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There are some legitimate and common-sense applications of "terms of service" in physical products. You wouldn't want someone removing a battery from one device

There are some legitimate and common-sense applications of "terms of service" in physical products. You wouldn't want someone removing a battery from one device to try and retrofit into another and then sell the refurbished device as safe. Inevitable problems could be both a safety issue and injure the reputation of the company. Whether a phone or watch generally is one of those sorts of products though is certainly something to debate.

cco 6y ago
> You wouldn't want someone removing a battery from one device to try and retrofit into another and then sell the refurbished device as safe. I feel like you've never had your car repaired before... This is exactly something we're fine with protecting and encouraging. The manufacturer of the defective part is at fault, and depending on circumstances the repair person, not the company who originally built the device. Go ahead and try to get Chevy to sell you a brake master cylinder for a 1970 C10, your only options are after market parts manufacturers and that's fine, we've dealt with this for literally as long as there has been n > 1 blacksmiths in a town.
- mattlutze 6y ago
  Certainly, this is why I've not made a universal claim above. I have indeed partially rebuilt a couple cars. I generally support right to repair. I recognise that anything against that is anathema here but there's some cases where we need to be able to make exceptions. Someone buying a refurbished powerbank, for example, may end up lighting something on fire because it was repaired incorrectly. Yes it'd maybe be on the manufacturer of a replacement regulator if an insulin pump was 3rd-party repaired and failed, but would it maybe be safer to say that the device should be modified or repaired only within its certified supply chain? There's CE and UL listings for communications and electrical devices to in part protect consumers against poor manufacturing leading to irradiated or electrocuted people. Could we agree that there's a difference between a bushing and a microcontroller?
effie 6y ago
I would want exactly this. Lately I got an older model of a smartphone. It was used to present the product, so I'm the first owner. It's ok but the internal battery sucks. Original batteries aren't some magical spec devices that other batteries can't substitute. Most of them are made by the same few manufacturers and it is trivial to find a replacement with similar specs.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I think you as a user should be able to make this choice, but the parent comment is talking about another scenario, where the person you're buying a refurbished iPhone from has silently replaced parts. I think that at least warrants some sort of disclaimer.
  - rlpb 6y ago
    > the person you're buying a refurbished iPhone from has silently replaced parts Silently? Unless they're passing off a refurbished iPhone as a new one, replacing parts as necessary is exactly what refurbishment means! As a buyer I might be interested to know if they used only genuine Apple parts, but I'm happy that the market can take care of that and the only legal intervention should be if there was a deliberate misrepresentation. It's perfectly fine for a repairer to use third party parts without having to specifically call it out. This has been done in every other market since the beginning of time, so this would not be misleading anyone.
  - toast0 6y ago
    Refurbished means previously broken and hopefully fixed. In today's reality, fixing is generally by replacing components. If Apple doesn't make repair parts available, they're either coming from other phones, non-oem manufacturing, or possibly grey/black market overproduction. Refurbished products should always tell you who refurbished them, and you can draw conclusions about the supplies from there. Ideally, they'd also tell you what was replaced, but it can be difficult to track that with the item.
- npunt 6y ago
  I'm not privy to anything specifically about batteries, and you may be right about the batteries all effectively being the same. However, I do know - in general - component manufacturers are notorious for cutting corners to save a few cents, doing additional factory runs after hours, altering chemistry, faking specs, etc. It's a shady business climate that needs constant QC. Also a fair amount of what you pay for is a known chain of custody from component manufacturer to your device. From what I can tell for many components there isn't a clear feedback loop to end customers, as parts travel through several intermediaries, which means its less likely bad quality will lead to repercussions to the component manufacturer. It goes all the way to the repair place, who's typically doing a one-off order for a customer rather than having an ongoing customer relationship, and who may never see a failure 6 months down the line. As far as batteries, and this may be a hypothetical as I do not know about who's manufacturing what and at what quality, but there's also legitimate safety concerns which is why a higher than typical level of scrutiny is required. These are all conditions that could lead to potentially higher failure rates. How much higher is debatable, it may be only a percent or two, and for many folks a small additional risk may be worth saving some cash for. Personally? For older devices I wouldn't care. A newer device, I would.

