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New Hampshire Lawmaker Kills Repair Bill Because 'Cellphones Are Throwaways'

161 points by el_duderino 7y ago

Bostonian 7y ago
If consumers value the ability to repair a device they will avoid buying non-repairable devices. The government need not get involved.
- ahbyb 7y ago
  Most people don't care about this because mobiles for them are, indeed, throwaways. So, according to some, this should be written into law so we all are forced to care.
  - t34543 7y ago
    Most people can’t afford the unplanned expense of a device should it break. If it’s not repairable, by law, then it will be manufactured to last for a shorter period of time, compounding the problem. I can’t use plastic utensils in California but I can use a disposable phone. Mind boggling.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      > I can’t use plastic utensils in California It’s not hard to?
  - daveFNbuck 7y ago
    The bill in question is just about manufacturers providing parts and manuals to repair shops. People who aren't phone manufacturers and don't repair their phones don't have to care about this at all. It doesn't affect them.
- ses1984 7y ago
  What if manufacturers collude to all reduce or eliminate the need to repair devices? The barrier to enter the cell phone market is kinda high.
- ReptileMan 7y ago
  I am not so sure it works that way. Sometimes you need evolutionary jump. Like latent/subconscious demand is there but people have no idea they want something. Or the demand is there, but no big player serves it.
- deogeo 7y ago
  Or they will vote for laws that encourage repairable devices. Why do you want to reduce citizens to consumers?
- francisofascii 7y ago
  When companies act unethically and make decisions that limit consumer choice and harm the environment, the government should most definitely get involved.
ahbyb 7y ago
>The new iPhone 11 costs between $699 and $1,349. And it can be hard to find one at the moment. Google’s Pixel 4 costs between $799 and $999. Vice is seemingly not biased at all. (They push the point that mobiles are not throwaways by choosing the most expensive mobiles as if they were the standard. Most people I know just buy the cheapest Android they can find; those are definitely throwaways)
- baud147258 7y ago
  All publication are biased, one way or another (or in multiple different way)
  - 99052882514569 7y ago
    This point is often overstated, so as to almost make it seem like shameless propaganda outlets like RT are equivalent to an actual journalism outfit with standards. Though I'm sure that's not how you meant it.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    I think intent matters. It can be argued that any media is biased, in the sense that you literally cannot cover every possible angle, every possible fact, etc. But that is very different IMO from intentional bias.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  About half of user in the U.S. use an iphone and a large portion of the other half use pixel or samsungs all of which are easily $400+ phones do I think your experience is atypical. (I'm guessing your friends are either young or thrifty)
  - beagle3 7y ago
    And the reason for that is that the market for phones in the US is greatly distorted by carriers - the handsets themselves (which are dirt cheap compared to the service), subsidies in the past and pure market dominance. Canada might be similar, but outside of NA, people know exactly how much they pay for the handset and how much they play for the service (which is 5-10 times cheaper for similar limits), and as a result, most people don’t actually buy a flagship phone.
ReptileMan 7y ago
I think that my generation - with teen years in late 80s to early 00s got spoiled on PC repair ability. And it shaped us about what can we expect. Same with buy computing device, install os of your choosing. The computers were just integrated enough so sizable modules were discreet, but they were running on well defined slots, the crypto was not developed enough to drm components, there were competing players in the market for different parts and repair was 99% of the time just replacing the defective part. I doubt that many people re-soldered defective chip on a ram module. The only way right now to ensure repairability is to legalize how phones should be assembled and basic architecture. The same way eu did with the charging port - although they didn't went after apple for some reason. On the other hand moving to system on a chip makes sense the way semiconductor have developed.
- vanderZwan 7y ago
  > with teen years in late 80s to early 00s got spoiled on PC repair ability. Given that things in general used to be more repairable than they are now, and that planned obsolescence is absolutely a thing, I highly doubt it.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  The other alternative would be to set standards for recycling to make sure things get really recycled. This would probably drive up cost which then hopefully would make repairing more attractive.
  - ReptileMan 7y ago
    The problem with repairability is that you must decide to what level. Replacing transistor in a chip has been impossible for 50 years. Replacing chip was possible 30 years ago. Right now we have soldiered on ram and storage in phones and glued displays. I think that we should insist that parts are replacable - we split the phone into 10-15 parts. But even if I could rule by decree I am not sure I can make the right call what exactly is the right way.
    - sct202 7y ago
saagarjha 7y ago
> The new iPhone 11 costs between $699 and $1,349. Nit: iPhone 11 tops out at $849. iPhone 11 Pro goes up to $1349.
astockwell 7y ago
The attitude of complex, manufactured things that require extensive mining and refining infrastructure and include uncommon elements (literally, molecular elements) being single-use is awful. We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard.
- TooCreative 7y ago
  Aren't humans single-use too?
  - an_ko 7y ago
    Yeah, but humans are easy to recycle, and made of renewable resources.
jimmies 7y ago
I submitted this video link by Louis Rossmann days ago but it was unfortunately mis-classified by HN as spam (and they did clear this up personally with me so don't worry). https://youtu.be/Bt2KDtDt940 https://youtu.be/Bt2KDtDt940 He made a clear concise point in 3 minutes why the right to repair is important. Now the good thing is that it doesn't matter how many states the bill has been shot down. As long as one state or one country has it, it will open the Pandora's box.
