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Car manufacturers trying to lock down their systems turned the tide on this issue. Tell someone their $500 gadget is disposable; most people will be mildly fru

Car manufacturers trying to lock down their systems turned the tide on this issue. Tell someone their $500 gadget is disposable; most people will be mildly frustrated. Tell someone that their $70,000 vehicle, on which they still have years of payments to make, is disposable or unrepairable by their usual mechanic; most people will feel more than just frustrated.

freedomben 2y ago
I want to think you're right, but most of the activation I've seen on RtR is from people who are mechanics and others whose livelihoods are threatened by this (like farmers). Most consumers (at least in my small sample of anecdata) don't seem to care at all for whatever reason. The ones who do are a small enough group to be safely ignored.
- sudoshred 2y ago
  On the surface that makes sense. From a consumer perspective lack of RtR just indicates the consumer needs to spend elsewhere if it becomes a concern.
  - octorian 2y ago
    This is an easy dodge. The problem is that when lack of repairability becomes the norm, the consumer no longer has that choice. Or they have to severely compromise their market choices in the search for repairable products. And wanting repairable products is something most consumers don't even think about at time of purchase. Its something that comes further down the line, when the purchase decision has already been made.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > wanting repairable products is something most consumers don't even think about at time of purchase This is the core of the problem. The coalition pushing for these laws doesn’t include most consumers. Absent an expensive ad push, I don’t see that changing. Takeaway: make hay where the sun shines. Focus on farming states and those with lots of dealerships and repair shops. Maybe put an anti-Musk / anti-Tesla angle on it in blue states.
      - trinsic2 2y ago
        This is why organizations are pushing for repeatability scores to be printed on purchasable items, I think that would go a long way towards hinting that this issue is important for consumers in the long run.
      - octorian 2y ago
        Focus on farming also gives the issue a bi-partisan spin, which is something you really need to make any actual progress on issues in US politics these days.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > gives the issue a bi-partisan spin Credentials. Not spin. The farmers are actually calling for this.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > And wanting repairable products is something most consumers don't even think about at time of purchase. Its something that comes further down the line, when the purchase decision has already been made. For cars there is an entirely different problem: New cars come with warranties. The sort of people who buy new cars, typically sell them by the time the warranty expires, so they only care about repairability to the extent it affects resale value, which is an attenuated effect. Then someone else is going to be driving that thing until it's 20+ years old, but the manufacturer isn't responsive to their concerns when designing the car because they aren't the manufacturer's customer in the market for new cars.
      - v-erne 2y ago
        >>they aren't the manufacturer's customer in the market for new cars Wow somehow this simple observation seems to be the greatest critic of capitalism I have heard in long time. It succintly shows why this system if left alone and scaled will destroy everything with its externalities.
        AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        The trouble is it isn't limited to "capitalism". A similar set of incentives are implicated in public choice theory, which is why democratic institutions are frequently willing to sell out future generations or compromise the public good to benefit the governing coalition's cronies. And the latter is more susceptible to it. Things work when you're the customer and you have competing suppliers. They don't work when you're not the customer. But you could still be the customer in another market as long as there is one, e.g. because third parties can reverse engineer the OEM parts and go into competition with them. So a major risk here is that the incumbent captures the government to prevent that from happening. The closest you generally get to competing alternatives with government is "laboratories of democracy" from having different states each with their own laws and the ability for people to vote with their feet, and even that suffers from the same failure mode. The system is intended to sustain that by having a strictly limited central government, but the central government gets captured by those who want to impose uniformity on what was meant to be diversity.
bluGill 2y ago
From what I can tell the only mechanics who care are trying to illegally bypass emmissions controls, or they are trying to run a chop shop steeling cars for parts. Cars are very repairable outside a dealer for most things. though I'm told tesla is an exception and they are unrepairable - I don't drive one so I wouldn't know. the above is my personal opinion. My employeer has an opinion on this subject, but I don't speak for them.
- protonbob 2y ago
  This is incorrect. Often times manufacturers will lock down the systems that can report statistics and reset failures to only work with their proprietary tools. They will not sell these tools and force people to go to the dealer. After a while the dealer can close or not sell that tool anymore and now people have an expensive paperweight that caused tons of emissions to create.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    This is often accused but it is already a violation of federal laws that have been around for ages. It is called obd and covers a lot more than emissions. right to repair may cover more but it isn't nearly as useful for normal diagnostics.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      OBD isn't enough anymore.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        You are confusing OBD for OBDII. OBD was always enough, but also manufacture/vehcile specific. OBDII was required by law and never enough except for some really basic (but common) things.
    - olyjohn 2y ago
      Have you ever worked on a car? OBD standards literally only require emissions controls to be openly diagnosed. The rest of the CEL codes can 100% be vendor specific. So when your body control module shits out, and you can't lock and unlock your doors anymore, you're fucked. When your ABS light comes on, and all you need to do is replace a $10 wheel speed sensor, you still need an expensive proprietary code reader to read the codes. "OBD II is an acronym for On-Board Diagnostic II, the second generation of on-board self-diagnostic equipment requirements for light- and medium-duty California vehicles. On-board diagnostic capabilities are incorporated into the hardware and software of a vehicle's on-board computer to monitor virtually every component that can affect emission performance. " Yes a lot of the primary engine functions affect emissions, but the majority of diagnostic codes on modern cars are not available to standard OBDII readers. Once you get outside of the engine, forget it. Every module in modern cars now is VIN-locked and can only be swapped in by a dealer, or some kind of cracked 3rd party software if you're lucky.
api 2y ago
Also farmers, who have been turned upside down and shaken by John Deere and other manufacturers using locked down hardware. The farming lobby is powerful.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Yeah, my sense in following this is that farmers have had a far bigger impact than consumers. I see your $70,000 car and raise you a $500,000 tractor that's core to a farmer's livelihood.
p0w3n3d 2y ago
there are ways to omit the right to repair. My mechanic told me story about the new emergency system (mandatory in EU) that calls automatically for help on the crash event. It has a battery and a small controller in a all-in-one module. If the battery goes down - it will stop working and require replacing. If you replace only the battery it won't work. Not sure if you can replace battery while maintaining voltage, but this might be impedimented using plastic cover or something like that. The new module costs 500$