cco 6y ago

> You wouldn't want someone removing a battery from one device to try and retrofit into another and then sell the refurbished device as safe. I feel like you've never had your car repaired before... This is exactly something we're fine with protecting and encouraging. The manufacturer of the defective part is at fault, and depending on circumstances the repair person, not the company who originally built the device. Go ahead and try to get Chevy to sell you a brake master cylinder for a 1970 C10, your only options are after market parts manufacturers and that's fine, we've dealt with this for literally as long as there has been n > 1 blacksmiths in a town.

mattlutze 6y ago
Certainly, this is why I've not made a universal claim above. I have indeed partially rebuilt a couple cars. I generally support right to repair. I recognise that anything against that is anathema here but there's some cases where we need to be able to make exceptions. Someone buying a refurbished powerbank, for example, may end up lighting something on fire because it was repaired incorrectly. Yes it'd maybe be on the manufacturer of a replacement regulator if an insulin pump was 3rd-party repaired and failed, but would it maybe be safer to say that the device should be modified or repaired only within its certified supply chain? There's CE and UL listings for communications and electrical devices to in part protect consumers against poor manufacturing leading to irradiated or electrocuted people. Could we agree that there's a difference between a bushing and a microcontroller?

effie 6y ago

I would want exactly this. Lately I got an older model of a smartphone. It was used to present the product, so I'm the first owner. It's ok but the internal battery sucks. Original batteries aren't some magical spec devices that other batteries can't substitute. Most of them are made by the same few manufacturers and it is trivial to find a replacement with similar specs.

saagarjha 6y ago
I think you as a user should be able to make this choice, but the parent comment is talking about another scenario, where the person you're buying a refurbished iPhone from has silently replaced parts. I think that at least warrants some sort of disclaimer.
- rlpb 6y ago
  > the person you're buying a refurbished iPhone from has silently replaced parts Silently? Unless they're passing off a refurbished iPhone as a new one, replacing parts as necessary is exactly what refurbishment means! As a buyer I might be interested to know if they used only genuine Apple parts, but I'm happy that the market can take care of that and the only legal intervention should be if there was a deliberate misrepresentation. It's perfectly fine for a repairer to use third party parts without having to specifically call it out. This has been done in every other market since the beginning of time, so this would not be misleading anyone.
- toast0 6y ago
  Refurbished means previously broken and hopefully fixed. In today's reality, fixing is generally by replacing components. If Apple doesn't make repair parts available, they're either coming from other phones, non-oem manufacturing, or possibly grey/black market overproduction. Refurbished products should always tell you who refurbished them, and you can draw conclusions about the supplies from there. Ideally, they'd also tell you what was replaced, but it can be difficult to track that with the item.
npunt 6y ago
I'm not privy to anything specifically about batteries, and you may be right about the batteries all effectively being the same. However, I do know - in general - component manufacturers are notorious for cutting corners to save a few cents, doing additional factory runs after hours, altering chemistry, faking specs, etc. It's a shady business climate that needs constant QC. Also a fair amount of what you pay for is a known chain of custody from component manufacturer to your device. From what I can tell for many components there isn't a clear feedback loop to end customers, as parts travel through several intermediaries, which means its less likely bad quality will lead to repercussions to the component manufacturer. It goes all the way to the repair place, who's typically doing a one-off order for a customer rather than having an ongoing customer relationship, and who may never see a failure 6 months down the line. As far as batteries, and this may be a hypothetical as I do not know about who's manufacturing what and at what quality, but there's also legitimate safety concerns which is why a higher than typical level of scrutiny is required. These are all conditions that could lead to potentially higher failure rates. How much higher is debatable, it may be only a percent or two, and for many folks a small additional risk may be worth saving some cash for. Personally? For older devices I wouldn't care. A newer device, I would.