scenarios, simply having the company not sue you if you did get your hands on a CPU replacent is an improvemt.
- olliej 7y ago
  Except if the company doesn’t sell those cpus separately, in which case you know you’re buying stolen goods.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    Well, they could be scavenged from existing devices that were already sitting around destined for trash.
  - JaimeThompson 7y ago
    So if I take a CPU and remove it from the motherboard than resell it separately it would be stolen if the CPU was only sold bundled with a board by the manufacturer?
legohead 7y ago
If they are still creating those chips, yes, why not?

JoshTko 7y ago

I think the main thing that Apple here is trying to avoid is an iPhone catching on fire due to a 3rd party battery installed by a Mall Kisok repair shop guy who was hired a week ago. They know that the nuance will get lost and the story will become - iPhones catch on fire.

vuln 7y ago
Samsung sold exploding batteries, no third party repair needed.
someguydave 7y ago
Why is that scenario Apple’s problem?
- _1 7y ago
  Because people only read headlines
- nomel 7y ago
  Or to put a more sinister way, it could be entirely prevented by Apple with full hardware signing. It could mean that having an iPhone in your hand means it's completely legitimate, increasing actual and perceived quality and resale value.
  - someguydave 7y ago
    “Full hardware signing” is easier said than done.
- junipertea 7y ago
  It hurts Apple brand
  - brokenmachine 7y ago
    And? If you sell a product, you don't own it anymore. The owner owns it and should be able to do whatever they want with it. If someone is selling exploding batteries that fit an iphone, it's up to the government to shut them down for being unsafe, or the burn victims to sue the exploding battery repair shops. Despite their marketing, Apple is not the only company in the world that is capable of making a non-exploding battery. The FUD about iphones being some magical object carried down on the wings of angels and suddenly becoming unclean and flammable because a third-party battery was inserted is ridiculous. Laptops have had replaceable batteries for decades without the sky falling down - until the Apple reality-distortion field was successfully engaged to disable people's rational thinking.

ericabiz 7y ago

Here's another way Apple may be killing "right to repair": I own a chain of independent cell phone and computer repair shops. Last year, Google unilaterally took away AdWords in our industry. The day after Thanksgiving, we woke up to find none of our ads were running. Google claimed this was because "third-party tech support providers" were scamming customers--i.e. people were buying AdWords for virus removal and tech support queries and then trying to scam people for money. Google also claimed an independent verification service was coming for those of us who had actual physical repair shops and weren't scamming people. Despite Google's promises, none of this has been delivered. Our business has dropped significantly since AdWords disappeared 8 months ago. This Google action has really hurt legitimate small businesses. I write all of this because the prevailing theory in our industry is that this is Apple's way of fighting against right to repair. If only Apple authorized service providers are allowed to advertise on Google for repair-related keywords, Apple will have taken more teeth out of "right to repair." It reminds me of the quote from The Matrix: "Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call when you are unable to speak?" If independent repair shops can't be found on Google, is that Google and Apple's way of muting third-party repair? Right when Google ads disappeared, Amazon and Apple made a deal that meant third parties could no longer sell Apple products on Amazon: https://9to5toys.com/2018/11/09/apple-and-amazon-deal-iphone-ipad/ https://9to5toys.com/2018/11/09/apple-and-amazon-deal-iphone... This is just a reminder that Apple is fighting in every way possible against right to repair.

komali2 7y ago
Welp, there it is. As clear cut a case of the dangers of Google basically holding the keys to the internet for the masses as I've ever seen. How's the ads on Facebook and Instagram doing?
- ericabiz 7y ago
  Awful, honestly. The last set we ran on Facebook cost us $40 per booked appointment...not even break-even for us. We are working on video ads for pre-roll YouTube, etc., but it takes $ for tools (like cameras) and production. On Google, we learned how to optimize our ads and we were doing really well.

