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One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

1331 points by anandaverma18 5y ago

howmayiannoyyou 5y ago
Rossmann is seriously a national treasure. Along with Lex Fridman the two Youtube personalities irrefutably prove fair mindedness, humility & sincerity is valued. My fears that content online would eventually consist of nothing but selfies, food pics & competitive victimhood are somewhat reduced. I'd like to see Rossmann on Fridman's podcast.
- bserge 5y ago
  Why would that happen? There's more great content than ever (and a lot of it is completely free). Of course, the amount of garbage has also increased, but the ratio seems to be staying steady.
- deleted 5y ago
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- bstar77 5y ago
  I find Rossman insufferable due to his hyperbolic approach to shaming Apple and having a bone to pick with just about everyone- he's the definition of a narcissist. I agree in principle to "right to repair", but Rossman's motives are purely financial and self promoting. I've watched over 100 hours of his content and realized that his audience is primarily made up of anti-apple PC Master Race fanatics that just want to hear Louis troll apple for an hour. Rossman always presents himself as the ultimate victim. Apple has it out for him, NY has it out for him, people less successful than him have it out for him. When you've watched as much of his content as I have, you start to see where his head is, and it's not a pretty place. Anyway, I have found other repair guys that are better than Rossman and don't have so much negativity on their channels. I can get a deeper understanding of repairing tech without the hyperbolic commentary.
  - GuB-42 5y ago
    I think he just understood how YouTube and social media works. New content is more rant and less repair. Anyone can enjoy a good rant troubleshooting motherboards and soldering components is less accessible. Makes me think of Thunderf00t. This guy is a massive troll with, from time to time, great scientific content. He has a lot of followers just here to enjoy the trolling, as evidenced by the fact he is never questioned by his fans even though it is what his channel is supposed to teach.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      I do not understand how or why people prefer spending time listening or watching people talk to each other. Is it not much quicker to read transcripts? And why would I want all the noise that happens in the conversation? Reading a summary of the meat and pickles is far more efficient. “YouTube culture” puzzles me. I love it for instructional videos though.
      - GuB-42 5y ago
        Intonation, body language, etc... Generally transcripts don't make good reads. Well written articles/stories are a different thing. As for summaries, long form / short form is an endless debate. Some people say summaries are worthless because you don't get the context and nuances. Others say long form articles (and videos) are a waste of time. Most people are somewhere between these two extremes.
    - kiba 5y ago
      I am not sure why people are assuming that Rossmann is some kind of savy youtuber looking to pump up views.
  - dijit 5y ago
    It’s a shame to see this downvoted because even if it’s against what many people believe (we all have “hero’s” and “villains” I suppose, and our hero’s do no wrong) it’s something I also see. I used to watch a lot of Rossman and glossed over his Apple hate because ultimately Apple are putting him and people like him out of a job, so it’s fair to be salty. But a large portion of his content (a few years ago at least) is just hour long rants which are unsubstantiated opinion, he does not see nuance or doesn’t want to try steel-manning the things he disagrees with. Which is something Linus Sebastian is incredibly good at. It does come off almost narcissistic at times, to me at least. But at the end of the day explaining how computers are constructed is great content.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  A major problem with Rossmann I have is that he leaned into a strong anti-Apple PCMasterRace crowd. For them, listening to him rant against Apple gives them a fun confirmation bias that they were right to buy PCs. They enjoy listening to that, but his very long rants aren't very interesting to newcomers or for spreading right to repair to new audiences. Does my mom have time for a 45-minute rant full of complex technical details about how Apple is bad and we need Right to Repair? The other problem I have with him is that he always assumes Apple is nefarious because Apple is nefarious. He never addresses ulterior motives that Apple may have had for a decision, nor attempts to consult with engineers about why Apple's engineering might have some reason to it. Apple is anti-repair because they're a big company and because Apple hates noble honest people like him, not because there are any other logical explanations. Finally, my last sticking point with Rossmann as a Right to Repair leader is that he is constantly missing the forest for the trees. He constantly picks on Apple because that gets clicks, but he mostly ignores all the BS that other PC manufacturers are doing or experiencing. When's the last time you saw him talk about a Surface Laptop 3, a laptop with a repair program because the screen was spontaneously cracking? Or the Surface Pro 4 with the battery inflating issue? Or a Razer Blade that spontaneously died on Linus Tech Tips after only a year of use?
  - kiba 5y ago
    You do realize that apple products is what he work on/specialize in, right? Or do you rather that Rossmann talk about what he doesn't know?
    - deleted 5y ago
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    - deleted 5y ago
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    - gjsman-1000 5y ago
      What do you mean by that? Rossmann talks about what he doesn't know all the time. He's not an engineer, yet he thinks he can proclaim that Apple is terrible at engineering and runs with it as a foregone conclusion, without ever having an actual engineer take a look or play Devil's Advocate. This seems irresponsible considering the size of his platform, weakens his argument, and is also odd considering many engineers would happily do a guest appearance.
- blueboo 5y ago
  I can't agree with respect to Lex Fridman, who began humbly hosting the MIT AI Podcast until he saw a payday by riding AI hype to being a techno-Joe Rogan. Like who you want to like, but "irrefutably...sincer[e]" does not apply.
  - listic 5y ago
    Hate to derail a thread, but why is Joe Rogan popular at all? I think he is a poor host.
defaultname 5y ago
Rossmann is an important voice in the right to repair, however I do feel like he leaned into a certain audience, pandering to them a bit as a reliable target for ad impressions, and it has undermined his credibility. I hear about Rossmann most now when some vicious Apple detractor uses him as an authority on things having nothing to do with repair. For instance Rossmann did a video titled "Apple watching & logging EVERY APP YOU OPEN with new OS." (which is interesting given that another of his videos is "Why I don't use Apple products", "The horrible truth about Apple's repeated engineering failures", "Is Apple using sweatshop labor in the US", etc -- there are dozens of these things) This is so ridiculously outside of his wheelhouse or expertise, but it panders to an audience that lines up to get fed that anti-Apple pablum. When you see someone posting a Rossmann video, 9 times out 10 if you look at their history it isn't some guy concerned about repairing his iPhone or MacBook. Instead you'll find someone who has spent years calling Apple users sheep and boasting about their Windows Phone. The guy is monetizing a certain base. Probably doing pretty well out of it.
- henriquez 5y ago
  > “The horrible truth about Apple’s repeated engineering failures” This is totally in his wheelhouse and expertise since he does circuit board repair for Apple devices. You can thank YouTube’s algorithm for the inflammatory title.
  - foldr 5y ago
    It’s not really. There’s a big gap between knowing how to repair circuit boards (which is mostly about part sourcing and being good with a hot air station) and understanding the design of a modern motherboard, which is highly complex. He has loud opinions about laptop design, but it’s worth bearing in mind that he’s never designed even a simple piece of electronics in his life.
    - varispeed 5y ago
      You are the "you can't criticise a movie if you are not a seasoned director" kind...
ravenstine 5y ago
Sadly, you and I watch a different YouTube than probably 95% of people. Almost nobody I've talked to has heard of Lex or Louis, or Bret Weinstein, or Sean Carroll, and so forth. Just open youtube.com in a private window and you'll understand. Even if the average person watched some of Louis Rossmann's videos on the right to repair, I just don't think the importance of the issue would compute with them. Almost nobody my age fixes any of their own things, whether they're electronics or other household items. The concept of repair may be totally antiquated in another 20 years. EDIT: By the way, I sent my Macbook to Louis for repair last year. His team did a great job! Easy to communicate with too. I got it back in the mail really fast once the repair was complete.
- howmayiannoyyou 5y ago
  | I sent my Macbook to Louis for repair last year Water damage. Sad little Macbook into a happy little Macbook. I hope you learned something.
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
  It's the same kind of tragedy that happens with free software. I once spent an entire year using nothing but free software, all the way down to the peripheral firmware. It's still important to me, but as I grow older I get more and more important things competing for time, money and attention. Especially things you do outside, away from technology, with other people. It's all subject to the same FUD too. If every proprietary EULA was replaced with the GPL overnight, and if a webshop where you could buy all the parts to repair anything was to spring up overnight, everybody would still use the same software and devices they know and love, and would not be any worse off than before. But the opponents of either try to make it about protecting the consumers.
