5 ms·

We need to enforce user repairable electronics to save the planet of e-waste. Laptops Battery swap, Memory upgrade Cpu upgrade, Motherboard upgrade Standardize

by acd 3y ago

We need to enforce user repairable electronics to save the planet of e-waste. Laptops Battery swap, Memory upgrade Cpu upgrade, Motherboard upgrade Standardized components PSU Motherboard sizes. Headphones battery easy to swap. Speakers easy to swap. Main board easy to swap/upgrade All these should be as easy as swapping aaa/aa batteries in devices. Open source car/tractor Standard motor Standard framework etc

Workaccount2 3y ago
Forget about e-waste, it's my fucking property. I paid full price for a full product that is now mine. Not partially mine and partially the manufacturers.
- NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
  When was the last time you were legally prevented from repairing your property, rather than say by your decision to purchase an item that didn't have spares available for sale to the general public, or was manufactured in a way that prevented repair?
  - jchw 3y ago
    > When was the last time you were legally prevented from repairing your property "Legally prevented" is a dubious way to define this. You can use many approaches to prevent consumers from being able to repair things, but obviously sueing customers that try to repair things is not going to be an effective strategy. Still, you can definitely use the law to prevent replacement parts from being manufactured, or security mechanisms that may be illegal to circumvent. > or was manufactured in a way that prevented repair? That's exactly a focus of right to repair laws though. It's not about whether or not people are legally allowed to repair things, it's about regulating practices that thwart one's right to repair things, which have evolved unchecked for a while now. What's extremely sad is even mechanisms we know wouldn't hold up in court, like "warranty void if removed," continue to be effective anyways due to the lack of action.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      I think this misses the previous point, though. They're saying, correctly, that claiming that "not being able to repair something implies a lack of ownership" is not a logical claim.
      - jchw 3y ago
        Nobody is literally referring to the concept of property ownership though, since that's not really what this is about. Of course I literally "own" a device that I buy, but if the vendor forces me to agree to a ToS and EULA to be allowed (legally, thanks to DMCA) to use the product as advertised and can lock me out at any time, it's truly ownership in name only. This is about fancy footwork using technological measures to diminish consumer rights and consumer choice without literally violating any law. The law has not caught up to this, but the writing is certainly on the wall.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        > Nobody is literally referring to the concept of property ownership though I don't see the point of this comment. If you read up in the thread: > Forget about e-waste, it's my fucking property. I paid full price for a full product that is now mine. Not partially mine and partially the manufacturers That doesn't mean there aren't other things to discuss, but people in this section of the comments are talking about ownership.
        jchw 3y ago
        Yes, but we're talking about ownership as a concept, not as a matter of law. I'm not sure how this is getting confused to be honest.
        NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
        Ownership is a legal concept. If you want to talk about whether it is good public policy to allow manufacturers to make computer stuffs that are difficult to repair or that have technical restrictions baked in that make it difficult to run software other than that provided by the manufacturer, please have at it. To suggest that this is an ownership discussion is at best intellectually faulty and at worst the sort of hyperventilation that has people rolling their eyes at you.
  - rpvnwnkl 3y ago
    My town disallows repairs or installation to barbed wire fencing, fwiw. You can buy it but can’t legally use it.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    Manufacturers have absolutely legally prevented people from helping others repair their property.
- tnel77 3y ago
  Won’t you stop for a second and think about the shareholders?
ghaff 3y ago
Nobody is keeping you from building your own equipment which is as upgradable as you like. ADDED: Certainly manufacturers have done deliberately user-hostile things. (And I voted for this ballot initiative in MA.) But there are tradeoffs especially with respect to compact electronics.
scarface_74 3y ago
That’s not how technology works. Only minor changes in CPUs are done without supporting motherboard changes. Are you also going to tell CPU manufacturers that they can’t put memory and the CPU on the same die? Are you going to tell every computer manufacturer they have to use the same motherboard across all of their computers.
- avmich 3y ago
  > Are you going to tell every computer manufacturer they have to use the same motherboard across all of their computers. Roughly, yes. There are communication and energy standards, which are used by external devices, the CPUs should have embedded or externalized adapters to these standards. Motherboard is the place to assemble these standard-compliant devices together.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    And are those standards going to work across all of the different form factors that Apple has for instance? Are they going to work across CPU architectures?
- jchw 3y ago
  Well on one hand, pretty much yeah. Not literally of course, that would be absurd. However, there should absolutely be strong incentives for manufacturers of computer hardware to focus on hardware that is built to last: chipsets designed with future development in mind, unsoldered external RAM, etc. Incentivizing this is good because it prevents the situation where a vendor gets punished for "doing the right thing" and making hardware that doesn't need to be replaced as frequently. But is that "right to repair"? Mostly no. I would place it more in the broader category of measures against ewaste.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    And it will also result in worse computers that are necessarily slower and larger? Should Apple be forced to use standardized boards that are meant for x86 chips? Should they be forced to try to use the same board for the Mac Mini, the iMac, and the Mac Studio?
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
I agree but I wish the proponents of right to repair would ditch the e-waste message. Look around. We are drowning in throwaway junk products. The consumer obviously doesn't care. A better message would be that right to repair will save you money! Your things last longer and retain their resale value for longer. Now you're speaking my language!
- johncessna 3y ago
  Why not both? Most of these companies have green initiatives. Let's see them do something other than update their social media profile picture or mandate a corporate training or two.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    I think that sometimes less is more when it comes to messaging or arguments because opponents will use your weakest argument against you. e-waste might sound like a liberal (environmental) issue to some where money is universal.

by acd 3y ago

Workaccount2 3y ago

Forget about e-waste, it's my fucking property. I paid full price for a full product that is now mine. Not partially mine and partially the manufacturers.

NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
When was the last time you were legally prevented from repairing your property, rather than say by your decision to purchase an item that didn't have spares available for sale to the general public, or was manufactured in a way that prevented repair?
- jchw 3y ago
  > When was the last time you were legally prevented from repairing your property "Legally prevented" is a dubious way to define this. You can use many approaches to prevent consumers from being able to repair things, but obviously sueing customers that try to repair things is not going to be an effective strategy. Still, you can definitely use the law to prevent replacement parts from being manufactured, or security mechanisms that may be illegal to circumvent. > or was manufactured in a way that prevented repair? That's exactly a focus of right to repair laws though. It's not about whether or not people are legally allowed to repair things, it's about regulating practices that thwart one's right to repair things, which have evolved unchecked for a while now. What's extremely sad is even mechanisms we know wouldn't hold up in court, like "warranty void if removed," continue to be effective anyways due to the lack of action.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    I think this misses the previous point, though. They're saying, correctly, that claiming that "not being able to repair something implies a lack of ownership" is not a logical claim.
    - jchw 3y ago
      Nobody is literally referring to the concept of property ownership though, since that's not really what this is about. Of course I literally "own" a device that I buy, but if the vendor forces me to agree to a ToS and EULA to be allowed (legally, thanks to DMCA) to use the product as advertised and can lock me out at any time, it's truly ownership in name only. This is about fancy footwork using technological measures to diminish consumer rights and consumer choice without literally violating any law. The law has not caught up to this, but the writing is certainly on the wall.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        > Nobody is literally referring to the concept of property ownership though I don't see the point of this comment. If you read up in the thread: > Forget about e-waste, it's my fucking property. I paid full price for a full product that is now mine. Not partially mine and partially the manufacturers That doesn't mean there aren't other things to discuss, but people in this section of the comments are talking about ownership.
        jchw 3y ago
        Yes, but we're talking about ownership as a concept, not as a matter of law. I'm not sure how this is getting confused to be honest.
        NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
        Ownership is a legal concept. If you want to talk about whether it is good public policy to allow manufacturers to make computer stuffs that are difficult to repair or that have technical restrictions baked in that make it difficult to run software other than that provided by the manufacturer, please have at it. To suggest that this is an ownership discussion is at best intellectually faulty and at worst the sort of hyperventilation that has people rolling their eyes at you.
- rpvnwnkl 3y ago
  My town disallows repairs or installation to barbed wire fencing, fwiw. You can buy it but can’t legally use it.
- bmitc 3y ago
  Manufacturers have absolutely legally prevented people from helping others repair their property.
tnel77 3y ago
Won’t you stop for a second and think about the shareholders?

ghaff 3y ago

Nobody is keeping you from building your own equipment which is as upgradable as you like. ADDED: Certainly manufacturers have done deliberately user-hostile things. (And I voted for this ballot initiative in MA.) But there are tradeoffs especially with respect to compact electronics.

scarface_74 3y ago

That’s not how technology works. Only minor changes in CPUs are done without supporting motherboard changes. Are you also going to tell CPU manufacturers that they can’t put memory and the CPU on the same die? Are you going to tell every computer manufacturer they have to use the same motherboard across all of their computers.

avmich 3y ago
> Are you going to tell every computer manufacturer they have to use the same motherboard across all of their computers. Roughly, yes. There are communication and energy standards, which are used by external devices, the CPUs should have embedded or externalized adapters to these standards. Motherboard is the place to assemble these standard-compliant devices together.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  And are those standards going to work across all of the different form factors that Apple has for instance? Are they going to work across CPU architectures?
jchw 3y ago
Well on one hand, pretty much yeah. Not literally of course, that would be absurd. However, there should absolutely be strong incentives for manufacturers of computer hardware to focus on hardware that is built to last: chipsets designed with future development in mind, unsoldered external RAM, etc. Incentivizing this is good because it prevents the situation where a vendor gets punished for "doing the right thing" and making hardware that doesn't need to be replaced as frequently. But is that "right to repair"? Mostly no. I would place it more in the broader category of measures against ewaste.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  And it will also result in worse computers that are necessarily slower and larger? Should Apple be forced to use standardized boards that are meant for x86 chips? Should they be forced to try to use the same board for the Mac Mini, the iMac, and the Mac Studio?

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

I agree but I wish the proponents of right to repair would ditch the e-waste message. Look around. We are drowning in throwaway junk products. The consumer obviously doesn't care. A better message would be that right to repair will save you money! Your things last longer and retain their resale value for longer. Now you're speaking my language!

johncessna 3y ago
Why not both? Most of these companies have green initiatives. Let's see them do something other than update their social media profile picture or mandate a corporate training or two.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  I think that sometimes less is more when it comes to messaging or arguments because opponents will use your weakest argument against you. e-waste might sound like a liberal (environmental) issue to some where money is universal.