- rasz 7y ago
  Its not spam, its clickbait. Real full house hearing video is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHpXJzjin7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHpXJzjin7k Over two hours of arguments from both sides - private advocates and $1K an hour PR shills (easy to spot who is who).
grawprog 7y ago
The attitude that even cheap phones are throwaways is troubling to me. Not just because throwing away $200-300 seems reasonable to people here that average people can afford to do this regularly, but mostly because every phone cheap or not, takes resources to produce, many of which are non renewable, resources to ship and distribute and sure they're recyclable, but I'd be willing to be not a lot of people put the effort in to actually recycle them. Continuing to produce new phone after new phone with only slight improvements between each new model with the expectation that people will just buy a new one rather than upgrade parts or repair old ones is just completely and utterly wasteful from an environmental stand point.
- xwdv 7y ago
  The environment isn’t being wasted, it’s being spent. The only way to stop waste is to reach the point where you make a phone so good you don’t need a new phone for a very long time. We may be reaching that point soon within the next decade. That will require constant progress year after year.
  - onemoresoop 7y ago
    Good phones are in many cases being obsoleted with forced updates. 5SE, for instance. It's impossible to stick to a phone that you like, it will eventually stop functioning properly way before the phone's physical death.
  - defterGoose 7y ago
    Wasted vs. spent is simply a matter of perspective/semantics. From a sustainability standpoint it's totally wasteful. The idea that we could make a perfect product is also kind of silly. Consumer demand in this society is largely driven by novelty.
  - bcassedy 7y ago
    You're forgetting planned obsolescence. It's not a coincidence that battery life drops off a cliff and performance issues crop up right at the 1 year mark for most phones.
  - 7y ago
Mr_Shiba 7y ago
Lobby money. Legal bribery at work
guelo 7y ago
This article is blogspam. The original article [1] is better and shows that the main objections were about security concerns. [1] https://www.nhbr.com/nh-house-panel-votes-to-nix-right-to-repair-consumer-electronics-bill/ https://www.nhbr.com/nh-house-panel-votes-to-nix-right-to-re...
perspective1 7y ago
The actual quote is, "in the near future, cellphones are throwaways." Which is still disagreeable, but substantially different from the manufactured quote of "cellphones are throwaways." This isn't outright sham journalism, but it's not credible journalism either.
- koboll 7y ago
  I'm struggling to imagine how you think leaving out "in the near future" changes the meaning of that sentence in any way. Did I miss the part where he predicted a price crash in the smartphone industry? If not, what are you talking about?
  - zebrafish 7y ago
    Furthermore, Apple's entire business plan goes out the door if this does indeed take place.
  - perspective1 7y ago
    > I'm struggling to imagine how you think leaving out "in the near future" changes the meaning of that sentence in any way. You're really struggling to understand how a prediction about the future is different than the state of affairs today?
    - koboll 7y ago
      Unless you can identify specific things that he thinks will be changing in the future, yes. It sure doesn't seem like smartphones are becoming any less valuable or more expendable.
      - perspective1 7y ago
        Obviously that's not possible because Vice doesn't give any context. Your line of thinking has me worried-- finding context shouldn't be left as an exercise to the reader.
  - 7y ago
_rrnv 7y ago
It’s hilarious that the land of the free, the kingdom of capitalism has restrictions on right to repair while highly regulated market like the EU has no problem with it and most of the times sides with the consumers anyway. I won’t even mention Russia or China where you can do whatever the quack you want with your device in any of the countless shops... Dear Americans, I think you didn’t notice you lost your democracy and the republic to big business and lobbyists. And don’t fool yourselves that if Democrats win it will be better. Ironically, you really need to drain the swamp and make deep, systemic changes. I wish you great luck.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > the kingdom of capitalism has restrictions on right to repair There are no such restrictions. There simply isn’t a mandate for repair. Consumers have shown limited preference for repairability over other factors.
  - heavyset_go 7y ago
    Tell that to John Deere[1]. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/amp#aoh=15720224124752&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repa...
    - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
      The article is about "a big California farmers’ lobbying group" signing away rights on behalf of its members to John Deere. No government is blocking the right to repair, some companies are. Others aren't, but purchasers don't prioritize their products. There is no law in the United States that blocks or restricts rights to repair.
      - _rrnv 7y ago
        The fact that it was possible is the problem. EU consumer laws make such agreements void. But I guess it’s a matter of mindset. Maybe that’s why I’m downvoted below zero :P
isostatic 7y ago
> Cellphones Are Throwaways That's the point - they shouldn't be. The cost of a cellphone does not cover the cost to the planet of producing that cellphone.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  Do you own a (mainstream) cellphone? If you do, then you're saying you don't care about phones being disposable. In fact, you handed over money and confirmed the company's thesis: You want a particular product at a particular price point, and you were willing to compromise your weakly held values of environmental sustainability.
  - defterGoose 7y ago
    Woah, woah, woah. You ever heard of the perfect being the enemy of the good? Maybe some people need to function in modern society in order to evangelize their deeply-held beliefs about sustainability.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - isostatic 7y ago