- jarenmf 5y ago
  I'm surprised when people don't even know more mainstream science YouTubers like vsauce or veritasium. I've asked a class of ~20 college students whether they know vsauce and I was surprised no one knows him.
  - 5y ago
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
>Apple contractually forces recycling partners to shred old devices
- bogwog 5y ago
  https://www.apple.com/environment https://www.apple.com/environment We’re all fucked.
  - CivBase 5y ago
    My eyes roll through the back of my skull any time I see a company talk about being "carbon neutral". At what point do we call it what it is: false advertising? They haven't done hardly anything to reduce carbon emissions. What they've really done is come up with lame excuses for why the emissions they create shouldn't count towards their net carbon output. Apple is just one of many companies who do this, and they'll keep doing it until we introduce legal repercussions.
arbirk 5y ago
Apple silicon repair: do you want an new device or just a new mobo. Costs the same
- judge2020 5y ago
  my opinion is that device makers should be allowed to make things unrepairable in design, but not in post-sale scarcity. The new macbook airs probably could have been just a tad thicker if they included modular ram and a m.2 ssd, but some consumers (and reviewers) really do like to chase thinness and will chastise Apple to continue to try to make their products as thin as a sheet of paper.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    The "thinness" fad was started by a Motorola phone. Apple studies such fads before launching a device and latched on it. And it makes sense for phones, to a certain extent, because nobody likes a bulky phone in their pocket. For a laptop you'd actually be more concerned about the weight than its thickness.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      > nobody likes a bulky phone in their pocket. Sure, the ~5"×2"×2" 1997 Motorola Whatever was a little unwieldy in your jeans. But after Nokia had brought the thickness down under 0.8" with the 6210 a few years later, that really wasn't a problem any more.
      - webmobdev 5y ago
        I agree. Today, mobile phones are lighter and thinner than before, and users are more concerned about larger screen size that make phones bulky and uncomfortable in your pocket or hand. The point I was trying to make is that Apple is obsessed about marketing fads to sell their devices, and the Motorola Razr - https://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-the-motorola-razr-was-made-2017-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-the-... - was a game changer in this field in terms of both marketing and technology.
deleted 5y ago
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slver 5y ago
More accurate title, just in interest of facts: > One Mac repair shop's fight to repair Macs. Apple can do a lot to make their hardware more repairable. But also I've seen Rossman outright demand their hardware changes just so it's easier to repair, without regard to things like weight, water resistance, and overall UX.
- bogwog 5y ago
  > Apple can do a lot to make their hardware more repairable. But also I've seen Rossman outright demand their hardware changes just so it's easier to repair, without regard to things like weight, water resistance, and overall UX. Source? He released a video recently where he basically said that it doesn’t matter if they’re easy to repair. As technology gets more advanced, so do repair shops. It’ll be harder for the average Joe at home, but that’s precisely why independent repair shops that can offer competitive prices are so important. Plus, I just want to point out (in case it isn’t clear to anyone reading your comment) that right to repair has absolutely nothing to do with making changes to the hardware, or about making repairs “easier”. It’s about supply chains; about making it possible to buy replacement parts. Currently, Apple tells their suppliers that they’re not allowed to sell parts to anyone else. A common example he cites in his videos is where Apple takes a commodity chip they didn’t invent, makes a tiny change to it, and then place a custom order where the contract states that the manufacturer can’t sell it to anyone else. So if that chip breaks, customers can’t replace it with the common version, and they can’t buy it from the only manufacturer that makes the “custom” version. The only alternative is trying to find a clone from China, or taking it from a “donor board” (which is not a sustainable or cost-effective practice)
  - slver 5y ago
    > He released a video recently where he basically said that it doesn’t matter if they’re easy to repair. As technology gets more advanced, so do repair shops. > It’ll be harder for the average Joe at home, but that’s precisely why independent repair shops that can offer competitive prices are so important. So you'd really recommend that Joe at home should repair their own Windows laptop or Android phone? Sorry but "gullible" is the word that comes to mind. Rossman is fighting for his right to do his own job. He has that right, but he also wants to be viral. To be viral, he needs to reframe his fight as the fight for the little guy to resolder a Wi-Fi modem at home on their MacBook. Which is frankly ridiculous. Technology, especially mobile, is at a stage where repairing at home is impossible due to integration and miniaturization. Maybe you could install your own RAM on a laptop. Well now that RAM is in the CPU, because it has to be there. So what do we do? Complain until technology goes back a decade or a few?
ShiftPrintBlog 5y ago
France is pushing a law targeting a similar issue with Apple phones and laptops https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/26/22302664/apple-france-repairability-scores-index-law-right-to-repair https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/26/22302664/apple-france-rep...
huachimingo 5y ago
Ivan Illich talks about this in his book "Tools of Conviviality". That book inspired Lee Felsenstein to make the first PC mod-able.
tcoff91 5y ago
Lex Fridman misrepresents his role at MIT to make himself sound more accomplished than he really is, and the way he went about putting out his self driving car research directly to the press instead of going through peer review is shady. The guy is a cringeworthy grifter. He’s trying to be viewed as some AI expert but he’s totally full of shit.
- fossuser 5y ago
  I’ve also had a really hard time understanding why people praise him so much, I’ve tried multiple times to listen to his stuff and it’s just super disappointing. Worse than most lay people in depth. For people interested in AGI there are many better sources (MIRI, Yudkowsky), for people interested in self-driving: Andrej Karpathy. Max Tegmark also has some great public facing physics writing. There’s so much great stuff out there, Friedman seems to get disproportionate attention. Personal attacks aside, I find him tedious to listen to and he often comes across as if he hasn’t done even cursory reading of his guest’s work. It often feels like a sophomore in college waxing about “big ideas” with little substance to back them up. Even at 2x speed I found the talks low signal.
  - josephg 5y ago
    The one aspect of Friedman I really enjoy is the quality of his guests. I don’t know how he does it, but he seems to attract a lot of guests who I’ve never heard of, and yet are super interesting to listen to. For example, I loved his interviews with Joshua Bach and Jim Keller. I’d never heard of either of those guys before they went on Lex Friedman’s podcast and they’re both brilliant.
    - teatree 5y ago
      A HN reader not knowing Jim Keller is a bit surprising. He is a well known name in tech communities.
      - macintux 5y ago
        It’s a big world.
Terretta 5y ago
I genuinely do not want repairability anywhere near the top of the list of performance and design trade offs. Ruggedness, longevity, sure. Avoiding need to repair, definitely. Repairability? Other concerns, things that change the day-to-day use of the device, should weigh more. Spent too many years as a full service PC network support small business to ever again want to deal with parts that aren’t actually attached to each other. Connection issues (especially on heating and cooling, so intermittent) were essentially all the problems except a vanishingly small proportion that were components. The thing is, the repair shops get what’s left after the design is iterated until other problems are gone. So maybe only these component failures are left. Reverting to the old methods of replaceable components would likely re-introduce a massive class of problems that have by and large been eliminated. Only the remaining problems have a voice, who is advocating on behalf of all the problems that the last 20 years of more solid design eliminated? // Apologies for the HN trope, but see also Chesterson’s Fence, a tech version of “get off my lawn”.
- hourislate 5y ago
  Are you also against being able to upgrade a device, like adding memory or a larger hard drive? Why can't repairability be at the top of the list with performance and design? Apple doesn't want you to fix its devices, it wants to force you to either have them fix it or buy a new one. It's a business decision not a technical one.
  - graywh 5y ago
    and it seems like of the time, the fix costs as much as a new one
- nobodywasishere 5y ago
  Rossmann is not advocating for companies to change how they design stuff. Primarily, he just wants companies to release schematics (that they already have and aren't really proprietary) and to stop making deals with manufacturers to only sell custom parts to that company (which is what apple is doing with one of their charge chips).