artursapek 7y ago

I recently discovered Louis Rossman's Youtube channel and it planted a virus in my head to make me want to try much harder to repair things. Recently my water bottle leaked on my $2000 Thinkpad and fried the LAN card. Ubuntu started complaining that it couldn't find the Wireless adapter to find wifi networks. I think a couple years ago, I'd have just thrown in the towel right away and bought a new computer. Instead I did some research and found a $20 replacement card on Amazon. It took me 15 minutes to fix my laptop. I felt a great sense of pride afterwards for avoiding a great amount of environmental and financial waste. Same thing with my $200 coffee grinder. It stopped grinding beans properly. I did some research and found the usual cause was a thin plastic piece inside the grinder would crack and become loose. After 5 years of ownership I had previously considered just buying a new one because "well it's pretty old". But instead I found the small plastic part on Baratza's website and successfully repaired my grinder. It cost me $8 and 20 minutes of my time. I think I'm becoming a repair extremist and will probably start to annoy people by insisting on taking this route whenever possible. It seems like American culture cares very little about repairing/mending things. It seems like people expect everything to break and use it as a cue to buy a new one. It's really sad, especially because I think we were intentionally trained to think that way.

henryfjordan 7y ago
Usually things like coffee grinders or electric stand mixers that have a motor and a gearbox include a plastic piece that is intended to fail first precisely so they are easily and cheaply repaired. They honestly should advertise it on the box, but that'd cut into their repair business.
- cr0sh 7y ago
  In some cases, this is attributed to bad design or bad materials choice; and maybe in some cases, it's done to make you purchase a new model. But in many cases, such breakable parts are put in place for a reason. They are called "mechanical fuses" - also known by a few other names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrificial_part https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrificial_part https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_pin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_pin They are designed to break if the machine comes under too much stress that could break more expensive parts of the machine if the "fuse" wasn't included. Instead, that part breaks, making it cheap and easy to replace. Indeed, if you ever find a Kitchen Aid stand mixer in the trash, it likely got there because a gear in the gearbox is designed for this reason; they are cheap and easy to replace for anyone with a modest amount of mechanical ability, and those mixers aren't inexpensive new.

patricius 7y ago

I would like, just for once, that a company comes out and straight up says: “We choose how to make our products, you choose whether you want to buy it.” That’s everything there is to it. Don’t use any other arguments like “We do it to protect you.”

SamuelAdams 7y ago
That works fine on a consumer level. Most products have competitors. But B2B customers have far less leeway. John Deere is a great example: they have (virtually) a monopoly on the farming business. As a result, farmers cannot purchase a competitors tractors / equipment. They either don't exist or require too many compromises, which ultimately impact profits. In the case of modern farming, "not buying John Deere" is the equivalent of going out of business.
- laughinghan 7y ago
  I think the comment you're replying to is expressing frustration with disingenuous PR, not endorsing a market structure.

cyrksoft 7y ago

Does it violate the terms of use of the phone? iPhone, for example. If the terms make it clear you can't fix it outside their approved shops then there is no "right to repair". It's part of the contract you get into when buying the phone. I can't seem to find the terms of the iPhone anywhere.

sokoloff 7y ago
If you tried and couldn’t find the terms that preclude that, isn’t it reasonable to conclude that those terms are not being effectively communicated as part of the sale (regardless of whether those terms do or do not exist)?
simion314 7y ago
EULAs are not legal documents, they are used to cover their asses but it is not effective at that.

Zak 7y ago

> John Deere argues that access to the company’s proprietary software could be used to bypass emissions controls or safety measures. On an analog car, I can physically remove emissions control devices. I can short circuit the seat belt warning. I can pull a fuse and disable the (not quite analog) antilock brakes. I can fail to change the tires when they have an unsafe amount of tread. I'm less familiar with farm equipment, but I'm sure there are many parallel modifications possible for analog farm equipment. The courts and the public would not consider the manufacturer responsible in any of the above scenarios. It doesn't follow that it would be any different for users modifying digital systems.

Topgamer7 7y ago
Ah its a similar issue with Deere equipment, however they can just make the tool not function if a full systems check doesn't return with Deere approved values.
- inetknght 7y ago
  > they can just make the tool not function if a full systems check doesn't return with Deere approved values That is the problem.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
It’s coming for cars too.
- laughinghan 7y ago
  Preventing repair? It's possible, although it's worth noting that auto makers used to do more to prevent repair, but were forced to back down by a 2012 Massachusetts automotive right-to-repair law. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/automobiles/carmakers-to-share-repair-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/automobiles/carmakers-to-... via https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/right-to-repair-elizabeth-warren-antitrust.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/right-to-r... via OP
7y ago

kevmo 7y ago

Bernie Sanders has been swinging hard on this issue the last 4 years. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xzqmp/bernie-sanders-calls-for-a-national-right-to-repair-law-for-farmers https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xzqmp/bernie-sanders-cal...

