12 ms·

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 may

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.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    You're right. When there's massive non-compliance with the law, there's something wrong with the law. For example, Prohibition, the war on drugs, gambling prohibitions, etc.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      I can think of societies with massive tax evasion, from all economic classes of people and where bribes are normal. Is there something wrong with laws requiring tax payments and banning bribes?
      - zabzonk 5y ago
        Yes, because the law (and the systems supporting the law) can easily be evaded - there is something massively wrong.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        5y ago
Scene_Cast2 5y ago
Part of that could be the ratio of part cost to labor cost. I do agree that there's no culture of appreciating schematics around Palo Alto.
- bronson 5y ago
  Not since Jim Williams died. :(
spamizbad 5y ago
Right to Repair isn’t demanding manufacturers make all memory socketed: but if a RAM chip goes bad they are asking that a new one can be purchased legally and soldered in place. Right now, there are many 40-cent components in laptops a repair shop cannot purchase from component manufacturers because Apple, or Asus or whenever told them not to sell it to 3rd parties. Or proprietary firmware flashing tools, or what have you. None of this impacts the physical form factor of a machine.
- neop1x 5y ago
  And some parts are can't even be swapped from one genuine device to another - home buttons used to be like that. But in newer iPhones that applies for other components too. IIRC some of them can be reprogrammed somehow but it is additional difficulty not nornally seen in other brands.
_dps 5y ago
I worry that believing the jobs are not coming back is a self-fulfilling prophecy – one with dangerous consequences of locking its believers into perpetual dependence on supply from places that act essentially as sin externalization depots. If $2/hr vs $10/hr is indeed the thing preventing repair being economical , that seems like it can be fixed with a mixture of incentives, apprenticeship contracts, and elevating the social status of "vocational education" (the name exists IMO only to serve as status-lowering). Or if not one of those, then some other untried thing. Edit: as sibling comments mention, if in fact the main limitation is not labor prices but exclusive-supply agreements for certain consumable parts, then this seems easily within the scope of Antitrust to address.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > If $2/hr vs $10/hr is indeed the thing preventing repair being economical , that seems like it can be fixed with a mixture of incentives, apprenticeship contracts, and elevating the social status of "vocational education" (the name exists IMO only to serve as status-lowering). That incentive is the $x per hour. And the low $x per hour relative to quality of life is what causes the status lowering. Status is not lowered by a couple words. A doctor spends a ton of time in “vocational education”.
  - _dps 5y ago
    I think you've misunderstood what I meant; I mean incentives for businesses to pay their people more (or to offer something like apprenticeships). As for status not being lowered by words, we'll have to agree to disagree. No one in practice (in the US) calls medical school "vocational school" precisely because it is a phrase associated with lower status work in the trades.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Yes, people use vocational school to refer to schooling that requires less time, cost, and generally has lower barriers to entry. This results in a higher supply relative to demand, resulting in lower prices for the labor, and that is the causative factor for lower “status”. You can change the name from vocational school to Nobel school or whatever, but as long as people are not earning high wages, it is not going to change any perceptions of “status”.
theshrike79 5y ago
I've watched my fair share of Strange Parts [1]. The reason why you can get any device fixed is the availability of parts, yes. But also all of the highly specialized tools available combined with the skill of people in there. Even if someone in the US could get the exact same parts, they wouldn't be as able to fix the devices due to the lack of devices and necessary skills. This is also the reason why most electronics are made there, it's a staggering concentration of skilled electronics workers. [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO8DQrSp5yEP937qNqTooOw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO8DQrSp5yEP937qNqTooOw
- swuecho 5y ago
  Strange Parts is marvelous.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
I remember in the 80s, devices would all come with the complete schematics right there in the box. I remember poring over them after buying something, I thought it was fascinating. Like my TV, computer etc. Everything. This should really be brought back, even though component-level fixing is not nearly as easy as it was back then.
- kccqzy 5y ago
  I recently bought a cheap Chinese electric cooker just for fun. The instruction "manual" was a flimsy piece of paper. Yet it still contained schematics, as simple as it was.
- tzs 5y ago
  In the 1960s DIY TV repair was such a big thing that there were self-service kiosks in supermarkets that sold vacuum tubes and included a tube tester. When your TV stopped working, you took the back panel off with the TV turned on and looked to see which tube was not glowing. You would then turn the TV off, pull that tube from its socket, take it down to the supermarket, stick it into the correct socket on the kiosk, and press the "test" button. A meter or lights on the kiosk would tell you if the tube was dead. If it was, you looked up the tube in a book that was attached to the kiosk. The book would list the part number of an equivalent tube sold at the kiosk. You'd grab the right tube from the racks of tubes in the kiosk, go pay for it at the checkout stand, take it home, put it on the socket, and 99% of the time that fixed your TV. If that didn't you might take the rest of the tubes in and test them just in case the problem was a tube failure other than a burned out filament. Only if that didn't do it did you call the TV repair shop.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Wow, I would so not do that without rubber gloves or something. I've always been pretty hesitant working on CRTs knowing the voltages present in there (and they could linger for a long time due to charged capacitors). Was the failure mode of tubes always such that it would stop glowing? I'm surprised they always failed in that way. I suppose the main issue would be that the heater filament would burn out and stop emitting electrons. Just like the filament in a light bulb. When I was young tubes were already becoming uncommon. If a device still used them it was only for some high-power stuff like an amp final. Though of course the CRT itself lingered much longer.
