3 ms·

The best way to force right to repair, is customers favouring products with that kind of design at the time of buy. Doing it by legislation will go in the wron

by f1shy 4y ago

The best way to force right to repair, is customers favouring products with that kind of design at the time of buy. Doing it by legislation will go in the wrong direction. The problem is, maybe, most of consumers prioritise other aspects at the time of buying.

dwighttk 4y ago
Ability to repair for me is a nice to have, but like 5th or 6th on my list and not a must have. I can think of one or two times in the last decade I was disappointed I didn’t have it.
black_puppydog 4y ago
Given that "the electrorate" and "consumers" are two huge groups with huge overlap, one could argue that political action is, in this case and in the ideal case of any representative democracy, an expression of consumers' will. We have a bunch of problems (pollution, climate change, privacy...) where the incentives "in the moment of action" (buying, subscribing, choosing a mode of transport) are not great, and so individual responsibility as the sole recipe for change has failed miserably. It's okay for people to say "hey let's collectively through out the oreos."
- nerdponx 4y ago
  > Given that "the electrorate" and "consumers" are two huge groups with huge overlap, one could argue that political action is, in this case and in the ideal case of any representative democracy, an expression of consumers' will. This is an excellent point. Political forces are market forces.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
zanecodes 4y ago
How do you know how repairable something is at the time of buy? It would be nice if companies were required to provide information about their products' wear parts, their expected lifetime, whether they're replaceable and what tools are necessary to do so, etc.
- pmontra 4y ago
  You ask the seller or you research the product. Or more probably buy whatever is on the shelf and has the right price. Surprises are left for later on but people will learn again how to deal with that. Repairing was common not to many years ago and we were no more geniuses back then than we are now.
  - zanecodes 4y ago
    What incentive does the seller have to be honest? They could easily claim something is "repairable," and then when someone calls them out for using pentalobe screws, glued glass displays, and soldered-in storage and memory, reply "That's repairable, you just need a pentalobe screwdriver set, a heat gun, spudgers, a high quality soldering iron and flux, and a reflow soldering station." I'd just like to be able to see (before I buy) objective numbers for things like SSD write lifetime, display burn-in rate, and battery capacity degradation next to information about what kind of tools I would need to replace them myself, and maybe how much it costs to have the manufacturer replace them, if they offer that service. That way I can decide that maybe I'm okay with a soldered battery, since it will probably last 10 years with my usage patterns and the manufacturer will replace it for $60. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that companies shouldn't be _forced_ to make their products repairable at the expense of other design considerations, but they should certainly be forced to be upfront about it if they don't.
  - supportlocal4h 4y ago
    Reputation is a real thing. Hyundai left the U.S. market in part because a disastrous reputation made sales difficult. When they returned, they knew they had to overcome their existing rep. They offered warranties that meant the consumer couldn't lose. Then they proved that their new offerings were industry best at reliability and maintainability. Even today they put their money where their mouth is beyond anything "Detroit" is willing to match. And they have flipped the field. Now it's competitors like GM that suffer rep problems. Kitchenaid built an amazing rep. More recently they have moved to plastic parts. Their rep will reflect that. For better or worse, Linux and Windows still feel the effects of decades of reputation.
- 4y ago
autoexec 4y ago
"voting with your wallet" is a dream that simply does not work in practice. Especially in situations like cell phones where you have extremely limited options. Companies have simply refused to provide a product that delivers the features customers want because they make more money by denying you those features and they know that customers can't afford to go without something and will be forced to settle for whatever they decide to offer. If something will make a company more money, then they will always do that thing. If not making products repairable makes them more money they will never do it until they are forced to by law, which is exactly what has happened. In fact, companies make so much money refusing to make repairable products that they've invested huge amounts of money into technology and laws that make it illegal or impossible for users to repair their products which is what brought us to the point we're at now where consumers had no choice but to petition the government to intervene.
- f1shy 4y ago
  You are totally right. My comment applies with free market, in a mono- or duo- poly it just will not work.
  - supportlocal4h 4y ago
    And yet, I can still buy a "not smart" phone. Because enough people have voted with their wallets. There is a market worth $millions there and vendors willing to meet the demand.
    - autoexec 4y ago
      I'd guess that just means that non-smart phones are cheap enough to manufacture that they can make more money selling them than they would by refusing to. Especially since a lot of people who buy a non-smart phone already have a smart phone as well. They're so cheap I can get a flip phone for less money than an iphone case.
berjin 4y ago
Blaming it on the consumers is why we have this problem in the first place. Every single phone in the shop is going to have a soldered in battery so how is the consumer supposed to choose? The consumer does not have perfect information either. How are they meant to know the failure modes of a new product line and difficulty of repair. Sure capitalism works if is high competition and all the actors have perfect information but that isn't true. I don't believe in over-regulating but the market isn't exactly working here and car safety standards have shown that it can work if done right.