    Yup it's nearly 4 years old. Newest kit I have (along with my 2014 desktop, 2013 mac and 2010 thinkpad) Sometimes individual consumers change things, most of the time it needs regulation to help them. The 'invisible hand' may well steer the ship, but it's an oiltanker, not a speedboat.
  - redwall_hp 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque The good old "yet you participate in the society you criticize" non-argument.
  - seba_dos1 7y ago
    My current smartphone was released in 2009; the second one that I use if the first one can't do the job anymore is from 2012. Both nicely repairable, with replacable batteries etc. Am I able to say that phones shouldn't be throwaways or are those not old enough for you? :P
jdlyga 7y ago
They WERE throaways for the first 10 years of smartphones. Every iPhone or Android release brought so many new improvements that last year's phone looked ancient. Nowadays, we've finally hit diminishing returns and a 2 year old iPhone X is still about the same as an iPhone 11 Pro. It's become more like buying laptops. Therefore, we really need a way to repair these things.
- SoylentOrange 7y ago
  I strongly disagree. I think it would be hard to articulate why an iPhone 6s (released in 2014) which is the phone my partner has, is not usable today. Many of my friends have phones that are currently 2-3 years old, and they work just fine. I assume this has to do with relative income: either $1000 per year is a lot of money for you, or it’s not.
  - cardiffspaceman 7y ago
    I see jdlyga's point as, iPhone 2 made iPhone 1 a throwaway, and from then on to arguably iPhone 6 where maybe phones were more alike than different on critical metrics. On the other hand your point is that current phones don't have much different between them. I held on to my iPhone 5 for 6-7 years so I think I have even better evidence for you than your resourceful friends.
  - kylec 7y ago
    I think you two are actually in agreement
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  I use a $12 phone from Walmart. I am certainly the exception though. I only know a few other people that use throw-away phones like mine. Most people I know have their entire life in their phone and would lose their minds if (when) their phone fails.
xoa 7y ago
I wish all the energy being thrown at "repair" laws would instead go into better warranty laws, which I think is the real underlying issue of which "repairability" is only a symptom. An easy to repair device still leaves the consumer paying money, and often ridiculously early (within a year or two even for top end gear). When people spend $500-1k for a smartphone say, I think there is the general expectation it'll work for at least a good 4-5 years under normal usage, and that most people do in fact experience that. But a percentage don't, and then have to take on the entire cost, or else everyone has to overpay heavily through "extended warranties" which are big profit centers that have no clear pricing, are hidden from the sticker price, and create perverse incentives. So basically it's a classic externality problem. Instead the law should simply make sure that "how long a device lasts" matches reasonable expectation. There are many ways to do this, such as saying everything is 6 months minimum for the first $50 and then another month per $15-20 up to a maximum of 5 years, and mandating repair/replace will happen within 2 weeks. The specifics could be hashed out, but the goal should be to makes sure that for the price consumers see advertised they are promised it will than work for a knowable reasonable lifespan for zero extra cost. "Extended/enhanced warranties" should only exist for special commercial/professional use cases, like extreme support periods, specific fast SLA, or advanced RMAs. By law though all standard use should be covered. Then manufacturers can figure out the right mix of strategies to meet those goals. Repairability might be part of that, because they could satisfy their obligations more cheaply. But it's not the only way or the necessarily right way in all cases, like sometimes additional QA or better design upfront (reducing failure rate even if each individual failure or more expensive) would be more important. Or just having large enough margins to eat the cost if they can add enough value in other ways. It's a bad idea to have government mandate the method, what government should do is mandate the goal and the goal should be that products last, at zero additional cost. That way everything can be compared with no digging.
- Merrill 7y ago
  The warranty should be optional, though, since otherwise people who properly care for their phones will be paying to repair/replace phones of people who abuse them.
  - 7y ago
intpx 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good
Merrill 7y ago
My phone was $7 / month during the two years that I was paying for it. That was a small fraction of the amount that the carrier is charging me for service. People who buy more expensive phones also tend to buy more expensive service plans. So the phone turns out not to be the significant cost component of cell service.
gnode 7y ago
I'm not sure the repairability of many types of electronic devices will be able to meaningfully survive into the future. The general trend in computing is to bring all the components together into a single module, as this improves power efficiency, latency, and bandwidth (e.g. going from DDR memory chips to stacked HBM chiplets connected to the processor by an interposer). Portability, and the aesthetics of thinner / lighter devices also creates a push towards more extensive integration. Repair increasingly means replacement. Maybe the legislative solution we should be pursuing is longer mandatory warranties. That said, in many cases a device fails due to a low value discrete component -- a resistor; a capacitor. This repair legislation would help here.
- novok 7y ago
  Most failures I've seen are either mechanical wear on a port, button or cable of some sort, glass panel damage or a power supply system not being built fully to spec because of cost cutting or stupidity. Also batteries wearing out due to use or more rarely, ssd storage drives wearing out due to usage. There is also 'glue & waterproofing wear' as the glue & rubber goes through multiple heat / cooling cycles and unsets, then water damage occurs. Those issues will never be going away on some level. The chips themselves are usually the most reliable components, unless they are power management chips.
  - gnode 7y ago