ksec 5y ago
The repair cost isn't dominated by the cost of parts, but operation cost such as labour and rent. If your concern are the $100+ for repair, then it will be the same regardless Apple provide the parts or not. Not to mention knowing Apple, they will definitely sell you an iPhone battery for $20+. Earning the same Gross Margin as their product.
- White_Wolf 5y ago
  I don't know what to say about that. HP wanted to charge me the price of a new laptop motherboard for a forgotten BIOS password(around £650). A guy, in the phone repair shop on the high street replaced the BIOS chips for £112 and my laptop runs like a champ. It's a pretty big difference for a laptop worth around £1500.
webmobdev 5y ago
My problem is I can only get the chips and schematics I need to effect the repair on the Chinese Internet Exactly. And we need legislation to make it happen. In India, I remember someone started a multi-brand service centre for cars. The automobile industry ganged up on him and refused to supply original parts to him. He had to go to the courts, and the courts ruled for him and in favour of consumer rights and made it very clear that the automobile industry had to supply parts to any mechanic shop that asked for it. We now need a similar legislation for every other industry too.
- schoolornot 5y ago
  Would hope such legislation articulates exactly what parts of a "phone" would need to be made available. There are hundreds of parts in an iPhone. It's unreasonable to expect that Apple or any vendor have the resources to make sure every single part, large and small, is available to 3rd party repair shops.
  - hnick 5y ago
    It is not about making them available. It is about not not making them available. Right now if you email a factory that has the parts they will say they are not allowed to sell them to you for any price even if they have them because Apple/etc said so. It is about removing that gag.
LegitShady 5y ago
>My problem today is not that repairability laws impede my progress here (they certainly don’t exist in China either). They do - they just do it upstream of you. The people you want to swap the parts can't get them, or if they do the parts are expensive, or don't pass the security checks of your device and now there's reduced functionality. The lack of repairability laws affects you but its up stream of you directly.
walrus01 5y ago
> I am perfectly happy upgrading the memory on my MacBook Air with a reflow air station Probably 0.01% of Apple product owners in North America also own a hot air reflow station and have the skills/practice to use it safely on a very densely populated laptop or phone motherboard. I would also wager that if you were to look at the pay scale for skilled electronics repair people capable of safely doing so with little risk of killing the board, the market rate for a person running a hot air reflow station to do that work, in a big city in north america (chicago, SF, seattle, NY, etc) might be $200/hour. By the time you were to pay for the repair service and the parts it might not be economical. One of the things that seems to be much more common in mainland China is that random small phone/laptop repair shops have the technical capability in house to do this sort of work. In the USA the same shops' technical abilities are limited to what can be done with some tweezers, a set of precision screwdrivers, prying tools/spudgers, etc. Note that I am not excusing apple's terrible repair parts availability or pricing, or other practices which make it difficult for a trained third party to acquire and install legit parts.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > By the time you were to pay for the repair service and the parts it might not be economical. Louis Rossmann proves that such a business does work and is profitable while remaining significantly cheaper for customers (otherwise he wouldn't get any business).
  - walrus01 5y ago
    I think this works by volume of customers in the NYC metro, but might not be viable for a repair shop in a smaller city. I would be very interested to see if a similar specialist could financially support the salaries of a few full time techs in a much smaller metro on the scale of, for example, Spokane WA.
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      But in this case the market would balance itself; this isn't an argument against the right to repair. If there's indeed no market for this then nothing will change, but it doesn't mean parts/schematics shouldn't be available in case people do want to repair devices.
CivBase 5y ago
> 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 The right to repair laws Louis Rossmann advocates for do not require manufacturers to change their designs to make repairs easier. Apple would still be allowed to solder memory on their devices without any repercussions. > 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. Louis Rossmann owns and operates the kind of "corner shop" you're referring to. He certainly isn't demanding everyone repairs their own devices. He's just advocating for the ability for owners and third parties to repair devices without interference from manufacturers. > 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+ That's because US shops cannot legally acquire parts and schematics necessary to perform component-level repair. Technicians in Chinese street markets aren't worried about legal retaliation from US-based companies. Right to repair would ensure owners and third parties could legally acquire the parts and schematics for repairs. They don't even need the manufacturer to provide the parts and schematics; they just need to be protected from legal retaliation.
asddubs 5y ago
louis rossman, the man from the article, does do component level board repair. A lot of right to repair is about being able to obtain these parts to enable this type of repair, without having to go through dodgy channels
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Repair shops won't touch Apple. It's something people should know before they buy an iPhone.
syshum 5y ago
>>My problem today is not that repairability laws impede my progress here (they certainly don’t exist in China either). While repairability laws do not exist in China, Anti-repairability laws also do not exist in China. In the US we have layers upon layers of regulations to the impede or outright prevent repairs on electronics and other devices. I am not sure if "Right to repair" is the correct path, or if removing these anti-repairability laws would be a better path.