- 5y ago
xyst 5y ago
Apple's fight against right to repair while pushing materials to the public that state they are trying to reduce their carbon footprint is the absolute peak of hypocrisy. I understand the closed off design of their products is a result of the Steve Jobs era, but why can't the current leadership make a change? Why can't Apple make their products easily repairable while making them aesthetically pleasing? The typical "private companies must satisfy the shareholders" answer is just a scapegoat. Truly innovative companies (and companies of Apple's size and worth) should be able to solve these problems. Doing anything else is just fucking laziness.
- nrp 5y ago
  Apple’s business and design philosophies revolve around control. In exchange for locking down everything, they promise you a seamless, high-performance, safe experience. That extends to designing products in a way that end-user repair is not a consideration, to locking down access to the App Store (see the Epic trial), and more. I personally think it’s a bad direction to go in, especially with the outsized power Apple has over the industry, but they have clearly found willing audiences for it.
  - worik 5y ago
    As a Apple developer it is not a "seamless, high-performance, safe experience". Anything but.
    - kragen 5y ago
      You're not the customer, you're the product.
      - worik 5y ago
        Not in this case mate. I paid them. I am the creative cutting edge!
        Siira 5y ago
etewiah 5y ago
I bought the domain applesupportfails.com out of anger at getting poor customer service from apple but have so far failed to get it off the ground. Perhaps I need to reach out to Rossmann to get some support....
xrd 5y ago
I wrote a book for O'Reilly that did really poorly in sales. I added content to show the places I made mistakes in my assumptions about the process, and put in sections in chapters that showed how I troubleshot those errors, and corrected the code. My editors asked me to remove that code. O'Reilly's brand, IMHO, is having the smartest people in the room talking to you. They don't want content that shows the author making mistakes. I felt like there was an audience for people who want a different voice, but who was I to argue with O'Reilly's success? Rossman seems like he is talking to that audience, people who aren't experts, and still courageous enough to get something fixed on their own. YouTube permits him to monetize that audience. I still think there is a huge gap in talking to people who are not experts and intimidated by the experts. There is a massive market for publishing there.
______- 5y ago
For me I have boiled down my computing to a set of easily repeatable steps to get going again if anything ever happens to my device. All my most important data is in the cloud, so if a device is stolen, I can log back into everything and continue my computing. I just buy a new device and log back into everything, which takes 30 mins tops. This actually works out cheaper than getting it repaired!
- josephcsible 5y ago
  And it's terrible for the environment.
rockbruno 5y ago
It's absurd how difficult it's to repair a MacBook. I have a 2009 MacBook that needed to have its keyboard replaced after my mother dropped coffee on it. Not only I had to disassemble the ENTIRE MacBook to reach the keyboard, the keyboard itself is covered by a plastic sheet that is super glued to both the MacBook and the keyboard. It took an enormous amount of time to remove the glue, and not only the keyboard was completely destroyed in the process, the case itself cracked a little bit due to the amount of force needed to remove said plastic sheet. And that's without even mentioning that there was at least 3 different types of security screws before even reaching this point.
- neop1x 5y ago
  Yes and look at Macbook 12 retina [1] and remember.. keyboard is one of the things to worn out quickly and can also be easily damaged by liquid spill. Also notice the video is fast-forwarded many times during the procedure. [1] https://youtu.be/CizrupL_02o https://youtu.be/CizrupL_02o
34679 5y ago
I just did my first surface mount repair this morning and it 100% happened because of Rossmann's channel. It was so easy that I feel like I should have been doing it much sooner. The things I've thrown away over the years..
- jve 5y ago
  Louis has helped a bit, but I'm encouraged by NorthridgeFix https://youtube.com/c/NorthridgeFix https://youtube.com/c/NorthridgeFix Great channel. Sometimes lacks deep dive into troubleshooting, but certainly encourages to do microscopic work.
paulgerhardt 5y ago
Living in Shenzhen, it’s shocking how easy it is to go out and repair stuff. Living in Palo Alto, it’s frustrating how hard it is. I’m thinking maybe, just maybe, introducing repairability laws won’t solve the problem. I am perfectly happy upgrading the memory on my MacBook Air with a reflow air station rather than swapping out some dims if it means my laptop is half as thick and twice as rugged. I’m also just as happy dropping my phone off at a corner shop to replace the glass (while preserving the same electronics) using an industrial laminating machine. My problem today is not that repairability laws impede my progress here (they certainly don’t exist in China either). My problem is I can only get the chips and schematics I need to effect the repair on the Chinese Internet (WeChat/Taobao) or find someone to do the repair for me for $40 on the Chinese street markets (Huaqiangnan in Shenzhen). When I go to a corner store in the US the “solution” to swap the whole sub-assembly (glass+electronics) not just glass in case of a screen repair for $100+
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  The reason it can be done in China is because those shops illegally obtain the parts (whether counterfeit or stolen, since Apple won't intentionally sell them to anyone) and resources (schematics, software, etc) to be able to do so. This situation is both good and bad. Stolen parts are good, in the sense that this grey market at least allows consumers to repair devices cost-effectively. It's also bad, because besides it essentially being theft, the grey market opens the door to bad actors who pass off used/defective/rejected/counterfeit parts as the real thing. Repairability laws would actually help here. You would get the same repair shops in the US if Apple was forced to provide schematics & parts at a reasonable cost, with no risk of counterfeits or bad parts. This is a big deal, and the reason there's so much opposition to right to repair, even beyond Apple. If R2R was a stupid, niche, geeky idea that doesn't bother anyone it would quietly get passed and that would be it, but the reason people are bothered by it and oppose it is because device manufacturers (whether computers or cars or farm equipment) actually make a lot of money off the status-quo.
  - loceng 5y ago
    It's a signal when humans will do something against the law - and generally it seems to be a fair response to excessive control or at minimum a counterweight to the actions of a selfish for-profit or industry. Piracy comes to mind as well: if content becomes too expensive, requiring monthly subscriptions to too many places or then unreasonable cost to buy a specific film or series - then more people will pirate, and more reasonable people willing to pay will start to pirate - the more friction and unfairness in the balance of everything, the more piracy. The ability to pirate or repair by third-party both I believe are necessary to keep organizations in check. Edit to add: makes me think of Bitcoin too, people certainly have reason to be unhappy with local-global financial systems which have heavy-matured regulatory capture and overall corruption whether it's printing excessive money or being deceptive to foreign players so it's an uneven playing field.
teslaberry 5y ago
lex fridman is highly naive and has chosen to wisely pursue the money but immitating and co-opting joe rogan's youtube audience which was left high and dry. rossman is not as naive, but he is unable to see the forest for the trees when it comes to 'right to repair'. the bigger issue is u.s. economic system in general but you gotta give him credit for being focussed. meanwhile, it's time lex fridman has luis rossman on his show.
llaolleh 5y ago
Right to repair needs to be preserved if we want to have the next generation of hackers and engineers. A good chunk of learning happens when you break apart devices and put them back together, or fix them yourself. You screw up, and learn during the entire process. It would be God awful if the next Tesla can't buy some chips he wants to solder onto his broken Mac because Apple prevents chip manufacturers from selling them.
soheil 5y ago
With the amount of publicity Rossmann gets how is he not a multi-millionaire already? It's interesting that he is literally still fixing Macbooks, one Macbook at a time.
SMAAART 5y ago
What an interesting guy. So, YouTubing for therapy? Good one!
jart 5y ago
"The Mać Shop" in Wilmington DE thought it had the right to repair macbooks too. They also believed they had a right to recycle personal data on hard drives that got replaced whereas apple would have likely just tossed it in the shredder. Be careful about who you trust with valuable things.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Are you arguing that right to repair is a bad thing just because one repair shop did something wrong?
aasasd 5y ago
Tip: if you're curious enough to watch a video of Rossmann's, do that in the incognito mode. Otherwise you'll be pestered with recommendations of the other two thousand of his videos, until the end of your days. Perhaps you'll even be able to follow the epic of his fight by the titles of new videos.
- Fizzer 5y ago
  Anytime you want to mute a channel, just click the three dots to the lower right of a video and select "Don't recommend channel"
  - aasasd 5y ago
