5 ms·

This is no way similar to Louis Rossmann's case. If the military would want to repair its fancy stuff it would.

exporectomy 5y ago
Yes. I think they agreed to these repair conditions as part of the contracts to make the things. Right to repair would protect consumers who don't have any special contract and didn't really think about negotiating that.
soneil 5y ago
It is related to the politics of getting anything changed though. Does America venerate "the good old days"? Farmers aren't allowed to repair their tractors. Does America venerate her military? Soldiers aren't allowed to repair their equipment. (Alternatively, you can frame those as food security and national security.) If you can't get the people who matter to sympathise with your problem, put it in a context they can sympathise with.
Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
You don’t think there could be perverse incentives if not outright bribery with the people who negotiate with the contractors?
- rightbyte 5y ago
  Surely. I just mean that the US military is in a position to choose how their stuff is repaired, while I can't force Apple to sell me spare parts or whatever.
  - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
    Not even that is a given. It would be easy for defence contractors to form a cartel forbidding any of its members to let the customer do the repairs.
    - webmaven 5y ago
      > Not even that is a given. It would be easy for defence contractors to form a cartel forbidding any of its members to let the customer do the repairs. Even in the current environment, that would almost certainly trigger prosecution under the RICO Act as collusion and conspiracy for the purpose of market manipulation, just for starters.
      - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
        Only if they get caught. It’s common for advanced electronic components to have their data sheets under NDA, meaning that the suppliers are contractually obligated to keep the information to repair the equipment from the customers. Every party except for the customer benefits. Now is it market manipulation or legitimate protection of intangible assets? Who knows. Only stupid racketeers get caught.
        webmaven 5y ago
        > Only stupid racketeers get caught. Evidence suggests that in all walks of life, half of people are below average in intelligence. The larger the conspiracy, the higher the odds (asymptotically approaching 100%) of getting caught eventually (and eventually isn't all that long).
sumtechguy 5y ago
Louis would be first to tell you that it is all related. Many manufactures have moved to this model. In his space he is specifically seeing 'just toss the thing and buy a new one', when the real fix is 30 cents worth of resistor and a couple of hours of someone's time. The military is no exception. But they may have the bargaining power to fix it for themselves at least. Think of it more along the lines of what mcdonalds did to themselves. Their milkshake machines are broken (10%-20% of the time) because they outsourced fixing it to a third party. The third party has no reason to really fix the issue when a good chunk of their income is repeatedly fixing the broken thing. When the reality is poor diagnostic and poor info to some teenager who was told by his boss to 'fill that thing' and he did it slightly wrong. Mcdonalds could fix it real quick if they just stood up to their third party and said 'fix this, like last week'. But the companies have 'political' issues where people in mcdonalds are incentivized to keep it the same. Also parts of the costs are take on by others and mcdonalds proper does not really have to deal with it. The military has similar issues.
- hugosbaseball 5y ago
  > Louis would be first to tell you that it is all related. Would he, though? He seems more than happy that people think Apple seized a bunch of parts shipments because they don't "like" that he does repairs, as redditors are oft to repeat. The real reason they seized the shipment of batteries was because he bought from a manufacturer who copied the battery packaging, right down to the Apple logos. The manufacturer passed them off as OEM parts and Rossman was happy to do the same. Meanwhile iFixit doesn't sell new parts with Apple logos on them and somehow Apple has never even glanced at them...and they very, very clearly help more people actually repair their Apple shit by means of their very well written and illustrated guides. I like him pushing on the R2R movement but the man is almost pathologically narcissistic and sometimes borders on con-man. He's like the RMS of R2R.
  - sumtechguy 5y ago
    He has said as much in many of his videos. Basically 'they all do it'.
  - 5y ago

Yes. I think they agreed to these repair conditions as part of the contracts to make the things. Right to repair would protect consumers who don't have any special contract and didn't really think about negotiating that.

soneil 5y ago

It is related to the politics of getting anything changed though. Does America venerate "the good old days"? Farmers aren't allowed to repair their tractors. Does America venerate her military? Soldiers aren't allowed to repair their equipment. (Alternatively, you can frame those as food security and national security.) If you can't get the people who matter to sympathise with your problem, put it in a context they can sympathise with.

Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago

You don’t think there could be perverse incentives if not outright bribery with the people who negotiate with the contractors?

rightbyte 5y ago
Surely. I just mean that the US military is in a position to choose how their stuff is repaired, while I can't force Apple to sell me spare parts or whatever.
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
  Not even that is a given. It would be easy for defence contractors to form a cartel forbidding any of its members to let the customer do the repairs.
  - webmaven 5y ago
    > Not even that is a given. It would be easy for defence contractors to form a cartel forbidding any of its members to let the customer do the repairs. Even in the current environment, that would almost certainly trigger prosecution under the RICO Act as collusion and conspiracy for the purpose of market manipulation, just for starters.
    - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
      Only if they get caught. It’s common for advanced electronic components to have their data sheets under NDA, meaning that the suppliers are contractually obligated to keep the information to repair the equipment from the customers. Every party except for the customer benefits. Now is it market manipulation or legitimate protection of intangible assets? Who knows. Only stupid racketeers get caught.
      - webmaven 5y ago
        > Only stupid racketeers get caught. Evidence suggests that in all walks of life, half of people are below average in intelligence. The larger the conspiracy, the higher the odds (asymptotically approaching 100%) of getting caught eventually (and eventually isn't all that long).

sumtechguy 5y ago

Louis would be first to tell you that it is all related. Many manufactures have moved to this model. In his space he is specifically seeing 'just toss the thing and buy a new one', when the real fix is 30 cents worth of resistor and a couple of hours of someone's time. The military is no exception. But they may have the bargaining power to fix it for themselves at least. Think of it more along the lines of what mcdonalds did to themselves. Their milkshake machines are broken (10%-20% of the time) because they outsourced fixing it to a third party. The third party has no reason to really fix the issue when a good chunk of their income is repeatedly fixing the broken thing. When the reality is poor diagnostic and poor info to some teenager who was told by his boss to 'fill that thing' and he did it slightly wrong. Mcdonalds could fix it real quick if they just stood up to their third party and said 'fix this, like last week'. But the companies have 'political' issues where people in mcdonalds are incentivized to keep it the same. Also parts of the costs are take on by others and mcdonalds proper does not really have to deal with it. The military has similar issues.

hugosbaseball 5y ago
> Louis would be first to tell you that it is all related. Would he, though? He seems more than happy that people think Apple seized a bunch of parts shipments because they don't "like" that he does repairs, as redditors are oft to repeat. The real reason they seized the shipment of batteries was because he bought from a manufacturer who copied the battery packaging, right down to the Apple logos. The manufacturer passed them off as OEM parts and Rossman was happy to do the same. Meanwhile iFixit doesn't sell new parts with Apple logos on them and somehow Apple has never even glanced at them...and they very, very clearly help more people actually repair their Apple shit by means of their very well written and illustrated guides. I like him pushing on the R2R movement but the man is almost pathologically narcissistic and sometimes borders on con-man. He's like the RMS of R2R.
- sumtechguy 5y ago
  He has said as much in many of his videos. Basically 'they all do it'.
- 5y ago