6 ms·

Right to Repair Fight

137 points by zelon88 5y ago

schleck8 5y ago
Right to repair is in the best interest of both consumer and nature. Apple's design flaw defected my mother's macbook panel (flexgate). It was a 5 dollar display cabel that desintegrated after about two years and was built into the panel in a way that rendered the entire display unit unusable. So not only did the repair shop have to throw away the fully functional panel, but also apple tried charging 750 euros for the repair because they have a monopoly on the display supply.
- freedomben 5y ago
  I totally agree, but how do we get people to care? Regulation seems like our best option, but politicians will not do that unless there is a big enough outcry to offset the damage it does to their fundraising by taking on big tech. The only other way is to punish Apple in the pocketbook by buying from manufacturers like Framework who have ethical practices, but that requires solving the same problem: how do we get people to care?
  - habeebtc 5y ago
    The big problem with regulating big tech is you are punching yourself in the pocketbook. Even if congressmen are not trading on inside info and getting rich, if you have a 401k you are gonna get dinged in net worth by this kind of regulation. On AAPL especially.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Depends on the punishment for violations. If there is "no user servicable" parts inside, they should be taxed very heavily. Obviously, that would just be passed along to the consumers. However, if it is heavy enough, would consumers choose not to buy? That tax money could be used to offset other expenses related to waste. However, I stipulate people will still buy and gov't will repurpose the money raised from taxes to do other things.
    - commoner 5y ago
      I don't think this is true for anyone except those who have a substantial stake in AAPL (or any other company that profits from repair restrictions). A competitive repair market for Apple products (and the resulting changes in the market for new Apple products) would decrease the profit of Apple, but increase the profit of repair shops and decrease the expenses of individuals and organizations that use Apple products. The positive financial impact on repair shops and Apple users would stimulate the economy more than the negative financial impact on Apple would hurt the economy. This is because an inefficient market results in deadweight loss,* which would be reduced by making the market more competitive. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss
      - habeebtc 5y ago
        My point is that congresspeople are unlikely to legislate their lunch money. As well, there is an angle about the fiscal health or the middle class as well. Depending on how much you think the average congressperson feels about them.
  - nescioquid 5y ago
    > Regulation seems like our best option, but politicians will not do ... Campaign finance reform and moving away from the plurality vote. How do you do that? I don't know, but these two things are required to repair the U.S. to a functioning democracy.
  - iqanq 5y ago
    I am against right to repair. If my phone breaks under warranty I have it repaired for free, and if it's out of warranty I will buy another one. I don't want a thicker and uglier phone just so it can be repaired more easily, since I won't be doing that, and I don't want companies to be forced to sell components that they don't want to sell.
    - indymike 5y ago
      >f my phone breaks under warranty I have it repaired for free, and if it's out of warranty I will buy another one. This is literally not what right to repair is about. This is exactly what anti-right to repair lobbyists are saying. Right to repair does prevent warranties, nor does it require a change in how you make a product. It simply allows a person to repair their very thin phone if they know how to do so, or hire someone who does and is not "authorized" (but is a professional, and is capable) to perform the repair. > I don't want companies to be forced to sell components that they don't want to sell. This is about preventing companies from preventing other companies from selling parts on the open market. If you don't want to sell parts, fine. If your suppliers do, you should not be able to prevent that for the purpose of making repair impossible.
      - iqanq 5y ago
        >Right to repair does prevent warranties, nor does it require a change in how you make a product. TFA says it: "when the battery failed, it took another seven hours to replace that. Both the screen and battery had been glued into the computer, requiring surgery-like precision to replace them without breaking something else." - in other words, instead of gluing components, screw them. That makes hardware thicker. >This is about preventing companies from preventing other companies from selling parts on the open market. This is not a problem in practical terms. If you go on aliexpress you will see that you can find any single component inside of an iphone. But they are knockoffs and they suck. They want to force Apple to sell parts even if they don't want to, and I am against that. (This is just an example: I think Apple is selling parts now.)
        labawi 5y ago
  - amelius 5y ago
    > how do we get people to care? This is a huge question, that applies far outside the boundaries of this particular issue. Think security, privacy, ... hell, even our entire democracy. I guess one of the problems is that people who do care actually work against it. E.g. Apple developers doing what they are told, instead of what they think is best.
  - johnebgd 5y ago
    Do something. Sounds cliche but people are the conduit for change. Even if you only write your politicians you did something. Even if you only call your politicians you did something. Even if you walk door to door with a petition and get signatures you did something. Even if you organize a PAC to support candidates you believe will treat this seriously you did something. Even if you start a trade association to get manufactures to commit to supporting these policies with their own dollars then you did something. All of this might seem like too little or too unrealistic but it’s something.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Proven 5y ago
  [dead]
- rasz 5y ago