    Sorta loath to do that, because I don't want YT to stop suggesting stuff related to that channel and its general topics. I just don't need more Louis Rossmann in my life, the rants don't do me any good—possibly aside from keeping my heart strong from pumping against the pressure, I guess. But the stress snacks will kill me. I'd like the algo to take a gentle hint already, it was like a year since the last watching. I did some digging in the innards of a Macbook Pro, years earlier, and have a couple leftover screws as a result. I think I'll leave the next endeavor to people with better hands, especially since putting in an extra hard drive isn't an option anymore.
    - technofiend 5y ago
      You can remove your history of viewed videos in whole or in part. I've found that the most effective way to stop YouTube's manic obsession for any topic I've viewed once.
- soheil 5y ago
  There is a Chrome ext that allows you to quickly open a link/video in incognito by clicking it while holding a meta key like shift, highly recommend for avoiding the Youtube recommendation hell [0]. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/key-ncognito/lilomadmkegmkmkjmdbbgalimcmfogfk?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/key-ncognito/lilom...
GekkePrutser 5y ago
I'm all for right to repair, but Rossman rubs me the wrong way. He's too much of a Youtube celeb right now for me to still take seriously. They always become caricatures of themselves because their popularity depends on them doing what people know them for: In his case anger at Apple. It makes a balanced discussion impossible. I don't like what Apple do, I think current Macs are very poor in terms of hardware (ports/keyboards). And in fact I have stopped buying Macs for this reason. But he's a bit too extreme sometimes IMO. Like he's looking for things to complain about, just because that's what 'his thing' is.
vladmk 5y ago
We need to fix this problem (pun intended)
vladmk 5y ago
It sounds like people would love open source devices they can build/customize. This reminds my of the MySpace wall vs Facebook wall problem. There should be a market for both in hardware.
gjsman-1000 5y ago
How much of this, I'm curious, is changing now that Jony Ive is gone? Think about it. Since he left, Apple is bringing color back to their designs, bringing back ports other than Thunderbolt, abandoned the Butterfly keyboard, made the MacBook Pro 16" thicker to improve battery life and cooling, added the discounted business rate to the App Store... Now, this doesn't mean Apple will continue improving or will make Right to Repair happen. However, I think that with Jony's departure, something may have, just may have, snapped within the company, and they seem to be looking at changing their ways just a little bit.
architect64 5y ago
Related: There's a startup with a laptop focused on repairability, without sacrificing much thinness or style: https://frame.work/about https://frame.work/about
emmelaich 5y ago
I just had the most astonishing moment. My mac air audio has been broken for a while. I looked up this guy's channel for audio fixes. It took a few seconds to realise that the sound was playing! I usually have to use bluetooth. So thank you Louis!
hellbannedguy 5y ago
"But Rossmann hopes to raise it. As a repair technician slash right to repair advocate slash YouTube personality, he has expertise and clout that he’s looking to leverage in his latest endeavor: trying to put the right to repair for consumer electronics on the ballot in Massachusetts. To do so, Rossmann started the Repair Group Preservation Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, and launched a fundraiser on March 30. So far, he has raised more than $700,000 toward his $6 million goal, which by all accounts isn’t nearly enough, given his potential opponents could be tech and telecom giants like Apple, Verizon and T-Mobile. “It’s not that we’re against it,” said Gordon-Byrne. “God bless him for trying. But I think our ability to sponsor that is very limited. We gotta find some friendly billionaires.” The move is risky, even if Rossmann can raise $6 million. “If you lose on the ballot, that really makes it tough to get other people to pick it up again, because it’s kind of like you’ve lost your proof of concept,” said Nathan Proctor, director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group’s right to repair campaign.5" 1. I hope Louis succeeds for his state's sake. 2. My fear is what the big companies did CA. A few legislators introduced bills aimed at ending E-waste, or Right to Repair. The big boys used their money to squash the bills, and succeeded stupendously. All it took was a few scare commercials. 3. The big pocketed companies made these rediculious commercials. They featured a thief, or rapist, gaining access to your vechicle in a dark parking lot. This was supposedly due to the bad guy having access to schematics. California has had 2, or 3 bills over (E-waste) Right to Repair Bills; and they all failed. Failed-----------. This is beyond frustrating to me. Corporations own Sacramento. Be it tech, insurance, or Realator's, they are making our lives more expensive. I won't even get started on the Insurance industry Lobbiests. (My blood pressure is climbing) We Californians need to smarten up. If we get another shot at Right to Repair, I guarantee you won't be raped in a parking garage because someone reverse engineered a gadget to take over your vechicle, or you. If you main concern is someone taking control of your vehicle I would allow all security schematics exempt from Right to Repair. Now let's the next bill passed. I would like a Proposition, but they would Uber us? (I'm not angry over just Right to Repair. It a lot. It mandatory vechicle insurance, smog checks that are pricey, and too frequent, Insurance rates that I guarantee are price colluded, outrageous traffic fines for infractions, driving past 10 pm, and being pulled over for no reason. Cops think we all get hammered like they do?, harassing homeless for sleeping, etc.)
infogulch 5y ago
This is another symptom of the sickness in our current implementation of Intellectual Property law. IP is being allowed to eat all other forms of ownership, even as whatever is left is being eroded away. I'm not sure where I heard "In 50 years nobody will own anything, and everyone will be happy about it." to which I respond with two possibilities: 1. We are happy; great. 2. We are unhappy; and able to do fuck all about it because we own nothing. Maybe we should sacrifice option 1 to dodge option 2.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  You forgot the scariest: 3. we are unhappy, but don't even understand it because society have lost any reference point to an alternative or any way to talk about it.
  - infogulch 5y ago
    Or 4. We are "happy", but only because expressing unhappiness is against the TOS and in response you are banned from society with as little fanfare as google can ban your account for no reason.
deleted 5y ago
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neop1x 5y ago
There are still people having 7+ years old Macbooks with easily replaceable HDD and sometimes RAM. And people buying new devices every release. Maybe attitude of society towards right to repair and Apple fanaticism will change over time as their pile of irreparable, damaged beyond economic repair, lost screws and parts over time garbage will start taking significant space in their homes.
habosa 5y ago
I am in the market for a new laptop. The new M1 MacBook Air appeals to me so much but the lack of any ability to repair/upgrade it over time is just no longer acceptable to me. Instead I'll be going with the Framework laptop: https://frame.work/ https://frame.work/ I expect to replace the RAM, Battery, and maybe even the processor over time. I really value this optionality and it will be much better for the environment as well.
Anktionaer 5y ago
I feel like a lot of the comments here are strawmanning a bit (or a lot). Apple and most big manufacturers (in all sectors and industries) who see what they can get away with are purposely abusing copyright law and making deliberate choices in their design and policy that do nothing except hinder the repair of their devices. The right-to-repair people like Luis Rossmann want legislation to stop these practices. Some people in the comments are extending that to mean that they want manufacturers to only create modular and bulky devices with yesterdays technology when it seems clear (at least to me) that what they actually want is the ability to legitimately purchase replacement parts from OEMs and legitimate access to the sort of manuals and schematics that are available to their internal refurbishers and technicians. I don't think it's reasonable to require that manufacturers design their devices to be repairable at the cost of other considerations that are more important to the end user. I do think it's reasonable to require manufacturers to stop these practices that don't benefit the end user or even harm their experience in order to keep a tight grip on the device that they supposedly purchased and should own completely.
thereddaikon 5y ago
I don't understand why people are so hostile to the idea of reparability with electronics while we have enjoyed just that with cars forever. Much of what Apple and every other electronics company does with their products would be explicitly illegal it they were selling cars instead of gadgets. Why should those be any different? For example, requiring repair/replacement at authorized repair centers is considered "tying" and illegal in the automotive industry. Same with denying warranty coverage for opening your devices. This is actually illegal already for electronic devices but its rarely enforced because who wants to go to court for a $500 phone for $1500 laptop?
sam345 5y ago
My guess is that companies are opposed to the right to repair less for the loss of revenue which is likely relatively minor but more for the constraints it puts on design and manufacture. Regulating how something is made to make repair a priority will require more lawyers to interpret the mountains of regulations thst will sure to follow, severely cramping design and the pace of development.