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.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  You're right. When there's massive non-compliance with the law, there's something wrong with the law. For example, Prohibition, the war on drugs, gambling prohibitions, etc.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I can think of societies with massive tax evasion, from all economic classes of people and where bribes are normal. Is there something wrong with laws requiring tax payments and banning bribes?
    - zabzonk 5y ago
      Yes, because the law (and the systems supporting the law) can easily be evaded - there is something massively wrong.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - 5y ago

Scene_Cast2 5y ago

Part of that could be the ratio of part cost to labor cost. I do agree that there's no culture of appreciating schematics around Palo Alto.

bronson 5y ago
Not since Jim Williams died. :(

spamizbad 5y ago

Right to Repair isn’t demanding manufacturers make all memory socketed: but if a RAM chip goes bad they are asking that a new one can be purchased legally and soldered in place. Right now, there are many 40-cent components in laptops a repair shop cannot purchase from component manufacturers because Apple, or Asus or whenever told them not to sell it to 3rd parties. Or proprietary firmware flashing tools, or what have you. None of this impacts the physical form factor of a machine.

neop1x 5y ago
And some parts are can't even be swapped from one genuine device to another - home buttons used to be like that. But in newer iPhones that applies for other components too. IIRC some of them can be reprogrammed somehow but it is additional difficulty not nornally seen in other brands.