  Change repair shops. You either got scammed - shop later refurbished your "throw away panel" by opening it up and replacing the ribbon (inconvenient but doable), or you "just" got charged for new panel by incompetent people. You can even bodge repair it for free (time) https://youtu.be/e_ElLlBsnvs?t=346 https://youtu.be/e_ElLlBsnvs?t=346
  - schleck8 5y ago
    I tried a repair shop and the apple support. Both told me the same. Repair shops don't have any panels to replace it, because Apple doesn't supply anyone with them. And the entire display unit needs to be replaced, that's called the Flexgate. Major design flaw on Apple's part to make the lid as thin as possible. The Apple support charged 750 €.
    - rasz 5y ago
      I know the defect you describe, video I linked shows simple bodge repair restoring backlight without replacement parts. >The Apple support charged 750 €. earlier you wrote "repair shop have to throw away the fully functional panel, but also apple tried charging 750 euros" which at least to me means you didnt pay apple for repair, or is your post just a hypothetical scenario? You can fix flexgate displays. Its not as simple as replacing easily serviceable part, but its not rocket science. Here is example company doing it https://absolutecircuits.co.uk/flexgate-solved/ https://absolutecircuits.co.uk/flexgate-solved/ bus seeing you used Euro currency there is no need for all that, just sue Apple in small claims court or report to your consumer protection agency and watch them fall over themselves helping you out of the goodness of their hears.
    - zelon88 5y ago
      This. As a repair shop, how do you warranty one of those Alibaba panels? I've received defective ones from the factory. When removal carries a significant risk of breaking the device and the only spares are bootleg, the repair shops wind up paying the price. Customer comes in, pays for a replacement panel, the replacement is defective and removal is potentially destructive. So now you don't get to return the defective panel to the vendor for a replacement. Who buys the second panel and covers the work of disassembly a second time? Because the bootleg panel was faulty.
walnutclosefarm 5y ago
Pitty the article didn't mention farm equipment manufacturer's in their survey of the right to repair landscape. John Deere is in a multi-state fight with farmers and state legislators over their restrictive covenants blocking farmers from repairing or even retrieving the diagnostic codes on equipment they own. And we're not talking about some $1000 cell phone or laptop here, these are machines that cost $250,000 all the way up to a million plus.
- djbusby 5y ago
  Seems a good spot to metion AgStack - open software tools for Ag https://agstack.org/ https://agstack.org/ Doesn't have a TractorOS (yet?)
pabs3 5y ago
We need a right to repair for software too.
- 14 5y ago
  I agree on this. I kept my iPhone 4s alive for years with multiple screen repairs, power buttons replacements, speaker replacements, and on and on. But one day I noticed I could no longer get any of the apps I wanted they suddenly needed the latest iOS. I put the phone away in a drawer and was forced to upgrade. What a shame.
  - NavinF 5y ago
    IMO that’s a lost cause. The wiki says it was released on 2011 and got its last iOS update in 2019 after being discontinued in 2014. 8 years of support is ridiculously long compared to what most phone mfgs provide. Not to mention that the battery becomes significantly weaker after 2 years and the average American replaces their phone every 3 years.
    - pabs3 5y ago
      People have run Linux distros on the iPhone 7 and the old iPhone 2G/3G, so it isn't improbable that someone could get Linux to work on the iPhone 4. https://blog.project-insanity.org/2020/04/16/running-postmarketos-on-iphone-7/ https://blog.project-insanity.org/2020/04/16/running-postmar... https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/kux9xx/success_iphone_7_with_dead_nand_netbooting/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/kux9xx/success_iphon... https://linuxoniphone.blogspot.com/2010/05/iphone-3g-binaries.html https://linuxoniphone.blogspot.com/2010/05/iphone-3g-binarie...
    - pbasista 5y ago
      > 8 years of support This is unrelated to support from the manufacturer. The manufacturer may not provide any software support at all and still be friendly to software right to repair. For instance, it would be sufficient if they did not go out of their way to prevent regular users from running a software they like on the devices they own.
serverholic 5y ago
My main issue with this is regulatory capture. This sounds great on paper but you know that any right to repair law is going to be complicated. The big names will take a small hit to their profits but it'll take a bigger toll on smaller competitors.
- nrp 5y ago
  On the other hand, smaller competitors can be more nimble and adopt counter-positioned business models that benefit from device longevity. In that way, regulations around repair have little impact to those companies while having outsized impact to larger competitors. I agree that regulatory capture is a problem in software and services platform/aggregator categories, but it tends to work differently for physical goods.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  Maybe it only needs to apply above some size of company by number of employees or revenue, to favor a low barrier to entry for smaller competitors. Many laws make distinctions between differently sized companies already, at least in the US.
- indymike 5y ago
  It doesn't have to be complicated to restore rights we should have under the Manguson-Moss warranty act that have been blocked by software copyright shenanigans. This small change would fix 80% of problems in automotive, tech, agriculture and military equipment (yes, the military can't fix stuff because of DRM and software) repair. I'm pretty sure the idea that a copyright would prevent your cannon from firing because the gunner's mate couldn't fix it was not even a thought when we made our copyright laws. The other part of right to repair, parts availability is more difficult because there really isn't an existing "right to repair parts". There are a lot of cases where, for example, a product manufacturer will put a clause in contracts with suppliers, preventing them from selling standard (not custom) parts to consumers, to distributors (who will sell to retail), or in small quantities. This kind of restriction is really just an anti-competitive market restriction, and probably should be made illegal.
- foxfluff 5y ago
known 5y ago
[dead]

