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It's a double-edged sword. Macbooks are sturdy in some areas (bottom case assembly) but fragile in others (display assembly and keyboard). The e-waste partially

It's a double-edged sword. Macbooks are sturdy in some areas (bottom case assembly) but fragile in others (display assembly and keyboard). The e-waste partially stems from a lack of repairability; common issues like a cracked display or shorted Logic Board capacitor will run you upwards of $500. Not because those individual parts are so expensive, but because the entire display/motherboard assembly has to be replaced. Perhaps that does get salvaged with Apple's first-party reclamation programs, but that just means the wastefulness is passed on to the customer in the form of a surcharge. It doesn't fix the vast majority of devices that will never return to Apple either. Apple's absolute authority over the platform ruins it in the end. Simple regulation like forcing them to add user-servicable storage would prevent M1 devices from getting bricked after hitting their TBW limit. It was a no-brainer for John Deere, so why not the largest company in America?

taylodl 4y ago
You're conflating right to repair with ability to repair. The issue with John Deere was the farmers were able to repair the tractors, but the licensing prohibited them from doing so. The right to repair laws say nothing about making products being repairable. In fact right to repair might drive more things to be non-repairable - if the manufacturer still has to honor their warranty even after your repairs then they have an incentive to make it not repairable in the first place. That's a hard position for a tractor costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to make but it's a simple position for a maker of devices in the $1k-$3K range.