_dps 5y ago

I worry that believing the jobs are not coming back is a self-fulfilling prophecy – one with dangerous consequences of locking its believers into perpetual dependence on supply from places that act essentially as sin externalization depots. If $2/hr vs $10/hr is indeed the thing preventing repair being economical , that seems like it can be fixed with a mixture of incentives, apprenticeship contracts, and elevating the social status of "vocational education" (the name exists IMO only to serve as status-lowering). Or if not one of those, then some other untried thing. Edit: as sibling comments mention, if in fact the main limitation is not labor prices but exclusive-supply agreements for certain consumable parts, then this seems easily within the scope of Antitrust to address.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
> If $2/hr vs $10/hr is indeed the thing preventing repair being economical , that seems like it can be fixed with a mixture of incentives, apprenticeship contracts, and elevating the social status of "vocational education" (the name exists IMO only to serve as status-lowering). That incentive is the $x per hour. And the low $x per hour relative to quality of life is what causes the status lowering. Status is not lowered by a couple words. A doctor spends a ton of time in “vocational education”.
- _dps 5y ago
  I think you've misunderstood what I meant; I mean incentives for businesses to pay their people more (or to offer something like apprenticeships). As for status not being lowered by words, we'll have to agree to disagree. No one in practice (in the US) calls medical school "vocational school" precisely because it is a phrase associated with lower status work in the trades.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Yes, people use vocational school to refer to schooling that requires less time, cost, and generally has lower barriers to entry. This results in a higher supply relative to demand, resulting in lower prices for the labor, and that is the causative factor for lower “status”. You can change the name from vocational school to Nobel school or whatever, but as long as people are not earning high wages, it is not going to change any perceptions of “status”.

theshrike79 5y ago

I've watched my fair share of Strange Parts [1]. The reason why you can get any device fixed is the availability of parts, yes. But also all of the highly specialized tools available combined with the skill of people in there. Even if someone in the US could get the exact same parts, they wouldn't be as able to fix the devices due to the lack of devices and necessary skills. This is also the reason why most electronics are made there, it's a staggering concentration of skilled electronics workers. [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO8DQrSp5yEP937qNqTooOw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO8DQrSp5yEP937qNqTooOw

swuecho 5y ago
Strange Parts is marvelous.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

I remember in the 80s, devices would all come with the complete schematics right there in the box. I remember poring over them after buying something, I thought it was fascinating. Like my TV, computer etc. Everything. This should really be brought back, even though component-level fixing is not nearly as easy as it was back then.

kccqzy 5y ago
I recently bought a cheap Chinese electric cooker just for fun. The instruction "manual" was a flimsy piece of paper. Yet it still contained schematics, as simple as it was.
tzs 5y ago
In the 1960s DIY TV repair was such a big thing that there were self-service kiosks in supermarkets that sold vacuum tubes and included a tube tester. When your TV stopped working, you took the back panel off with the TV turned on and looked to see which tube was not glowing. You would then turn the TV off, pull that tube from its socket, take it down to the supermarket, stick it into the correct socket on the kiosk, and press the "test" button. A meter or lights on the kiosk would tell you if the tube was dead. If it was, you looked up the tube in a book that was attached to the kiosk. The book would list the part number of an equivalent tube sold at the kiosk. You'd grab the right tube from the racks of tubes in the kiosk, go pay for it at the checkout stand, take it home, put it on the socket, and 99% of the time that fixed your TV. If that didn't you might take the rest of the tubes in and test them just in case the problem was a tube failure other than a burned out filament. Only if that didn't do it did you call the TV repair shop.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Wow, I would so not do that without rubber gloves or something. I've always been pretty hesitant working on CRTs knowing the voltages present in there (and they could linger for a long time due to charged capacitors). Was the failure mode of tubes always such that it would stop glowing? I'm surprised they always failed in that way. I suppose the main issue would be that the heater filament would burn out and stop emitting electrons. Just like the filament in a light bulb. When I was young tubes were already becoming uncommon. If a device still used them it was only for some high-power stuff like an amp final. Though of course the CRT itself lingered much longer.

ksec 5y ago

The repair cost isn't dominated by the cost of parts, but operation cost such as labour and rent. If your concern are the $100+ for repair, then it will be the same regardless Apple provide the parts or not. Not to mention knowing Apple, they will definitely sell you an iPhone battery for $20+. Earning the same Gross Margin as their product.