137 points by zelon88 5y ago

Right to repair is in the best interest of both consumer and nature. Apple's design flaw defected my mother's macbook panel (flexgate). It was a 5 dollar display cabel that desintegrated after about two years and was built into the panel in a way that rendered the entire display unit unusable. So not only did the repair shop have to throw away the fully functional panel, but also apple tried charging 750 euros for the repair because they have a monopoly on the display supply.

freedomben 5y ago
I totally agree, but how do we get people to care? Regulation seems like our best option, but politicians will not do that unless there is a big enough outcry to offset the damage it does to their fundraising by taking on big tech. The only other way is to punish Apple in the pocketbook by buying from manufacturers like Framework who have ethical practices, but that requires solving the same problem: how do we get people to care?
- habeebtc 5y ago
  The big problem with regulating big tech is you are punching yourself in the pocketbook. Even if congressmen are not trading on inside info and getting rich, if you have a 401k you are gonna get dinged in net worth by this kind of regulation. On AAPL especially.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Depends on the punishment for violations. If there is "no user servicable" parts inside, they should be taxed very heavily. Obviously, that would just be passed along to the consumers. However, if it is heavy enough, would consumers choose not to buy? That tax money could be used to offset other expenses related to waste. However, I stipulate people will still buy and gov't will repurpose the money raised from taxes to do other things.
  - commoner 5y ago
    I don't think this is true for anyone except those who have a substantial stake in AAPL (or any other company that profits from repair restrictions). A competitive repair market for Apple products (and the resulting changes in the market for new Apple products) would decrease the profit of Apple, but increase the profit of repair shops and decrease the expenses of individuals and organizations that use Apple products. The positive financial impact on repair shops and Apple users would stimulate the economy more than the negative financial impact on Apple would hurt the economy. This is because an inefficient market results in deadweight loss,* which would be reduced by making the market more competitive. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss
    - habeebtc 5y ago
      My point is that congresspeople are unlikely to legislate their lunch money. As well, there is an angle about the fiscal health or the middle class as well. Depending on how much you think the average congressperson feels about them.
- nescioquid 5y ago
  > Regulation seems like our best option, but politicians will not do ... Campaign finance reform and moving away from the plurality vote. How do you do that? I don't know, but these two things are required to repair the U.S. to a functioning democracy.
- iqanq 5y ago
  I am against right to repair. If my phone breaks under warranty I have it repaired for free, and if it's out of warranty I will buy another one. I don't want a thicker and uglier phone just so it can be repaired more easily, since I won't be doing that, and I don't want companies to be forced to sell components that they don't want to sell.
  - indymike 5y ago
    >f my phone breaks under warranty I have it repaired for free, and if it's out of warranty I will buy another one. This is literally not what right to repair is about. This is exactly what anti-right to repair lobbyists are saying. Right to repair does prevent warranties, nor does it require a change in how you make a product. It simply allows a person to repair their very thin phone if they know how to do so, or hire someone who does and is not "authorized" (but is a professional, and is capable) to perform the repair. > I don't want companies to be forced to sell components that they don't want to sell. This is about preventing companies from preventing other companies from selling parts on the open market. If you don't want to sell parts, fine. If your suppliers do, you should not be able to prevent that for the purpose of making repair impossible.