1331 points by anandaverma18 5y ago

Rossmann is seriously a national treasure. Along with Lex Fridman the two Youtube personalities irrefutably prove fair mindedness, humility & sincerity is valued. My fears that content online would eventually consist of nothing but selfies, food pics & competitive victimhood are somewhat reduced. I'd like to see Rossmann on Fridman's podcast.

bserge 5y ago
Why would that happen? There's more great content than ever (and a lot of it is completely free). Of course, the amount of garbage has also increased, but the ratio seems to be staying steady.
deleted 5y ago
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bstar77 5y ago
I find Rossman insufferable due to his hyperbolic approach to shaming Apple and having a bone to pick with just about everyone- he's the definition of a narcissist. I agree in principle to "right to repair", but Rossman's motives are purely financial and self promoting. I've watched over 100 hours of his content and realized that his audience is primarily made up of anti-apple PC Master Race fanatics that just want to hear Louis troll apple for an hour. Rossman always presents himself as the ultimate victim. Apple has it out for him, NY has it out for him, people less successful than him have it out for him. When you've watched as much of his content as I have, you start to see where his head is, and it's not a pretty place. Anyway, I have found other repair guys that are better than Rossman and don't have so much negativity on their channels. I can get a deeper understanding of repairing tech without the hyperbolic commentary.
- GuB-42 5y ago
  I think he just understood how YouTube and social media works. New content is more rant and less repair. Anyone can enjoy a good rant troubleshooting motherboards and soldering components is less accessible. Makes me think of Thunderf00t. This guy is a massive troll with, from time to time, great scientific content. He has a lot of followers just here to enjoy the trolling, as evidenced by the fact he is never questioned by his fans even though it is what his channel is supposed to teach.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I do not understand how or why people prefer spending time listening or watching people talk to each other. Is it not much quicker to read transcripts? And why would I want all the noise that happens in the conversation? Reading a summary of the meat and pickles is far more efficient. “YouTube culture” puzzles me. I love it for instructional videos though.
    - GuB-42 5y ago
      Intonation, body language, etc... Generally transcripts don't make good reads. Well written articles/stories are a different thing. As for summaries, long form / short form is an endless debate. Some people say summaries are worthless because you don't get the context and nuances. Others say long form articles (and videos) are a waste of time. Most people are somewhere between these two extremes.
  - kiba 5y ago
    I am not sure why people are assuming that Rossmann is some kind of savy youtuber looking to pump up views.
- dijit 5y ago
  It’s a shame to see this downvoted because even if it’s against what many people believe (we all have “hero’s” and “villains” I suppose, and our hero’s do no wrong) it’s something I also see. I used to watch a lot of Rossman and glossed over his Apple hate because ultimately Apple are putting him and people like him out of a job, so it’s fair to be salty. But a large portion of his content (a few years ago at least) is just hour long rants which are unsubstantiated opinion, he does not see nuance or doesn’t want to try steel-manning the things he disagrees with. Which is something Linus Sebastian is incredibly good at. It does come off almost narcissistic at times, to me at least. But at the end of the day explaining how computers are constructed is great content.
gjsman-1000 5y ago
A major problem with Rossmann I have is that he leaned into a strong anti-Apple PCMasterRace crowd. For them, listening to him rant against Apple gives them a fun confirmation bias that they were right to buy PCs. They enjoy listening to that, but his very long rants aren't very interesting to newcomers or for spreading right to repair to new audiences. Does my mom have time for a 45-minute rant full of complex technical details about how Apple is bad and we need Right to Repair? The other problem I have with him is that he always assumes Apple is nefarious because Apple is nefarious. He never addresses ulterior motives that Apple may have had for a decision, nor attempts to consult with engineers about why Apple's engineering might have some reason to it. Apple is anti-repair because they're a big company and because Apple hates noble honest people like him, not because there are any other logical explanations. Finally, my last sticking point with Rossmann as a Right to Repair leader is that he is constantly missing the forest for the trees. He constantly picks on Apple because that gets clicks, but he mostly ignores all the BS that other PC manufacturers are doing or experiencing. When's the last time you saw him talk about a Surface Laptop 3, a laptop with a repair program because the screen was spontaneously cracking? Or the Surface Pro 4 with the battery inflating issue? Or a Razer Blade that spontaneously died on Linus Tech Tips after only a year of use?
- kiba 5y ago
  You do realize that apple products is what he work on/specialize in, right? Or do you rather that Rossmann talk about what he doesn't know?
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    What do you mean by that? Rossmann talks about what he doesn't know all the time. He's not an engineer, yet he thinks he can proclaim that Apple is terrible at engineering and runs with it as a foregone conclusion, without ever having an actual engineer take a look or play Devil's Advocate. This seems irresponsible considering the size of his platform, weakens his argument, and is also odd considering many engineers would happily do a guest appearance.
blueboo 5y ago
I can't agree with respect to Lex Fridman, who began humbly hosting the MIT AI Podcast until he saw a payday by riding AI hype to being a techno-Joe Rogan. Like who you want to like, but "irrefutably...sincer[e]" does not apply.
- listic 5y ago
  Hate to derail a thread, but why is Joe Rogan popular at all? I think he is a poor host.

defaultname 5y ago

Rossmann is an important voice in the right to repair, however I do feel like he leaned into a certain audience, pandering to them a bit as a reliable target for ad impressions, and it has undermined his credibility. I hear about Rossmann most now when some vicious Apple detractor uses him as an authority on things having nothing to do with repair. For instance Rossmann did a video titled "Apple watching & logging EVERY APP YOU OPEN with new OS." (which is interesting given that another of his videos is "Why I don't use Apple products", "The horrible truth about Apple's repeated engineering failures", "Is Apple using sweatshop labor in the US", etc -- there are dozens of these things) This is so ridiculously outside of his wheelhouse or expertise, but it panders to an audience that lines up to get fed that anti-Apple pablum. When you see someone posting a Rossmann video, 9 times out 10 if you look at their history it isn't some guy concerned about repairing his iPhone or MacBook. Instead you'll find someone who has spent years calling Apple users sheep and boasting about their Windows Phone. The guy is monetizing a certain base. Probably doing pretty well out of it.

henriquez 5y ago
> “The horrible truth about Apple’s repeated engineering failures” This is totally in his wheelhouse and expertise since he does circuit board repair for Apple devices. You can thank YouTube’s algorithm for the inflammatory title.
- foldr 5y ago
  It’s not really. There’s a big gap between knowing how to repair circuit boards (which is mostly about part sourcing and being good with a hot air station) and understanding the design of a modern motherboard, which is highly complex. He has loud opinions about laptop design, but it’s worth bearing in mind that he’s never designed even a simple piece of electronics in his life.
  - varispeed 5y ago
    You are the "you can't criticise a movie if you are not a seasoned director" kind...

ravenstine 5y ago

Sadly, you and I watch a different YouTube than probably 95% of people. Almost nobody I've talked to has heard of Lex or Louis, or Bret Weinstein, or Sean Carroll, and so forth. Just open youtube.com in a private window and you'll understand. Even if the average person watched some of Louis Rossmann's videos on the right to repair, I just don't think the importance of the issue would compute with them. Almost nobody my age fixes any of their own things, whether they're electronics or other household items. The concept of repair may be totally antiquated in another 20 years. EDIT: By the way, I sent my Macbook to Louis for repair last year. His team did a great job! Easy to communicate with too. I got it back in the mail really fast once the repair was complete.

howmayiannoyyou 5y ago
| I sent my Macbook to Louis for repair last year Water damage. Sad little Macbook into a happy little Macbook. I hope you learned something.
Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
It's the same kind of tragedy that happens with free software. I once spent an entire year using nothing but free software, all the way down to the peripheral firmware. It's still important to me, but as I grow older I get more and more important things competing for time, money and attention. Especially things you do outside, away from technology, with other people. It's all subject to the same FUD too. If every proprietary EULA was replaced with the GPL overnight, and if a webshop where you could buy all the parts to repair anything was to spring up overnight, everybody would still use the same software and devices they know and love, and would not be any worse off than before. But the opponents of either try to make it about protecting the consumers.
jarenmf 5y ago
I'm surprised when people don't even know more mainstream science YouTubers like vsauce or veritasium. I've asked a class of ~20 college students whether they know vsauce and I was surprised no one knows him.
- 5y ago

