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Digital fair repair act passed in New York
- NonNefarious 4y agoSeems well-intentioned but inept, in that it only applies to "digital electronic equipment." Why?
- basisword 4y agoProbably to get it passed. Include more things and you need to convince more people/lobbyists and you’ll never get anything through.
- ImprobableTruth 4y agoPick your battles. No way this would have passed if they had also included e.g. farm equipment.
- acomjean 4y agoI don't understand the Farm Equipment exemption. Its not like NY manufactures farm equipment. Its a big enough market that I doubt any companies would want to leave.
- formerkrogemp 4y agoRural NY has many farmers. Like any other state. State laws can propagate to other states if left unchecked by corporate representatives. Our legislatures don't represent the interests of the people as well as they probably should.
- nerdponx 4y agoAll the more reason it's offensive, because it's not like John Deere is some major economic value creator in New York. I would love to know what back room quid-pro-quos were involved in this.
- NonNefarious 4y agoI would argue (and I hope someone else does) that "digital electronic equipment" applies to such equipment no matter where it is, including on a tractor.
- jbverschoor 4y agoProbably safety.. low voltages devices. 'Safety' was a big argument for those against.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- basisword 4y agoThe purpose of the act for anyone unfamiliar: >> This bill requires original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to make diag-nostic and repair information for digital electronic parts and equipment available to independent repair providers and consumers if such parts and repair information are also available to OEM authorized repair providers.
- superb-owl 4y agoVery exciting to see this pass after California's bill was killed [1] Right to repair is one of those frustrating issues that has broad public support, but not enough passion to impact elections. This makes it easy for a small number of corporations to influence legislatures via lobbying and campaign donations, and effectively block popular measures. [1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/01/california_repair_bill/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/01/california_repair_bil...
- jbverschoor 4y ago> via lobbying and campaign donations you mean bribes
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoI used to think this was sarcasm. Then I met people who literally didn’t understand the difference between putting money in a politician’s pocket / promising them personal perks and lobbying then or donating to their campaign or PAC.
- sofixa 4y agoIt's basically the same thing, just regulated. When you follow the (extremely limit in the US, thankfully at least a bit more complex in other developed countries) rules to give money to a politician for favours it's called lobbying. You can lobby without money too ( by voicing your opinion), so maybe that's where you see a difference?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> basically the same thing, just regulated Campaign expenditures are audited and regulated. Lobbying generally involves little of material value going to the politician—it’s connecting with experts and writing bills their staff are too stretched to deal with. PACs are the black hole in the equation. But if you think a PAC can just buy a politician a boat or a house without consequences, you’ve severely underestimated the FBI’s appetite for those kinds of cases. Conflating these modes normalises actual bribery.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoThis is great news! I am extremely excited to see what this means in practice!
- bradfa 4y agoExemptions for farm equipment, motor vehicles, medical devices, and household appliances with "a digital electronic product embedded within it". So... Basically laptops and phones are covered by this? Is a TV an appliance? My washing machine and dryer don't have digital electronics within them (they're like 20 years old) but all my other home appliances do.
- usrn 4y agoIt's still a lot better than nothing.
- bradfa 4y agoOh yes, definitely. I just wish that NY lawmakers would have more backbone than federal lawmakers. Getting elected to the state government costs significantly less money for a campaign than winning a federal position, state lawmakers should not be as easy to be influenced by large corporations as they have a lot less to lose in comparison to federal lawmakers in terms of future campaign contributions. Or maybe I'm very naive. I do live in NY, my elected state representatives did not spend a ton to win their seats.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- toss1 4y agoUnfortunately the lower campaign costs also mean it is cheaper for a purchaser-of-politicians to fund the run of a competitor who will do their bidding.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoIt's the first domino to fall.
- AndrewUnmuted 4y agoThis means the very important work being done at tractorhacking [0] has become even more important. What incentive does a publicly-traded firm whose key shareholder is Bill Gates have to ever make their products repairable by New York's farmers now? [0] https://tractorhacking.github.io/ https://tractorhacking.github.io/
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- stjohnswarts 4y agoIt's a shame that states have to do this and not the federal government.
- ChrisArchitect 4y ago[dupe] News from last week, a handful of posts including this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31614055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31614055
- olliej 4y agoInexplicably doesn't apply to some of those things most likely to actually need repair: Cars, motor vehicles, machinery, .... all things for which maintenance and repair have actually be turned into profit centers by OEMs in recent years. Most small consumer tech (the only stuff actually covered) simply doesn't have any designed repair path, except maybe battery and screen. No manufacturer other than Apple has enough of its own consumer access to have any repair afaict? Meanwhile we're increasingly forced to use dealers for minor repairs to our cars. FFS. I also live in CA so the bill obviously has no impact on me, and I don't see anything like this happening here in any form any time soon :-(