    > Most failures I've seen are either mechanical wear on a port, button or cable of some sort Eliminating ports seems to be some manufacturers' solution to this. There's no wear if it doesn't exist. > There is also 'glue & waterproofing wear' as the glue & rubber goes through multiple heat / cooling cycles and unsets, then water damage occurs. I wonder if in the future, the glass will just be hermetically welded to the case (glass-to-metal seal). No moving parts; no external adhesives; no possibly of getting into the device without cutting through it.
mihaaly 7y ago
It would be cheaper getting new lawmakers (throw them away). It is seriously insane viewpoint in an overcommercialized consumer frenzy environment destroying worker exploiting mass industrial insanity that the humanity exhibit nowadays. What's next? Get a new car if someone scratches it? Get a new home if the window breaks? Get a new lawmaker if it says something dumb?
domador 7y ago
This sounds in part like a classic case of wealthy, indifferent elected politicians being out of touch with the "riff-raff" they purportedly represent and act in the best interests off. (This "riff-raff" would include people who want to repair phones due to cost-effectiveness, responsibility with natural resources, and/or a desire to tinker. Also, because they have less throwaway money than these entitled, bought-by-corporate-lobbyists politicians.) On a related note... come on, phone manufacturers! That's enough with sealed phones and a lack of microSD card slots for added storage. Also, come on, app programmers! Let users store data in a microSD card, instead of in limited, expensive built-in storage! If you can't find the data when the card is removed, just deal with it! (I'm looking at you WhatsApp, given your insistence on storing photos and videos on internal memory.)
- novok 7y ago
  MicroSD needs to improve as a format with write durability and speed before it can be the main store of a device. Hopefully SDUC with better durability will be that format.
- chooseaname 7y ago
  > That's enough with sealed phones... People want IP ratings. What same people don't understand is that most phone makers tell you it is not permanent. And same people also don't understand that IP ratings are not ratings of waterproof-ness (which, by definition, would not need a rating).
  - phkahler 7y ago
    With wireless charging we are nearing the possibility of a waterproof, sealed phone. Not sure how you'd turn it on. Glass front and back bonded together could get there. Touch screen. Camera inside the glass?
    - gpm 7y ago
      > Not sure how you'd turn it on I'm not sure that it needs to fully turn off, many of our electronics don't have that ability. As long as it has power it could run in a super-low-energy mode that just keeps a capacitive sensor going.
hitpointdrew 7y ago
Sad that the "live free or die" state can't pass simple regulation that gives consumers the freedom/right to repair.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  That's a contortion. You can try to repair your phone already. Its legislation to require manufacturers to make a more expensive, repairable device and provide instructional materials. Who's 'freedom' is that supporting?
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    From the article. >The bill would have forced manufacturers such as Apple to share repair manuals and parts with independent repair stores. House members didn’t kill the bill, but sent it back to committee for a year of interim study, citing security concerns Doesn't seem like they were forcing the manufacturers to make easier to repair devices to me but I also haven't read the text of the bill.
SamReidHughes 7y ago
When people talk about non-renewable resources, the biggest of all is the workers' time that went into engineering and manufacturing the thing. You'll never get that back. You can always find more rare-earth atoms, at the worst they'll be sitting in some landfill.
- novok 7y ago
  You can also say you can always make more humans too...
inscionent 7y ago
"Everything is disposable, even my constituents."
someonehere 7y ago
The only con of allowing people to fix the items they own is you don’t know the quality of the parts you’re replacing. You’re going to have people who think they’re getting a good deal buy from AliExpress or Amazon, replace something like the battery, then have an explosion or fire. Goes on the news and next thing you know Samsung/Apple/Google get dragged through the mud because people see “Galaxy/iPhone/Pixel burns house down!” Now the company that made the phone has to do damage control. Reputation is everything. If there were some sort of regulations in place to only allow replacement parts that meet safety guidelines, it would make it safer for right to repair. You can’t trust people to not cut corners on saving money to fix their phone.
14 7y ago
This comment was typed on an iPhone 4s. It is ancient and is on its 4-5th screen, second ear microphone and second power button. I did all the repairs myself usually following ifixit website.
blahyawnblah 7y ago
This is for a state. What's the status on a bill nation wide?
thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
this day an age cellphones aren't getting much better from year to year. my iphone6 from 5 years ago still works great and hope it will continue to work great for the next 5 years. I don't want to throw away my cellphone, they're way too expensive for that.
OliverJones 7y ago
There's an ALEC talking point against this right-to-repair stuff. https://www.alec.org/tag/right-to-repair/ https://www.alec.org/tag/right-to-repair/ Alec, the "American Legislative Exchange Council," is a far-right-wing organization that feeds legislation to state legislators. Looks like this guy picked it up. All you New Hampshire people are welcome to come south to Massachusetts where we've had our right-to-repair laws for years. But, horrors, you may have to pay sales tax if you pay one of our fine repair establishments for this service. Or you can chuck your old phone in a roadside ditch along with your no-deposit-no-return beer cans.
CamperBob2 7y ago
Who's his opponent? Let's donate and make him a throwaway.
Isamu 7y ago
What, nobody mentioned fairphone? https://www.fairphone.com/en/ https://www.fairphone.com/en/ https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability You can vote with your dollars.
JohnFen 7y ago
I wonder how much money Mr. Potucek got to make such a patently ridiculous argument?