867567838694 7y ago

It blows my mind that we have to grow support for this!

larkost 7y ago

I am generally in favor of being able to repair things, but this is complicated and I have yet to see a good discussion (let alone legislative proposal) that takes into account all of the nuance I see as necessary: 1. There has definitely been abuse of cryptographic locking by parties such as John Deer. I feel that places where such locking is used only to prevent third-party repairs it should be illegal. 2. I feel that manufacturers should have ways of showing that third-party repairs have been done, and so enable them to make reasonable denials of warranty claims when those repairs are the cause of damage (no idea how to codify that into law). 3. There are cases, such as the touch-id sensor on Apple's iPhone that are legitimate cases of cryptographic locking. Absent that there is no way for Apple to defend against hardware-based attacks without this locking, and they need to have some way of trusting technicians (and the hardware involved) who make replacements. There is a complicated conversation to be had here (an no-one seems to be having it). 4. Devices that are built to be repaired are in the general best-interests of everyone at large (e.g.: environmental issues), but the forces of capitalism are generally against reuse. So we clearly need some system to rebalance the scales a bit, but how to do this without killing progress seems difficult (e.g.: the system-on-a-chip makes most of the guts of a cell phone one piece, and that is the direction of better devices). (edited for better spacing)

laughinghan 7y ago
I love everything about your discussion. 1. 100% agree 2. I've thought a little bit about this. I think it would be fine if the warranty can't be voided if the consumer can show in court that there's a preponderance of evidence that the issue they're having is unrelated to the third-party repair. This might mean in practice warranties hard to enforce if you've gone in for third-party repair, but I feel like usually it's old devices that you're fixing with third-parties anyway. It's also possible there's a perverse incentive to make components very sensitive to the case being opened or something, but it seems unlikely that that's possible without making the device fragile overall in situations where it would still be covered by warranty, which would cost the manufacturer money and also make the device less popular in the first place. Another thing I was thinking, either instead of or supplemental to such a policy, is to require manufacturers of a certain size to have an open certification program that third-party repair shops can participate in, and to honor warrantees if repair has only been done by certified shops. This could be abused if the manufacturer makes the certification program really really shitty so no one does it, and if repairs by the manufacturer themselves is a huge revenue stream then that would almost certainly what would happen; but someone like Apple makes most their money selling new devices (I assume), so why risk the fines from regulators and the bad PR? And so while Apple won't have much incentive to make it easy to get certified, the fact that they have to honor warrantees of devices repaired by certified shops means they'll at least be incentivized to teach the certified shops not to break the devices. 3. I'm skeptical of the importance of this. The security should be in the entropy of my fingerprint, not the right fingerprint scanner being used, no? Like how locking down which keyboard are allowed to be connected to your laptop is not important to securing the password lock? Spyware on the touch ID sensor is worrisome, but no more than spyware on any of the other input sensors, and is there really anything the manufacturer can do, technically rather than legally, about someone who physical accesses to your device and then hands it back to you to put your fingerprint and password back into? 4. This seems to me like a lack of information problem and an incentives structure problem. In theory, if everyone had total information and knew which of the alternatives lasted the longest and therefore had the lowest total-cost-of-owernship, and some kind of financial engineering let them buy the product on lease or something so the upfront cost could be competitive with the cheaper, shorter-lived alternatives, then everyone would do that, right? The main theoretical problem here is designing the "lease" to incentivize the consumer to take good care of the product, without being predatory; if we had that, we wouldn't even need total information because it could be viable for the vendor to provide the product on lease or something with a low upfront cost. Obviously there's a lot of other practical problems like, people who buy new smartphones usually don't want it to last 10 years, they want the latest and greatest cutting edge device; but that seems like it could maybe be solved by saying, you pay $200 now and give us the phone back in 2 years; if you don't give it back then, in 2 years we charge you another $400 (or something?); and then reselling the refurbished phone? There's also the fact that lots of people who buy iPhones specifically like it in part for the status symbol, so they're not looking for the lowest upfront cost. But the idea that the right pricing structure should theoretically let a company that makes a long-lasting, repairable device with a low total-cost-of-ownership be competitive seems like it should be possible, no?