    - iqanq 5y ago
      >Right to repair does prevent warranties, nor does it require a change in how you make a product. TFA says it: "when the battery failed, it took another seven hours to replace that. Both the screen and battery had been glued into the computer, requiring surgery-like precision to replace them without breaking something else." - in other words, instead of gluing components, screw them. That makes hardware thicker. >This is about preventing companies from preventing other companies from selling parts on the open market. This is not a problem in practical terms. If you go on aliexpress you will see that you can find any single component inside of an iphone. But they are knockoffs and they suck. They want to force Apple to sell parts even if they don't want to, and I am against that. (This is just an example: I think Apple is selling parts now.)
      - labawi 5y ago
- amelius 5y ago
  > how do we get people to care? This is a huge question, that applies far outside the boundaries of this particular issue. Think security, privacy, ... hell, even our entire democracy. I guess one of the problems is that people who do care actually work against it. E.g. Apple developers doing what they are told, instead of what they think is best.
- johnebgd 5y ago
  Do something. Sounds cliche but people are the conduit for change. Even if you only write your politicians you did something. Even if you only call your politicians you did something. Even if you walk door to door with a petition and get signatures you did something. Even if you organize a PAC to support candidates you believe will treat this seriously you did something. Even if you start a trade association to get manufactures to commit to supporting these policies with their own dollars then you did something. All of this might seem like too little or too unrealistic but it’s something.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Proven 5y ago
[dead]
rasz 5y ago
Change repair shops. You either got scammed - shop later refurbished your "throw away panel" by opening it up and replacing the ribbon (inconvenient but doable), or you "just" got charged for new panel by incompetent people. You can even bodge repair it for free (time) https://youtu.be/e_ElLlBsnvs?t=346 https://youtu.be/e_ElLlBsnvs?t=346
- schleck8 5y ago
  I tried a repair shop and the apple support. Both told me the same. Repair shops don't have any panels to replace it, because Apple doesn't supply anyone with them. And the entire display unit needs to be replaced, that's called the Flexgate. Major design flaw on Apple's part to make the lid as thin as possible. The Apple support charged 750 €.
  - rasz 5y ago
    I know the defect you describe, video I linked shows simple bodge repair restoring backlight without replacement parts. >The Apple support charged 750 €. earlier you wrote "repair shop have to throw away the fully functional panel, but also apple tried charging 750 euros" which at least to me means you didnt pay apple for repair, or is your post just a hypothetical scenario? You can fix flexgate displays. Its not as simple as replacing easily serviceable part, but its not rocket science. Here is example company doing it https://absolutecircuits.co.uk/flexgate-solved/ https://absolutecircuits.co.uk/flexgate-solved/ bus seeing you used Euro currency there is no need for all that, just sue Apple in small claims court or report to your consumer protection agency and watch them fall over themselves helping you out of the goodness of their hears.
  - zelon88 5y ago
    This. As a repair shop, how do you warranty one of those Alibaba panels? I've received defective ones from the factory. When removal carries a significant risk of breaking the device and the only spares are bootleg, the repair shops wind up paying the price. Customer comes in, pays for a replacement panel, the replacement is defective and removal is potentially destructive. So now you don't get to return the defective panel to the vendor for a replacement. Who buys the second panel and covers the work of disassembly a second time? Because the bootleg panel was faulty.