161 points by el_duderino 7y ago

If consumers value the ability to repair a device they will avoid buying non-repairable devices. The government need not get involved.

ahbyb 7y ago
Most people don't care about this because mobiles for them are, indeed, throwaways. So, according to some, this should be written into law so we all are forced to care.
- t34543 7y ago
  Most people can’t afford the unplanned expense of a device should it break. If it’s not repairable, by law, then it will be manufactured to last for a shorter period of time, compounding the problem. I can’t use plastic utensils in California but I can use a disposable phone. Mind boggling.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    > I can’t use plastic utensils in California It’s not hard to?
- daveFNbuck 7y ago
  The bill in question is just about manufacturers providing parts and manuals to repair shops. People who aren't phone manufacturers and don't repair their phones don't have to care about this at all. It doesn't affect them.
ses1984 7y ago
What if manufacturers collude to all reduce or eliminate the need to repair devices? The barrier to enter the cell phone market is kinda high.
ReptileMan 7y ago
I am not so sure it works that way. Sometimes you need evolutionary jump. Like latent/subconscious demand is there but people have no idea they want something. Or the demand is there, but no big player serves it.
deogeo 7y ago
Or they will vote for laws that encourage repairable devices. Why do you want to reduce citizens to consumers?
francisofascii 7y ago
When companies act unethically and make decisions that limit consumer choice and harm the environment, the government should most definitely get involved.

ahbyb 7y ago

>The new iPhone 11 costs between $699 and $1,349. And it can be hard to find one at the moment. Google’s Pixel 4 costs between $799 and $999. Vice is seemingly not biased at all. (They push the point that mobiles are not throwaways by choosing the most expensive mobiles as if they were the standard. Most people I know just buy the cheapest Android they can find; those are definitely throwaways)

baud147258 7y ago
All publication are biased, one way or another (or in multiple different way)
- 99052882514569 7y ago
  This point is often overstated, so as to almost make it seem like shameless propaganda outlets like RT are equivalent to an actual journalism outfit with standards. Though I'm sure that's not how you meant it.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  I think intent matters. It can be argued that any media is biased, in the sense that you literally cannot cover every possible angle, every possible fact, etc. But that is very different IMO from intentional bias.
JamesBarney 7y ago
About half of user in the U.S. use an iphone and a large portion of the other half use pixel or samsungs all of which are easily $400+ phones do I think your experience is atypical. (I'm guessing your friends are either young or thrifty)
- beagle3 7y ago
  And the reason for that is that the market for phones in the US is greatly distorted by carriers - the handsets themselves (which are dirt cheap compared to the service), subsidies in the past and pure market dominance. Canada might be similar, but outside of NA, people know exactly how much they pay for the handset and how much they play for the service (which is 5-10 times cheaper for similar limits), and as a result, most people don’t actually buy a flagship phone.

ReptileMan 7y ago

I think that my generation - with teen years in late 80s to early 00s got spoiled on PC repair ability. And it shaped us about what can we expect. Same with buy computing device, install os of your choosing. The computers were just integrated enough so sizable modules were discreet, but they were running on well defined slots, the crypto was not developed enough to drm components, there were competing players in the market for different parts and repair was 99% of the time just replacing the defective part. I doubt that many people re-soldered defective chip on a ram module. The only way right now to ensure repairability is to legalize how phones should be assembled and basic architecture. The same way eu did with the charging port - although they didn't went after apple for some reason. On the other hand moving to system on a chip makes sense the way semiconductor have developed.

vanderZwan 7y ago
> with teen years in late 80s to early 00s got spoiled on PC repair ability. Given that things in general used to be more repairable than they are now, and that planned obsolescence is absolutely a thing, I highly doubt it.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
The other alternative would be to set standards for recycling to make sure things get really recycled. This would probably drive up cost which then hopefully would make repairing more attractive.
- ReptileMan 7y ago
  The problem with repairability is that you must decide to what level. Replacing transistor in a chip has been impossible for 50 years. Replacing chip was possible 30 years ago. Right now we have soldiered on ram and storage in phones and glued displays. I think that we should insist that parts are replacable - we split the phone into 10-15 parts. But even if I could rule by decree I am not sure I can make the right call what exactly is the right way.
  - sct202 7y ago

saagarjha 7y ago

> The new iPhone 11 costs between $699 and $1,349. Nit: iPhone 11 tops out at $849. iPhone 11 Pro goes up to $1349.

astockwell 7y ago

The attitude of complex, manufactured things that require extensive mining and refining infrastructure and include uncommon elements (literally, molecular elements) being single-use is awful. We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard.