naikrovek 7y ago

I hate that Deere is singularly picked on, here. Other vehicle manufacturers have followed in John Deere's footsteps with this, and no one cites those manufacturers' actions; only John Deere. I guess it's because they were first?

noelsusman 7y ago
People like farmers, and John Deere is the closest to having a monopoly in their industry.
cwkoss 7y ago
Hammering down the nail that sticks out sends the strongest message to the rest.
- naikrovek 7y ago
  John Deere was hit pretty hard immediately, and continues to be; it doesn't seem to have been a factor preventing other manufacturers who decided to follow in Deere's footsteps on this matter. Nails can't receive messages from hammers, neither literally nor figuratively, apparently.
magduf 7y ago
Do you have any actual examples showing how Deere's competitors are as bad? No, "other vehicle manufacturers" don't count; this whole thing started because farmers couldn't get their machinery working and harvest crops on time, so Mercedes or BMW doing something similar is irrelevant since they don't make farm equipment.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

nimbius 7y ago

For those who are having trouble finding reasons why farmers care about right to repair, its not just the tractors themselves but the PTO accessories in most cases. For example, many PTO links on newer John Deer or Ferguson tractors contain a set of over torque sensors designed to shut off ot disconnect to prevent stallout and engine damage. if you repaired a spreader or a mower assembly from a John Deere, it needs to have all the original sensors on it to operate from the cab, and those sensors need to all return normal "john deere" values/codes for the implement. if not, you need to pay John Deere for another farm implement. Farmers want the right to upgrade the firmware in-cab or make exceptions to allow repaired equipment.

jrockway 7y ago

This all shows what an absolute disaster the DMCA was; how poorly thought out it was, how unconsidered the consequences were, and how badly our legislators failed us... to give Hollywood a little extra cash. We should be outraged. It all started as "hey, these damn kids are stealing our musics". So they made a law with "broad bipartisan support" to punish those evil evil people that were sharing their CDs with other people. But then other people realized, "hey, we can use this to make money." Now it's copyright infringement to repair your tractor. They keep the DMCA alive by carving out tiny exemptions every few years... but never addressing the core of the law. We should not accept random tweaks and amendments to this toxic law. I think it's time to move to a post-DMCA world. It was illegal to pirate stuff before the DMCA. Just go prosecute that if you think it's a policing priority. We don't need a special law, as it clearly makes possible too much abuse. Don't like someone? DMCA their website. Want extra money for your tractor? Make repairing it "circumventing a content protection system." This is actively harmful to society, and the special interest group that is Hollywood just doesn't matter enough for it to be a good compromise. Get the DMCA out of here.

cwkoss 7y ago
I wonder if one could start a business where you buy used John Deere tractors, entirely reflash the software, and re-sell at the unlocked price. Presumably once the your own firmware works, the marginal profit would be great, and first-sale doctrine would prevent them from having legal cause. Can't be circumventing a system that you've already removed wholesale.
snowwrestler 7y ago
The DMCA is what exempts ISPs and content platforms from direct liability for the copyright violations of their users. Without the DMCA, it's doubtful the Internet could have grown the way it did, and almost certain we would not have user-generated content platforms like Youtube, Instagram, heck, even HN. They all would have been sued out of existence as soon as copyrighted stuff was posted by their users. The anti-circumvention provisions, to which you're referring, have caused all sorts of problems. But the bill was passed as a whole, and those provisions were part of what was traded off for the copyright safe harbor provisions. You have to look at the whole bill to see the balance that was struck. All that said, I fully support the right to repair movement.

Proven 7y ago

Let me make it simple because that seems to be very necessary for this audience 1) People such as article author have now clue what a right is 2) You have the "right" to recycle your toilet paper, but you don't have the right to make me help you do it. 3) You also have no right to enlist State in coercing me to help you do it, or create laws that coerce me to do it, or design and make products that make it possible for you to do it. How hard is it to understand this? It shouldn't be. But, declining levels of intelligence means increasing support for this and similar nonsense ideas. Good luck people.

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