freedomben 2y ago

I want to think you're right, but most of the activation I've seen on RtR is from people who are mechanics and others whose livelihoods are threatened by this (like farmers). Most consumers (at least in my small sample of anecdata) don't seem to care at all for whatever reason. The ones who do are a small enough group to be safely ignored.

sudoshred 2y ago
On the surface that makes sense. From a consumer perspective lack of RtR just indicates the consumer needs to spend elsewhere if it becomes a concern.
- octorian 2y ago
  This is an easy dodge. The problem is that when lack of repairability becomes the norm, the consumer no longer has that choice. Or they have to severely compromise their market choices in the search for repairable products. And wanting repairable products is something most consumers don't even think about at time of purchase. Its something that comes further down the line, when the purchase decision has already been made.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > wanting repairable products is something most consumers don't even think about at time of purchase This is the core of the problem. The coalition pushing for these laws doesn’t include most consumers. Absent an expensive ad push, I don’t see that changing. Takeaway: make hay where the sun shines. Focus on farming states and those with lots of dealerships and repair shops. Maybe put an anti-Musk / anti-Tesla angle on it in blue states.
    - trinsic2 2y ago
      This is why organizations are pushing for repeatability scores to be printed on purchasable items, I think that would go a long way towards hinting that this issue is important for consumers in the long run.
    - octorian 2y ago
      Focus on farming also gives the issue a bi-partisan spin, which is something you really need to make any actual progress on issues in US politics these days.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > gives the issue a bi-partisan spin Credentials. Not spin. The farmers are actually calling for this.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > And wanting repairable products is something most consumers don't even think about at time of purchase. Its something that comes further down the line, when the purchase decision has already been made. For cars there is an entirely different problem: New cars come with warranties. The sort of people who buy new cars, typically sell them by the time the warranty expires, so they only care about repairability to the extent it affects resale value, which is an attenuated effect. Then someone else is going to be driving that thing until it's 20+ years old, but the manufacturer isn't responsive to their concerns when designing the car because they aren't the manufacturer's customer in the market for new cars.
    - v-erne 2y ago
      >>they aren't the manufacturer's customer in the market for new cars Wow somehow this simple observation seems to be the greatest critic of capitalism I have heard in long time. It succintly shows why this system if left alone and scaled will destroy everything with its externalities.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        The trouble is it isn't limited to "capitalism". A similar set of incentives are implicated in public choice theory, which is why democratic institutions are frequently willing to sell out future generations or compromise the public good to benefit the governing coalition's cronies. And the latter is more susceptible to it. Things work when you're the customer and you have competing suppliers. They don't work when you're not the customer. But you could still be the customer in another market as long as there is one, e.g. because third parties can reverse engineer the OEM parts and go into competition with them. So a major risk here is that the incumbent captures the government to prevent that from happening. The closest you generally get to competing alternatives with government is "laboratories of democracy" from having different states each with their own laws and the ability for people to vote with their feet, and even that suffers from the same failure mode. The system is intended to sustain that by having a strictly limited central government, but the central government gets captured by those who want to impose uniformity on what was meant to be diversity.