TooCreative 7y ago
Aren't humans single-use too?
- an_ko 7y ago
  Yeah, but humans are easy to recycle, and made of renewable resources.

jimmies 7y ago

I submitted this video link by Louis Rossmann days ago but it was unfortunately mis-classified by HN as spam (and they did clear this up personally with me so don't worry). https://youtu.be/Bt2KDtDt940 https://youtu.be/Bt2KDtDt940 He made a clear concise point in 3 minutes why the right to repair is important. Now the good thing is that it doesn't matter how many states the bill has been shot down. As long as one state or one country has it, it will open the Pandora's box.

rasz 7y ago
Its not spam, its clickbait. Real full house hearing video is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHpXJzjin7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHpXJzjin7k Over two hours of arguments from both sides - private advocates and $1K an hour PR shills (easy to spot who is who).

grawprog 7y ago

The attitude that even cheap phones are throwaways is troubling to me. Not just because throwing away $200-300 seems reasonable to people here that average people can afford to do this regularly, but mostly because every phone cheap or not, takes resources to produce, many of which are non renewable, resources to ship and distribute and sure they're recyclable, but I'd be willing to be not a lot of people put the effort in to actually recycle them. Continuing to produce new phone after new phone with only slight improvements between each new model with the expectation that people will just buy a new one rather than upgrade parts or repair old ones is just completely and utterly wasteful from an environmental stand point.

xwdv 7y ago
The environment isn’t being wasted, it’s being spent. The only way to stop waste is to reach the point where you make a phone so good you don’t need a new phone for a very long time. We may be reaching that point soon within the next decade. That will require constant progress year after year.
- onemoresoop 7y ago
  Good phones are in many cases being obsoleted with forced updates. 5SE, for instance. It's impossible to stick to a phone that you like, it will eventually stop functioning properly way before the phone's physical death.
- defterGoose 7y ago
  Wasted vs. spent is simply a matter of perspective/semantics. From a sustainability standpoint it's totally wasteful. The idea that we could make a perfect product is also kind of silly. Consumer demand in this society is largely driven by novelty.
- bcassedy 7y ago
  You're forgetting planned obsolescence. It's not a coincidence that battery life drops off a cliff and performance issues crop up right at the 1 year mark for most phones.
- 7y ago

Mr_Shiba 7y ago

Lobby money. Legal bribery at work

guelo 7y ago

This article is blogspam. The original article [1] is better and shows that the main objections were about security concerns. [1] https://www.nhbr.com/nh-house-panel-votes-to-nix-right-to-repair-consumer-electronics-bill/ https://www.nhbr.com/nh-house-panel-votes-to-nix-right-to-re...

perspective1 7y ago

The actual quote is, "in the near future, cellphones are throwaways." Which is still disagreeable, but substantially different from the manufactured quote of "cellphones are throwaways." This isn't outright sham journalism, but it's not credible journalism either.

koboll 7y ago
I'm struggling to imagine how you think leaving out "in the near future" changes the meaning of that sentence in any way. Did I miss the part where he predicted a price crash in the smartphone industry? If not, what are you talking about?
- zebrafish 7y ago
  Furthermore, Apple's entire business plan goes out the door if this does indeed take place.
- perspective1 7y ago
  > I'm struggling to imagine how you think leaving out "in the near future" changes the meaning of that sentence in any way. You're really struggling to understand how a prediction about the future is different than the state of affairs today?
  - koboll 7y ago
    Unless you can identify specific things that he thinks will be changing in the future, yes. It sure doesn't seem like smartphones are becoming any less valuable or more expendable.
    - perspective1 7y ago
      Obviously that's not possible because Vice doesn't give any context. Your line of thinking has me worried-- finding context shouldn't be left as an exercise to the reader.
- 7y ago

_rrnv 7y ago

It’s hilarious that the land of the free, the kingdom of capitalism has restrictions on right to repair while highly regulated market like the EU has no problem with it and most of the times sides with the consumers anyway. I won’t even mention Russia or China where you can do whatever the quack you want with your device in any of the countless shops... Dear Americans, I think you didn’t notice you lost your democracy and the republic to big business and lobbyists. And don’t fool yourselves that if Democrats win it will be better. Ironically, you really need to drain the swamp and make deep, systemic changes. I wish you great luck.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> the kingdom of capitalism has restrictions on right to repair There are no such restrictions. There simply isn’t a mandate for repair. Consumers have shown limited preference for repairability over other factors.
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  Tell that to John Deere[1]. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/amp#aoh=15720224124752&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repa...
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    The article is about "a big California farmers’ lobbying group" signing away rights on behalf of its members to John Deere. No government is blocking the right to repair, some companies are. Others aren't, but purchasers don't prioritize their products. There is no law in the United States that blocks or restricts rights to repair.
    - _rrnv 7y ago
      The fact that it was possible is the problem. EU consumer laws make such agreements void. But I guess it’s a matter of mindset. Maybe that’s why I’m downvoted below zero :P

isostatic 7y ago

> Cellphones Are Throwaways That's the point - they shouldn't be. The cost of a cellphone does not cover the cost to the planet of producing that cellphone.