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

>Apple contractually forces recycling partners to shred old devices

bogwog 5y ago
https://www.apple.com/environment https://www.apple.com/environment We’re all fucked.
- CivBase 5y ago
  My eyes roll through the back of my skull any time I see a company talk about being "carbon neutral". At what point do we call it what it is: false advertising? They haven't done hardly anything to reduce carbon emissions. What they've really done is come up with lame excuses for why the emissions they create shouldn't count towards their net carbon output. Apple is just one of many companies who do this, and they'll keep doing it until we introduce legal repercussions.

arbirk 5y ago

Apple silicon repair: do you want an new device or just a new mobo. Costs the same

judge2020 5y ago
my opinion is that device makers should be allowed to make things unrepairable in design, but not in post-sale scarcity. The new macbook airs probably could have been just a tad thicker if they included modular ram and a m.2 ssd, but some consumers (and reviewers) really do like to chase thinness and will chastise Apple to continue to try to make their products as thin as a sheet of paper.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  The "thinness" fad was started by a Motorola phone. Apple studies such fads before launching a device and latched on it. And it makes sense for phones, to a certain extent, because nobody likes a bulky phone in their pocket. For a laptop you'd actually be more concerned about the weight than its thickness.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > nobody likes a bulky phone in their pocket. Sure, the ~5"×2"×2" 1997 Motorola Whatever was a little unwieldy in your jeans. But after Nokia had brought the thickness down under 0.8" with the 6210 a few years later, that really wasn't a problem any more.
    - webmobdev 5y ago
      I agree. Today, mobile phones are lighter and thinner than before, and users are more concerned about larger screen size that make phones bulky and uncomfortable in your pocket or hand. The point I was trying to make is that Apple is obsessed about marketing fads to sell their devices, and the Motorola Razr - https://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-the-motorola-razr-was-made-2017-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-the-... - was a game changer in this field in terms of both marketing and technology.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

slver 5y ago

More accurate title, just in interest of facts: > One Mac repair shop's fight to repair Macs. Apple can do a lot to make their hardware more repairable. But also I've seen Rossman outright demand their hardware changes just so it's easier to repair, without regard to things like weight, water resistance, and overall UX.

bogwog 5y ago
> Apple can do a lot to make their hardware more repairable. But also I've seen Rossman outright demand their hardware changes just so it's easier to repair, without regard to things like weight, water resistance, and overall UX. Source? He released a video recently where he basically said that it doesn’t matter if they’re easy to repair. As technology gets more advanced, so do repair shops. It’ll be harder for the average Joe at home, but that’s precisely why independent repair shops that can offer competitive prices are so important. Plus, I just want to point out (in case it isn’t clear to anyone reading your comment) that right to repair has absolutely nothing to do with making changes to the hardware, or about making repairs “easier”. It’s about supply chains; about making it possible to buy replacement parts. Currently, Apple tells their suppliers that they’re not allowed to sell parts to anyone else. A common example he cites in his videos is where Apple takes a commodity chip they didn’t invent, makes a tiny change to it, and then place a custom order where the contract states that the manufacturer can’t sell it to anyone else. So if that chip breaks, customers can’t replace it with the common version, and they can’t buy it from the only manufacturer that makes the “custom” version. The only alternative is trying to find a clone from China, or taking it from a “donor board” (which is not a sustainable or cost-effective practice)
- slver 5y ago
  > He released a video recently where he basically said that it doesn’t matter if they’re easy to repair. As technology gets more advanced, so do repair shops. > It’ll be harder for the average Joe at home, but that’s precisely why independent repair shops that can offer competitive prices are so important. So you'd really recommend that Joe at home should repair their own Windows laptop or Android phone? Sorry but "gullible" is the word that comes to mind. Rossman is fighting for his right to do his own job. He has that right, but he also wants to be viral. To be viral, he needs to reframe his fight as the fight for the little guy to resolder a Wi-Fi modem at home on their MacBook. Which is frankly ridiculous. Technology, especially mobile, is at a stage where repairing at home is impossible due to integration and miniaturization. Maybe you could install your own RAM on a laptop. Well now that RAM is in the CPU, because it has to be there. So what do we do? Complain until technology goes back a decade or a few?

ShiftPrintBlog 5y ago

France is pushing a law targeting a similar issue with Apple phones and laptops https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/26/22302664/apple-france-repairability-scores-index-law-right-to-repair https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/26/22302664/apple-france-rep...

huachimingo 5y ago

Ivan Illich talks about this in his book "Tools of Conviviality". That book inspired Lee Felsenstein to make the first PC mod-able.

tcoff91 5y ago

Lex Fridman misrepresents his role at MIT to make himself sound more accomplished than he really is, and the way he went about putting out his self driving car research directly to the press instead of going through peer review is shady. The guy is a cringeworthy grifter. He’s trying to be viewed as some AI expert but he’s totally full of shit.

fossuser 5y ago
I’ve also had a really hard time understanding why people praise him so much, I’ve tried multiple times to listen to his stuff and it’s just super disappointing. Worse than most lay people in depth. For people interested in AGI there are many better sources (MIRI, Yudkowsky), for people interested in self-driving: Andrej Karpathy. Max Tegmark also has some great public facing physics writing. There’s so much great stuff out there, Friedman seems to get disproportionate attention. Personal attacks aside, I find him tedious to listen to and he often comes across as if he hasn’t done even cursory reading of his guest’s work. It often feels like a sophomore in college waxing about “big ideas” with little substance to back them up. Even at 2x speed I found the talks low signal.
- josephg 5y ago
  The one aspect of Friedman I really enjoy is the quality of his guests. I don’t know how he does it, but he seems to attract a lot of guests who I’ve never heard of, and yet are super interesting to listen to. For example, I loved his interviews with Joshua Bach and Jim Keller. I’d never heard of either of those guys before they went on Lex Friedman’s podcast and they’re both brilliant.
  - teatree 5y ago
    A HN reader not knowing Jim Keller is a bit surprising. He is a well known name in tech communities.
    - macintux 5y ago
      It’s a big world.

Terretta 5y ago

I genuinely do not want repairability anywhere near the top of the list of performance and design trade offs. Ruggedness, longevity, sure. Avoiding need to repair, definitely. Repairability? Other concerns, things that change the day-to-day use of the device, should weigh more. Spent too many years as a full service PC network support small business to ever again want to deal with parts that aren’t actually attached to each other. Connection issues (especially on heating and cooling, so intermittent) were essentially all the problems except a vanishingly small proportion that were components. The thing is, the repair shops get what’s left after the design is iterated until other problems are gone. So maybe only these component failures are left. Reverting to the old methods of replaceable components would likely re-introduce a massive class of problems that have by and large been eliminated. Only the remaining problems have a voice, who is advocating on behalf of all the problems that the last 20 years of more solid design eliminated? // Apologies for the HN trope, but see also Chesterson’s Fence, a tech version of “get off my lawn”.

hourislate 5y ago
Are you also against being able to upgrade a device, like adding memory or a larger hard drive? Why can't repairability be at the top of the list with performance and design? Apple doesn't want you to fix its devices, it wants to force you to either have them fix it or buy a new one. It's a business decision not a technical one.
- graywh 5y ago
  and it seems like of the time, the fix costs as much as a new one
nobodywasishere 5y ago
Rossmann is not advocating for companies to change how they design stuff. Primarily, he just wants companies to release schematics (that they already have and aren't really proprietary) and to stop making deals with manufacturers to only sell custom parts to that company (which is what apple is doing with one of their charge chips).
5y ago

xyst 5y ago

Apple's fight against right to repair while pushing materials to the public that state they are trying to reduce their carbon footprint is the absolute peak of hypocrisy. I understand the closed off design of their products is a result of the Steve Jobs era, but why can't the current leadership make a change? Why can't Apple make their products easily repairable while making them aesthetically pleasing? The typical "private companies must satisfy the shareholders" answer is just a scapegoat. Truly innovative companies (and companies of Apple's size and worth) should be able to solve these problems. Doing anything else is just fucking laziness.