White_Wolf 5y ago
I don't know what to say about that. HP wanted to charge me the price of a new laptop motherboard for a forgotten BIOS password(around £650). A guy, in the phone repair shop on the high street replaced the BIOS chips for £112 and my laptop runs like a champ. It's a pretty big difference for a laptop worth around £1500.

webmobdev 5y ago

My problem is I can only get the chips and schematics I need to effect the repair on the Chinese Internet Exactly. And we need legislation to make it happen. In India, I remember someone started a multi-brand service centre for cars. The automobile industry ganged up on him and refused to supply original parts to him. He had to go to the courts, and the courts ruled for him and in favour of consumer rights and made it very clear that the automobile industry had to supply parts to any mechanic shop that asked for it. We now need a similar legislation for every other industry too.

schoolornot 5y ago
Would hope such legislation articulates exactly what parts of a "phone" would need to be made available. There are hundreds of parts in an iPhone. It's unreasonable to expect that Apple or any vendor have the resources to make sure every single part, large and small, is available to 3rd party repair shops.
- hnick 5y ago
  It is not about making them available. It is about not not making them available. Right now if you email a factory that has the parts they will say they are not allowed to sell them to you for any price even if they have them because Apple/etc said so. It is about removing that gag.

LegitShady 5y ago

>My problem today is not that repairability laws impede my progress here (they certainly don’t exist in China either). They do - they just do it upstream of you. The people you want to swap the parts can't get them, or if they do the parts are expensive, or don't pass the security checks of your device and now there's reduced functionality. The lack of repairability laws affects you but its up stream of you directly.

walrus01 5y ago

> I am perfectly happy upgrading the memory on my MacBook Air with a reflow air station Probably 0.01% of Apple product owners in North America also own a hot air reflow station and have the skills/practice to use it safely on a very densely populated laptop or phone motherboard. I would also wager that if you were to look at the pay scale for skilled electronics repair people capable of safely doing so with little risk of killing the board, the market rate for a person running a hot air reflow station to do that work, in a big city in north america (chicago, SF, seattle, NY, etc) might be $200/hour. By the time you were to pay for the repair service and the parts it might not be economical. One of the things that seems to be much more common in mainland China is that random small phone/laptop repair shops have the technical capability in house to do this sort of work. In the USA the same shops' technical abilities are limited to what can be done with some tweezers, a set of precision screwdrivers, prying tools/spudgers, etc. Note that I am not excusing apple's terrible repair parts availability or pricing, or other practices which make it difficult for a trained third party to acquire and install legit parts.

Nextgrid 5y ago
> By the time you were to pay for the repair service and the parts it might not be economical. Louis Rossmann proves that such a business does work and is profitable while remaining significantly cheaper for customers (otherwise he wouldn't get any business).
- walrus01 5y ago
  I think this works by volume of customers in the NYC metro, but might not be viable for a repair shop in a smaller city. I would be very interested to see if a similar specialist could financially support the salaries of a few full time techs in a much smaller metro on the scale of, for example, Spokane WA.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    But in this case the market would balance itself; this isn't an argument against the right to repair. If there's indeed no market for this then nothing will change, but it doesn't mean parts/schematics shouldn't be available in case people do want to repair devices.

CivBase 5y ago

> 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 The right to repair laws Louis Rossmann advocates for do not require manufacturers to change their designs to make repairs easier. Apple would still be allowed to solder memory on their devices without any repercussions. > 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. Louis Rossmann owns and operates the kind of "corner shop" you're referring to. He certainly isn't demanding everyone repairs their own devices. He's just advocating for the ability for owners and third parties to repair devices without interference from manufacturers. > 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+ That's because US shops cannot legally acquire parts and schematics necessary to perform component-level repair. Technicians in Chinese street markets aren't worried about legal retaliation from US-based companies. Right to repair would ensure owners and third parties could legally acquire the parts and schematics for repairs. They don't even need the manufacturer to provide the parts and schematics; they just need to be protected from legal retaliation.

asddubs 5y ago

louis rossman, the man from the article, does do component level board repair. A lot of right to repair is about being able to obtain these parts to enable this type of repair, without having to go through dodgy channels

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

Repair shops won't touch Apple. It's something people should know before they buy an iPhone.

syshum 5y ago

>>My problem today is not that repairability laws impede my progress here (they certainly don’t exist in China either). While repairability laws do not exist in China, Anti-repairability laws also do not exist in China. In the US we have layers upon layers of regulations to the impede or outright prevent repairs on electronics and other devices. I am not sure if "Right to repair" is the correct path, or if removing these anti-repairability laws would be a better path.