linuxftw 7y ago
Do you own a (mainstream) cellphone? If you do, then you're saying you don't care about phones being disposable. In fact, you handed over money and confirmed the company's thesis: You want a particular product at a particular price point, and you were willing to compromise your weakly held values of environmental sustainability.
- defterGoose 7y ago
  Woah, woah, woah. You ever heard of the perfect being the enemy of the good? Maybe some people need to function in modern society in order to evangelize their deeply-held beliefs about sustainability.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- isostatic 7y ago
  Yup it's nearly 4 years old. Newest kit I have (along with my 2014 desktop, 2013 mac and 2010 thinkpad) Sometimes individual consumers change things, most of the time it needs regulation to help them. The 'invisible hand' may well steer the ship, but it's an oiltanker, not a speedboat.
- redwall_hp 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque The good old "yet you participate in the society you criticize" non-argument.
- seba_dos1 7y ago
  My current smartphone was released in 2009; the second one that I use if the first one can't do the job anymore is from 2012. Both nicely repairable, with replacable batteries etc. Am I able to say that phones shouldn't be throwaways or are those not old enough for you? :P

jdlyga 7y ago

They WERE throaways for the first 10 years of smartphones. Every iPhone or Android release brought so many new improvements that last year's phone looked ancient. Nowadays, we've finally hit diminishing returns and a 2 year old iPhone X is still about the same as an iPhone 11 Pro. It's become more like buying laptops. Therefore, we really need a way to repair these things.

SoylentOrange 7y ago
I strongly disagree. I think it would be hard to articulate why an iPhone 6s (released in 2014) which is the phone my partner has, is not usable today. Many of my friends have phones that are currently 2-3 years old, and they work just fine. I assume this has to do with relative income: either $1000 per year is a lot of money for you, or it’s not.
- cardiffspaceman 7y ago
  I see jdlyga's point as, iPhone 2 made iPhone 1 a throwaway, and from then on to arguably iPhone 6 where maybe phones were more alike than different on critical metrics. On the other hand your point is that current phones don't have much different between them. I held on to my iPhone 5 for 6-7 years so I think I have even better evidence for you than your resourceful friends.
- kylec 7y ago
  I think you two are actually in agreement
LinuxBender 7y ago
I use a $12 phone from Walmart. I am certainly the exception though. I only know a few other people that use throw-away phones like mine. Most people I know have their entire life in their phone and would lose their minds if (when) their phone fails.

xoa 7y ago

I wish all the energy being thrown at "repair" laws would instead go into better warranty laws, which I think is the real underlying issue of which "repairability" is only a symptom. An easy to repair device still leaves the consumer paying money, and often ridiculously early (within a year or two even for top end gear). When people spend $500-1k for a smartphone say, I think there is the general expectation it'll work for at least a good 4-5 years under normal usage, and that most people do in fact experience that. But a percentage don't, and then have to take on the entire cost, or else everyone has to overpay heavily through "extended warranties" which are big profit centers that have no clear pricing, are hidden from the sticker price, and create perverse incentives. So basically it's a classic externality problem. Instead the law should simply make sure that "how long a device lasts" matches reasonable expectation. There are many ways to do this, such as saying everything is 6 months minimum for the first $50 and then another month per $15-20 up to a maximum of 5 years, and mandating repair/replace will happen within 2 weeks. The specifics could be hashed out, but the goal should be to makes sure that for the price consumers see advertised they are promised it will than work for a knowable reasonable lifespan for zero extra cost. "Extended/enhanced warranties" should only exist for special commercial/professional use cases, like extreme support periods, specific fast SLA, or advanced RMAs. By law though all standard use should be covered. Then manufacturers can figure out the right mix of strategies to meet those goals. Repairability might be part of that, because they could satisfy their obligations more cheaply. But it's not the only way or the necessarily right way in all cases, like sometimes additional QA or better design upfront (reducing failure rate even if each individual failure or more expensive) would be more important. Or just having large enough margins to eat the cost if they can add enough value in other ways. It's a bad idea to have government mandate the method, what government should do is mandate the goal and the goal should be that products last, at zero additional cost. That way everything can be compared with no digging.

Merrill 7y ago
The warranty should be optional, though, since otherwise people who properly care for their phones will be paying to repair/replace phones of people who abuse them.
- 7y ago

intpx 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good

Merrill 7y ago

My phone was $7 / month during the two years that I was paying for it. That was a small fraction of the amount that the carrier is charging me for service. People who buy more expensive phones also tend to buy more expensive service plans. So the phone turns out not to be the significant cost component of cell service.

gnode 7y ago

I'm not sure the repairability of many types of electronic devices will be able to meaningfully survive into the future. The general trend in computing is to bring all the components together into a single module, as this improves power efficiency, latency, and bandwidth (e.g. going from DDR memory chips to stacked HBM chiplets connected to the processor by an interposer). Portability, and the aesthetics of thinner / lighter devices also creates a push towards more extensive integration. Repair increasingly means replacement. Maybe the legislative solution we should be pursuing is longer mandatory warranties. That said, in many cases a device fails due to a low value discrete component -- a resistor; a capacitor. This repair legislation would help here.

novok 7y ago
Most failures I've seen are either mechanical wear on a port, button or cable of some sort, glass panel damage or a power supply system not being built fully to spec because of cost cutting or stupidity. Also batteries wearing out due to use or more rarely, ssd storage drives wearing out due to usage. There is also 'glue & waterproofing wear' as the glue & rubber goes through multiple heat / cooling cycles and unsets, then water damage occurs. Those issues will never be going away on some level. The chips themselves are usually the most reliable components, unless they are power management chips.
- gnode 7y ago
  > Most failures I've seen are either mechanical wear on a port, button or cable of some sort Eliminating ports seems to be some manufacturers' solution to this. There's no wear if it doesn't exist. > There is also 'glue & waterproofing wear' as the glue & rubber goes through multiple heat / cooling cycles and unsets, then water damage occurs. I wonder if in the future, the glass will just be hermetically welded to the case (glass-to-metal seal). No moving parts; no external adhesives; no possibly of getting into the device without cutting through it.