nrp 5y ago
Apple’s business and design philosophies revolve around control. In exchange for locking down everything, they promise you a seamless, high-performance, safe experience. That extends to designing products in a way that end-user repair is not a consideration, to locking down access to the App Store (see the Epic trial), and more. I personally think it’s a bad direction to go in, especially with the outsized power Apple has over the industry, but they have clearly found willing audiences for it.
- worik 5y ago
  As a Apple developer it is not a "seamless, high-performance, safe experience". Anything but.
  - kragen 5y ago
    You're not the customer, you're the product.
    - worik 5y ago
      Not in this case mate. I paid them. I am the creative cutting edge!
      - Siira 5y ago

etewiah 5y ago

I bought the domain applesupportfails.com out of anger at getting poor customer service from apple but have so far failed to get it off the ground. Perhaps I need to reach out to Rossmann to get some support....

xrd 5y ago

I wrote a book for O'Reilly that did really poorly in sales. I added content to show the places I made mistakes in my assumptions about the process, and put in sections in chapters that showed how I troubleshot those errors, and corrected the code. My editors asked me to remove that code. O'Reilly's brand, IMHO, is having the smartest people in the room talking to you. They don't want content that shows the author making mistakes. I felt like there was an audience for people who want a different voice, but who was I to argue with O'Reilly's success? Rossman seems like he is talking to that audience, people who aren't experts, and still courageous enough to get something fixed on their own. YouTube permits him to monetize that audience. I still think there is a huge gap in talking to people who are not experts and intimidated by the experts. There is a massive market for publishing there.

______- 5y ago

For me I have boiled down my computing to a set of easily repeatable steps to get going again if anything ever happens to my device. All my most important data is in the cloud, so if a device is stolen, I can log back into everything and continue my computing. I just buy a new device and log back into everything, which takes 30 mins tops. This actually works out cheaper than getting it repaired!

josephcsible 5y ago
And it's terrible for the environment.

rockbruno 5y ago

It's absurd how difficult it's to repair a MacBook. I have a 2009 MacBook that needed to have its keyboard replaced after my mother dropped coffee on it. Not only I had to disassemble the ENTIRE MacBook to reach the keyboard, the keyboard itself is covered by a plastic sheet that is super glued to both the MacBook and the keyboard. It took an enormous amount of time to remove the glue, and not only the keyboard was completely destroyed in the process, the case itself cracked a little bit due to the amount of force needed to remove said plastic sheet. And that's without even mentioning that there was at least 3 different types of security screws before even reaching this point.

neop1x 5y ago
Yes and look at Macbook 12 retina [1] and remember.. keyboard is one of the things to worn out quickly and can also be easily damaged by liquid spill. Also notice the video is fast-forwarded many times during the procedure. [1] https://youtu.be/CizrupL_02o https://youtu.be/CizrupL_02o

34679 5y ago

I just did my first surface mount repair this morning and it 100% happened because of Rossmann's channel. It was so easy that I feel like I should have been doing it much sooner. The things I've thrown away over the years..

jve 5y ago
Louis has helped a bit, but I'm encouraged by NorthridgeFix https://youtube.com/c/NorthridgeFix https://youtube.com/c/NorthridgeFix Great channel. Sometimes lacks deep dive into troubleshooting, but certainly encourages to do microscopic work.

paulgerhardt 5y ago

Living in Shenzhen, it’s shocking how easy it is to go out and repair stuff. Living in Palo Alto, it’s frustrating how hard it is. I’m thinking maybe, just maybe, introducing repairability laws won’t solve the problem. I am perfectly happy upgrading the memory on my MacBook Air with a reflow air station rather than swapping out some dims if it means my laptop is half as thick and twice as rugged. I’m also just as happy dropping my phone off at a corner shop to replace the glass (while preserving the same electronics) using an industrial laminating machine. My problem today is not that repairability laws impede my progress here (they certainly don’t exist in China either). My problem is I can only get the chips and schematics I need to effect the repair on the Chinese Internet (WeChat/Taobao) or find someone to do the repair for me for $40 on the Chinese street markets (Huaqiangnan in Shenzhen). When I go to a corner store in the US the “solution” to swap the whole sub-assembly (glass+electronics) not just glass in case of a screen repair for $100+

Nextgrid 5y ago
The reason it can be done in China is because those shops illegally obtain the parts (whether counterfeit or stolen, since Apple won't intentionally sell them to anyone) and resources (schematics, software, etc) to be able to do so. This situation is both good and bad. Stolen parts are good, in the sense that this grey market at least allows consumers to repair devices cost-effectively. It's also bad, because besides it essentially being theft, the grey market opens the door to bad actors who pass off used/defective/rejected/counterfeit parts as the real thing. Repairability laws would actually help here. You would get the same repair shops in the US if Apple was forced to provide schematics & parts at a reasonable cost, with no risk of counterfeits or bad parts. This is a big deal, and the reason there's so much opposition to right to repair, even beyond Apple. If R2R was a stupid, niche, geeky idea that doesn't bother anyone it would quietly get passed and that would be it, but the reason people are bothered by it and oppose it is because device manufacturers (whether computers or cars or farm equipment) actually make a lot of money off the status-quo.
- loceng 5y ago
  It's a signal when humans will do something against the law - and generally it seems to be a fair response to excessive control or at minimum a counterweight to the actions of a selfish for-profit or industry. Piracy comes to mind as well: if content becomes too expensive, requiring monthly subscriptions to too many places or then unreasonable cost to buy a specific film or series - then more people will pirate, and more reasonable people willing to pay will start to pirate - the more friction and unfairness in the balance of everything, the more piracy. The ability to pirate or repair by third-party both I believe are necessary to keep organizations in check. Edit to add: makes me think of Bitcoin too, people certainly have reason to be unhappy with local-global financial systems which have heavy-matured regulatory capture and overall corruption whether it's printing excessive money or being deceptive to foreign players so it's an uneven playing field.

teslaberry 5y ago

lex fridman is highly naive and has chosen to wisely pursue the money but immitating and co-opting joe rogan's youtube audience which was left high and dry. rossman is not as naive, but he is unable to see the forest for the trees when it comes to 'right to repair'. the bigger issue is u.s. economic system in general but you gotta give him credit for being focussed. meanwhile, it's time lex fridman has luis rossman on his show.

llaolleh 5y ago

Right to repair needs to be preserved if we want to have the next generation of hackers and engineers. A good chunk of learning happens when you break apart devices and put them back together, or fix them yourself. You screw up, and learn during the entire process. It would be God awful if the next Tesla can't buy some chips he wants to solder onto his broken Mac because Apple prevents chip manufacturers from selling them.

soheil 5y ago

With the amount of publicity Rossmann gets how is he not a multi-millionaire already? It's interesting that he is literally still fixing Macbooks, one Macbook at a time.

SMAAART 5y ago

What an interesting guy. So, YouTubing for therapy? Good one!

jart 5y ago

"The Mać Shop" in Wilmington DE thought it had the right to repair macbooks too. They also believed they had a right to recycle personal data on hard drives that got replaced whereas apple would have likely just tossed it in the shredder. Be careful about who you trust with valuable things.

josephcsible 5y ago
Are you arguing that right to repair is a bad thing just because one repair shop did something wrong?

aasasd 5y ago

Tip: if you're curious enough to watch a video of Rossmann's, do that in the incognito mode. Otherwise you'll be pestered with recommendations of the other two thousand of his videos, until the end of your days. Perhaps you'll even be able to follow the epic of his fight by the titles of new videos.