by f1shy 4y ago

dwighttk 4y ago

Ability to repair for me is a nice to have, but like 5th or 6th on my list and not a must have. I can think of one or two times in the last decade I was disappointed I didn’t have it.

black_puppydog 4y ago

Given that "the electrorate" and "consumers" are two huge groups with huge overlap, one could argue that political action is, in this case and in the ideal case of any representative democracy, an expression of consumers' will. We have a bunch of problems (pollution, climate change, privacy...) where the incentives "in the moment of action" (buying, subscribing, choosing a mode of transport) are not great, and so individual responsibility as the sole recipe for change has failed miserably. It's okay for people to say "hey let's collectively through out the oreos."

nerdponx 4y ago
> Given that "the electrorate" and "consumers" are two huge groups with huge overlap, one could argue that political action is, in this case and in the ideal case of any representative democracy, an expression of consumers' will. This is an excellent point. Political forces are market forces.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

zanecodes 4y ago

How do you know how repairable something is at the time of buy? It would be nice if companies were required to provide information about their products' wear parts, their expected lifetime, whether they're replaceable and what tools are necessary to do so, etc.

pmontra 4y ago
You ask the seller or you research the product. Or more probably buy whatever is on the shelf and has the right price. Surprises are left for later on but people will learn again how to deal with that. Repairing was common not to many years ago and we were no more geniuses back then than we are now.
- zanecodes 4y ago
  What incentive does the seller have to be honest? They could easily claim something is "repairable," and then when someone calls them out for using pentalobe screws, glued glass displays, and soldered-in storage and memory, reply "That's repairable, you just need a pentalobe screwdriver set, a heat gun, spudgers, a high quality soldering iron and flux, and a reflow soldering station." I'd just like to be able to see (before I buy) objective numbers for things like SSD write lifetime, display burn-in rate, and battery capacity degradation next to information about what kind of tools I would need to replace them myself, and maybe how much it costs to have the manufacturer replace them, if they offer that service. That way I can decide that maybe I'm okay with a soldered battery, since it will probably last 10 years with my usage patterns and the manufacturer will replace it for $60. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that companies shouldn't be _forced_ to make their products repairable at the expense of other design considerations, but they should certainly be forced to be upfront about it if they don't.
- supportlocal4h 4y ago
  Reputation is a real thing. Hyundai left the U.S. market in part because a disastrous reputation made sales difficult. When they returned, they knew they had to overcome their existing rep. They offered warranties that meant the consumer couldn't lose. Then they proved that their new offerings were industry best at reliability and maintainability. Even today they put their money where their mouth is beyond anything "Detroit" is willing to match. And they have flipped the field. Now it's competitors like GM that suffer rep problems. Kitchenaid built an amazing rep. More recently they have moved to plastic parts. Their rep will reflect that. For better or worse, Linux and Windows still feel the effects of decades of reputation.
4y ago

autoexec 4y ago

"voting with your wallet" is a dream that simply does not work in practice. Especially in situations like cell phones where you have extremely limited options. Companies have simply refused to provide a product that delivers the features customers want because they make more money by denying you those features and they know that customers can't afford to go without something and will be forced to settle for whatever they decide to offer. If something will make a company more money, then they will always do that thing. If not making products repairable makes them more money they will never do it until they are forced to by law, which is exactly what has happened. In fact, companies make so much money refusing to make repairable products that they've invested huge amounts of money into technology and laws that make it illegal or impossible for users to repair their products which is what brought us to the point we're at now where consumers had no choice but to petition the government to intervene.

f1shy 4y ago
You are totally right. My comment applies with free market, in a mono- or duo- poly it just will not work.
- supportlocal4h 4y ago
  And yet, I can still buy a "not smart" phone. Because enough people have voted with their wallets. There is a market worth $millions there and vendors willing to meet the demand.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    I'd guess that just means that non-smart phones are cheap enough to manufacture that they can make more money selling them than they would by refusing to. Especially since a lot of people who buy a non-smart phone already have a smart phone as well. They're so cheap I can get a flip phone for less money than an iphone case.

berjin 4y ago

Blaming it on the consumers is why we have this problem in the first place. Every single phone in the shop is going to have a soldered in battery so how is the consumer supposed to choose? The consumer does not have perfect information either. How are they meant to know the failure modes of a new product line and difficulty of repair. Sure capitalism works if is high competition and all the actors have perfect information but that isn't true. I don't believe in over-regulating but the market isn't exactly working here and car safety standards have shown that it can work if done right.