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Being guaranteed the right to repair from every manufacturer is great and, more importantly, much needed. Nonetheless, most people abide by the culture fabricat
by Funes- 7y ago
Being guaranteed the right to repair from every manufacturer is great and, more importantly, much needed. Nonetheless, most people abide by the culture fabricated by those very corporations, which is defined by an annual release cycle of devices which are minimally upgraded deliberately, their selling point usually being something visibly different from the previous year's smartphones--currently, being foldable or having a gazillion lenses on its back. If the users keep falling for those kinds of tricks and spending a whole month of their salary to buy a phone every year, the status quo isn't going to change. Of course, an easier way to recycle our phones wouldn't hurt, either. Even forcing companies to recycle first, manufacturing new components from scratch only if absolutely necessary, would be a beneficial measure, I reckon.
- simion314 7y agoNot everybody is changing the phone or computers as often. Say if someone gifts me an old iPhone and the battery is getting old I do not have any Apple store around to replace it, I will be forced to trash a working phone because sending it to the country capital for an approved person to install an approved battery is probably more expensive then buying a new phone.
- lttlrck 7y agoIt wouldn’t make much sense to trash it when the alternative is a battery installed by unapproved person. Or donate it yourself.
- jka 7y agoAssuming high-tech early adopters continue to buy new devices as they are released, repairability and recyclability can still make a large difference to the secondary market for refurbished and reused devices. If devices are locked down and become 'bricks' once their original owner is finished with them -- then they're unable to provide any more value. Alternatively if they can be erased, upgraded and continue to function -- and ideally share components with other devices -- then the device and production cost continue to generate value. We have a problem with quantifying and justifying that 'second-order value' since we often think only of the initial consumer's payment (be it one-time or recurring).
- Silhouette 7y agoThe cycle can be broken, though. Look at PC sales these days. PCs became good enough to meet most people's everyday home or office needs, and hardly anyone upgrades automatically every 2-3 years any more unless they genuinely need more powerful hardware. Meanwhile, aggressive marketing particularly to impressionable younger customers has kids and those who influence them raving about a notch or a third camera or whatever it is this week, even though the benefits of these relatively small changes are often negligible. This seems to be more of a cultural problem, possibly with a side order of exploiting vulnerable targets in dubiously ethical ways, than a technical problem.
- Funes- 7y ago>This seems to be more of a cultural problem, possibly with a side order of exploiting vulnerable targets in dubiously ethical ways, than a technical problem. That's exactly what I've said on my previous comment: >The culture fabricated by those very corporations