bluGill 2y ago

From what I can tell the only mechanics who care are trying to illegally bypass emmissions controls, or they are trying to run a chop shop steeling cars for parts. Cars are very repairable outside a dealer for most things. though I'm told tesla is an exception and they are unrepairable - I don't drive one so I wouldn't know. the above is my personal opinion. My employeer has an opinion on this subject, but I don't speak for them.

protonbob 2y ago
This is incorrect. Often times manufacturers will lock down the systems that can report statistics and reset failures to only work with their proprietary tools. They will not sell these tools and force people to go to the dealer. After a while the dealer can close or not sell that tool anymore and now people have an expensive paperweight that caused tons of emissions to create.
- bluGill 2y ago
  This is often accused but it is already a violation of federal laws that have been around for ages. It is called obd and covers a lot more than emissions. right to repair may cover more but it isn't nearly as useful for normal diagnostics.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    OBD isn't enough anymore.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      You are confusing OBD for OBDII. OBD was always enough, but also manufacture/vehcile specific. OBDII was required by law and never enough except for some really basic (but common) things.
  - olyjohn 2y ago
    Have you ever worked on a car? OBD standards literally only require emissions controls to be openly diagnosed. The rest of the CEL codes can 100% be vendor specific. So when your body control module shits out, and you can't lock and unlock your doors anymore, you're fucked. When your ABS light comes on, and all you need to do is replace a $10 wheel speed sensor, you still need an expensive proprietary code reader to read the codes. "OBD II is an acronym for On-Board Diagnostic II, the second generation of on-board self-diagnostic equipment requirements for light- and medium-duty California vehicles. On-board diagnostic capabilities are incorporated into the hardware and software of a vehicle's on-board computer to monitor virtually every component that can affect emission performance. " Yes a lot of the primary engine functions affect emissions, but the majority of diagnostic codes on modern cars are not available to standard OBDII readers. Once you get outside of the engine, forget it. Every module in modern cars now is VIN-locked and can only be swapped in by a dealer, or some kind of cracked 3rd party software if you're lucky.

api 2y ago

Also farmers, who have been turned upside down and shaken by John Deere and other manufacturers using locked down hardware. The farming lobby is powerful.

lolinder 2y ago
Yeah, my sense in following this is that farmers have had a far bigger impact than consumers. I see your $70,000 car and raise you a $500,000 tractor that's core to a farmer's livelihood.

p0w3n3d 2y ago

there are ways to omit the right to repair. My mechanic told me story about the new emergency system (mandatory in EU) that calls automatically for help on the crash event. It has a battery and a small controller in a all-in-one module. If the battery goes down - it will stop working and require replacing. If you replace only the battery it won't work. Not sure if you can replace battery while maintaining voltage, but this might be impedimented using plastic cover or something like that. The new module costs 500$