Fizzer 5y ago
Anytime you want to mute a channel, just click the three dots to the lower right of a video and select "Don't recommend channel"
- aasasd 5y ago
  Sorta loath to do that, because I don't want YT to stop suggesting stuff related to that channel and its general topics. I just don't need more Louis Rossmann in my life, the rants don't do me any good—possibly aside from keeping my heart strong from pumping against the pressure, I guess. But the stress snacks will kill me. I'd like the algo to take a gentle hint already, it was like a year since the last watching. I did some digging in the innards of a Macbook Pro, years earlier, and have a couple leftover screws as a result. I think I'll leave the next endeavor to people with better hands, especially since putting in an extra hard drive isn't an option anymore.
  - technofiend 5y ago
    You can remove your history of viewed videos in whole or in part. I've found that the most effective way to stop YouTube's manic obsession for any topic I've viewed once.
soheil 5y ago
There is a Chrome ext that allows you to quickly open a link/video in incognito by clicking it while holding a meta key like shift, highly recommend for avoiding the Youtube recommendation hell [0]. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/key-ncognito/lilomadmkegmkmkjmdbbgalimcmfogfk?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/key-ncognito/lilom...

GekkePrutser 5y ago

I'm all for right to repair, but Rossman rubs me the wrong way. He's too much of a Youtube celeb right now for me to still take seriously. They always become caricatures of themselves because their popularity depends on them doing what people know them for: In his case anger at Apple. It makes a balanced discussion impossible. I don't like what Apple do, I think current Macs are very poor in terms of hardware (ports/keyboards). And in fact I have stopped buying Macs for this reason. But he's a bit too extreme sometimes IMO. Like he's looking for things to complain about, just because that's what 'his thing' is.

vladmk 5y ago

We need to fix this problem (pun intended)

vladmk 5y ago

It sounds like people would love open source devices they can build/customize. This reminds my of the MySpace wall vs Facebook wall problem. There should be a market for both in hardware.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

How much of this, I'm curious, is changing now that Jony Ive is gone? Think about it. Since he left, Apple is bringing color back to their designs, bringing back ports other than Thunderbolt, abandoned the Butterfly keyboard, made the MacBook Pro 16" thicker to improve battery life and cooling, added the discounted business rate to the App Store... Now, this doesn't mean Apple will continue improving or will make Right to Repair happen. However, I think that with Jony's departure, something may have, just may have, snapped within the company, and they seem to be looking at changing their ways just a little bit.

architect64 5y ago

Related: There's a startup with a laptop focused on repairability, without sacrificing much thinness or style: https://frame.work/about https://frame.work/about

emmelaich 5y ago

I just had the most astonishing moment. My mac air audio has been broken for a while. I looked up this guy's channel for audio fixes. It took a few seconds to realise that the sound was playing! I usually have to use bluetooth. So thank you Louis!

hellbannedguy 5y ago

"But Rossmann hopes to raise it. As a repair technician slash right to repair advocate slash YouTube personality, he has expertise and clout that he’s looking to leverage in his latest endeavor: trying to put the right to repair for consumer electronics on the ballot in Massachusetts. To do so, Rossmann started the Repair Group Preservation Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, and launched a fundraiser on March 30. So far, he has raised more than $700,000 toward his $6 million goal, which by all accounts isn’t nearly enough, given his potential opponents could be tech and telecom giants like Apple, Verizon and T-Mobile. “It’s not that we’re against it,” said Gordon-Byrne. “God bless him for trying. But I think our ability to sponsor that is very limited. We gotta find some friendly billionaires.” The move is risky, even if Rossmann can raise $6 million. “If you lose on the ballot, that really makes it tough to get other people to pick it up again, because it’s kind of like you’ve lost your proof of concept,” said Nathan Proctor, director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group’s right to repair campaign.5" 1. I hope Louis succeeds for his state's sake. 2. My fear is what the big companies did CA. A few legislators introduced bills aimed at ending E-waste, or Right to Repair. The big boys used their money to squash the bills, and succeeded stupendously. All it took was a few scare commercials. 3. The big pocketed companies made these rediculious commercials. They featured a thief, or rapist, gaining access to your vechicle in a dark parking lot. This was supposedly due to the bad guy having access to schematics. California has had 2, or 3 bills over (E-waste) Right to Repair Bills; and they all failed. Failed-----------. This is beyond frustrating to me. Corporations own Sacramento. Be it tech, insurance, or Realator's, they are making our lives more expensive. I won't even get started on the Insurance industry Lobbiests. (My blood pressure is climbing) We Californians need to smarten up. If we get another shot at Right to Repair, I guarantee you won't be raped in a parking garage because someone reverse engineered a gadget to take over your vechicle, or you. If you main concern is someone taking control of your vehicle I would allow all security schematics exempt from Right to Repair. Now let's the next bill passed. I would like a Proposition, but they would Uber us? (I'm not angry over just Right to Repair. It a lot. It mandatory vechicle insurance, smog checks that are pricey, and too frequent, Insurance rates that I guarantee are price colluded, outrageous traffic fines for infractions, driving past 10 pm, and being pulled over for no reason. Cops think we all get hammered like they do?, harassing homeless for sleeping, etc.)

infogulch 5y ago

This is another symptom of the sickness in our current implementation of Intellectual Property law. IP is being allowed to eat all other forms of ownership, even as whatever is left is being eroded away. I'm not sure where I heard "In 50 years nobody will own anything, and everyone will be happy about it." to which I respond with two possibilities: 1. We are happy; great. 2. We are unhappy; and able to do fuck all about it because we own nothing. Maybe we should sacrifice option 1 to dodge option 2.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago
You forgot the scariest: 3. we are unhappy, but don't even understand it because society have lost any reference point to an alternative or any way to talk about it.
- infogulch 5y ago
  Or 4. We are "happy", but only because expressing unhappiness is against the TOS and in response you are banned from society with as little fanfare as google can ban your account for no reason.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

neop1x 5y ago

There are still people having 7+ years old Macbooks with easily replaceable HDD and sometimes RAM. And people buying new devices every release. Maybe attitude of society towards right to repair and Apple fanaticism will change over time as their pile of irreparable, damaged beyond economic repair, lost screws and parts over time garbage will start taking significant space in their homes.

habosa 5y ago

I am in the market for a new laptop. The new M1 MacBook Air appeals to me so much but the lack of any ability to repair/upgrade it over time is just no longer acceptable to me. Instead I'll be going with the Framework laptop: https://frame.work/ https://frame.work/ I expect to replace the RAM, Battery, and maybe even the processor over time. I really value this optionality and it will be much better for the environment as well.

Anktionaer 5y ago

I feel like a lot of the comments here are strawmanning a bit (or a lot). Apple and most big manufacturers (in all sectors and industries) who see what they can get away with are purposely abusing copyright law and making deliberate choices in their design and policy that do nothing except hinder the repair of their devices. The right-to-repair people like Luis Rossmann want legislation to stop these practices. Some people in the comments are extending that to mean that they want manufacturers to only create modular and bulky devices with yesterdays technology when it seems clear (at least to me) that what they actually want is the ability to legitimately purchase replacement parts from OEMs and legitimate access to the sort of manuals and schematics that are available to their internal refurbishers and technicians. I don't think it's reasonable to require that manufacturers design their devices to be repairable at the cost of other considerations that are more important to the end user. I do think it's reasonable to require manufacturers to stop these practices that don't benefit the end user or even harm their experience in order to keep a tight grip on the device that they supposedly purchased and should own completely.

thereddaikon 5y ago

I don't understand why people are so hostile to the idea of reparability with electronics while we have enjoyed just that with cars forever. Much of what Apple and every other electronics company does with their products would be explicitly illegal it they were selling cars instead of gadgets. Why should those be any different? For example, requiring repair/replacement at authorized repair centers is considered "tying" and illegal in the automotive industry. Same with denying warranty coverage for opening your devices. This is actually illegal already for electronic devices but its rarely enforced because who wants to go to court for a $500 phone for $1500 laptop?

sam345 5y ago

My guess is that companies are opposed to the right to repair less for the loss of revenue which is likely relatively minor but more for the constraints it puts on design and manufacture. Regulating how something is made to make repair a priority will require more lawyers to interpret the mountains of regulations thst will sure to follow, severely cramping design and the pace of development.