mihaaly 7y ago

It would be cheaper getting new lawmakers (throw them away). It is seriously insane viewpoint in an overcommercialized consumer frenzy environment destroying worker exploiting mass industrial insanity that the humanity exhibit nowadays. What's next? Get a new car if someone scratches it? Get a new home if the window breaks? Get a new lawmaker if it says something dumb?

domador 7y ago

This sounds in part like a classic case of wealthy, indifferent elected politicians being out of touch with the "riff-raff" they purportedly represent and act in the best interests off. (This "riff-raff" would include people who want to repair phones due to cost-effectiveness, responsibility with natural resources, and/or a desire to tinker. Also, because they have less throwaway money than these entitled, bought-by-corporate-lobbyists politicians.) On a related note... come on, phone manufacturers! That's enough with sealed phones and a lack of microSD card slots for added storage. Also, come on, app programmers! Let users store data in a microSD card, instead of in limited, expensive built-in storage! If you can't find the data when the card is removed, just deal with it! (I'm looking at you WhatsApp, given your insistence on storing photos and videos on internal memory.)

novok 7y ago
MicroSD needs to improve as a format with write durability and speed before it can be the main store of a device. Hopefully SDUC with better durability will be that format.
chooseaname 7y ago
> That's enough with sealed phones... People want IP ratings. What same people don't understand is that most phone makers tell you it is not permanent. And same people also don't understand that IP ratings are not ratings of waterproof-ness (which, by definition, would not need a rating).
- phkahler 7y ago
  With wireless charging we are nearing the possibility of a waterproof, sealed phone. Not sure how you'd turn it on. Glass front and back bonded together could get there. Touch screen. Camera inside the glass?
  - gpm 7y ago
    > Not sure how you'd turn it on I'm not sure that it needs to fully turn off, many of our electronics don't have that ability. As long as it has power it could run in a super-low-energy mode that just keeps a capacitive sensor going.

hitpointdrew 7y ago

Sad that the "live free or die" state can't pass simple regulation that gives consumers the freedom/right to repair.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
That's a contortion. You can try to repair your phone already. Its legislation to require manufacturers to make a more expensive, repairable device and provide instructional materials. Who's 'freedom' is that supporting?
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  From the article. >The bill would have forced manufacturers such as Apple to share repair manuals and parts with independent repair stores. House members didn’t kill the bill, but sent it back to committee for a year of interim study, citing security concerns Doesn't seem like they were forcing the manufacturers to make easier to repair devices to me but I also haven't read the text of the bill.

SamReidHughes 7y ago

When people talk about non-renewable resources, the biggest of all is the workers' time that went into engineering and manufacturing the thing. You'll never get that back. You can always find more rare-earth atoms, at the worst they'll be sitting in some landfill.

novok 7y ago
You can also say you can always make more humans too...

inscionent 7y ago

"Everything is disposable, even my constituents."

someonehere 7y ago

The only con of allowing people to fix the items they own is you don’t know the quality of the parts you’re replacing. You’re going to have people who think they’re getting a good deal buy from AliExpress or Amazon, replace something like the battery, then have an explosion or fire. Goes on the news and next thing you know Samsung/Apple/Google get dragged through the mud because people see “Galaxy/iPhone/Pixel burns house down!” Now the company that made the phone has to do damage control. Reputation is everything. If there were some sort of regulations in place to only allow replacement parts that meet safety guidelines, it would make it safer for right to repair. You can’t trust people to not cut corners on saving money to fix their phone.

14 7y ago

This comment was typed on an iPhone 4s. It is ancient and is on its 4-5th screen, second ear microphone and second power button. I did all the repairs myself usually following ifixit website.

blahyawnblah 7y ago

This is for a state. What's the status on a bill nation wide?

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago

this day an age cellphones aren't getting much better from year to year. my iphone6 from 5 years ago still works great and hope it will continue to work great for the next 5 years. I don't want to throw away my cellphone, they're way too expensive for that.

OliverJones 7y ago

There's an ALEC talking point against this right-to-repair stuff. https://www.alec.org/tag/right-to-repair/ https://www.alec.org/tag/right-to-repair/ Alec, the "American Legislative Exchange Council," is a far-right-wing organization that feeds legislation to state legislators. Looks like this guy picked it up. All you New Hampshire people are welcome to come south to Massachusetts where we've had our right-to-repair laws for years. But, horrors, you may have to pay sales tax if you pay one of our fine repair establishments for this service. Or you can chuck your old phone in a roadside ditch along with your no-deposit-no-return beer cans.

CamperBob2 7y ago

Who's his opponent? Let's donate and make him a throwaway.

Isamu 7y ago

What, nobody mentioned fairphone? https://www.fairphone.com/en/ https://www.fairphone.com/en/ https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability You can vote with your dollars.

JohnFen 7y ago

I wonder how much money Mr. Potucek got to make such a patently ridiculous argument?