walnutclosefarm 5y ago

Pitty the article didn't mention farm equipment manufacturer's in their survey of the right to repair landscape. John Deere is in a multi-state fight with farmers and state legislators over their restrictive covenants blocking farmers from repairing or even retrieving the diagnostic codes on equipment they own. And we're not talking about some $1000 cell phone or laptop here, these are machines that cost $250,000 all the way up to a million plus.

djbusby 5y ago
Seems a good spot to metion AgStack - open software tools for Ag https://agstack.org/ https://agstack.org/ Doesn't have a TractorOS (yet?)

pabs3 5y ago

We need a right to repair for software too.

14 5y ago
I agree on this. I kept my iPhone 4s alive for years with multiple screen repairs, power buttons replacements, speaker replacements, and on and on. But one day I noticed I could no longer get any of the apps I wanted they suddenly needed the latest iOS. I put the phone away in a drawer and was forced to upgrade. What a shame.
- NavinF 5y ago
  IMO that’s a lost cause. The wiki says it was released on 2011 and got its last iOS update in 2019 after being discontinued in 2014. 8 years of support is ridiculously long compared to what most phone mfgs provide. Not to mention that the battery becomes significantly weaker after 2 years and the average American replaces their phone every 3 years.
  - pabs3 5y ago
    People have run Linux distros on the iPhone 7 and the old iPhone 2G/3G, so it isn't improbable that someone could get Linux to work on the iPhone 4. https://blog.project-insanity.org/2020/04/16/running-postmarketos-on-iphone-7/ https://blog.project-insanity.org/2020/04/16/running-postmar... https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/kux9xx/success_iphone_7_with_dead_nand_netbooting/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/kux9xx/success_iphon... https://linuxoniphone.blogspot.com/2010/05/iphone-3g-binaries.html https://linuxoniphone.blogspot.com/2010/05/iphone-3g-binarie...
  - pbasista 5y ago
    > 8 years of support This is unrelated to support from the manufacturer. The manufacturer may not provide any software support at all and still be friendly to software right to repair. For instance, it would be sufficient if they did not go out of their way to prevent regular users from running a software they like on the devices they own.

serverholic 5y ago

My main issue with this is regulatory capture. This sounds great on paper but you know that any right to repair law is going to be complicated. The big names will take a small hit to their profits but it'll take a bigger toll on smaller competitors.

nrp 5y ago
On the other hand, smaller competitors can be more nimble and adopt counter-positioned business models that benefit from device longevity. In that way, regulations around repair have little impact to those companies while having outsized impact to larger competitors. I agree that regulatory capture is a problem in software and services platform/aggregator categories, but it tends to work differently for physical goods.
throwawaysea 5y ago
Maybe it only needs to apply above some size of company by number of employees or revenue, to favor a low barrier to entry for smaller competitors. Many laws make distinctions between differently sized companies already, at least in the US.
indymike 5y ago
It doesn't have to be complicated to restore rights we should have under the Manguson-Moss warranty act that have been blocked by software copyright shenanigans. This small change would fix 80% of problems in automotive, tech, agriculture and military equipment (yes, the military can't fix stuff because of DRM and software) repair. I'm pretty sure the idea that a copyright would prevent your cannon from firing because the gunner's mate couldn't fix it was not even a thought when we made our copyright laws. The other part of right to repair, parts availability is more difficult because there really isn't an existing "right to repair parts". There are a lot of cases where, for example, a product manufacturer will put a clause in contracts with suppliers, preventing them from selling standard (not custom) parts to consumers, to distributors (who will sell to retail), or in small quantities. This kind of restriction is really just an anti-competitive market restriction, and probably should be made illegal.
foxfluff 5y ago

known 5y ago

[dead]