> On the other hand, if repair is easy for third parties, warranty becomes far less important. Exactly. Not a single car I've owned has been under warranty, a

> On the other hand, if repair is easy for third parties, warranty becomes far less important. Exactly. Not a single car I've owned has been under warranty, and that's been entirely fine by me, because I can always take it to a shop or take it to a mechanically-inclined friend or fix it myself. Likewise with desktops and laptops; there's been no need for a warranty if I can fix it myself, and until recently (what with the "let's make everything as pointlessly thin as possible" craze) that's almost always been the case.