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> Not everything you personally dislike needs to be illegal. I'm having a hard time seeing why making stuff more difficult to repair just so that people are in

> Not everything you personally dislike needs to be illegal. I'm having a hard time seeing why making stuff more difficult to repair just so that people are incentivized to throw it away and buy a new one, should not be illegal. If not for the anti-customer attitude, at least for the amount of waste and environmental destruction it results in.

defrost 7mo ago
You might be interested in the vast world of public policy. There's more to the world than banned / not banned. In this instance, people might want a sensible pragmatic government to levy against companies that have high numbers of items ending up in eWaste processing (or discarded in fly tipping) and offer reductions to companies that invest in eWaste processing and collection. There are also legitimate total lifetime cost of item models that suggest clean, fast, simple manufacturing that leads to a product hard to deconstruct might actually be "cheaper" in time, resources, and energy across a large consumer population than a functionally equivalent item designed to be "unbuilt" and rebuilt (ie repaired).
- streetfighter64 7mo ago
  > clean, fast, simple manufacturing that leads to a product hard to deconstruct This seems like a total fantasy. Do you actually have any examples of non-repairability making the process cheaper? Sure there are lots of economical incentives to making stuff that you use until it breaks and then throw away, but that's just because the cost of e.g. mining metals or taking care of e-waste are externalized, due to using unethical labor in third world countries. If the "large consumer population" of the west actually had to bear the real cost of the electronics they produce, things would be vastly different.
- streetfighter64 7mo ago
  Another point regarding your last paragraph, there are actually tons of examples of Apple (and others) making a more complicated (and thus expensive) design sorely to prevent independent repair shops from providing cheap repairs, thus "encouraging" customers to buy a replacement, or use Apple's own "repair", which just replaces entire parts instead of repairing them, and bills enough for Apple's liking.
rglynn 7mo ago
I guess you can make the argument that legislating repairability will raise the price floor for devices because it increases the cost to the manufacturer. This isn't a problem for most of us in tech, but affordability can be an issue for many.
- streetfighter64 7mo ago
  Making devices un-fixable often costs more than just building them in the most straightforward way. In either case, I don't think a few dollars more or less in manufacturing costs will impact the consumer prices in any way. Let's not pretend that Apple (or other computer / phone companies) has thin margins.
999900000999 7mo ago
Half the responses in this thread are from people who replaced the keyboard for about 50$ or so. Even then, if I want a new ultra thin device that doesn’t have replaceable storage or user input devices, that’s my right to buy. Who is going to magically determine what replaceable means ? From the post it looks like OP tried to fix it incorrectly. Does apple owe op a new laptop even if they damaged it ?
- streetfighter64 7mo ago
  Well yeah, you can probably fix it for pretty cheap if you've just got some know-how. But why do Apple need to make it more difficult to fix for no reason? Riveting the keyboard to the frame doesn't make the device "thinner", and as proved by people being able to fix it without rivets, doesn't even really serve a purpose. Your last sentence is a total non-sequitur; as far as I can tell it does not relate to anything I've said. Why are you so adamant about protecting your "right" to buy a worse product?
  - 999900000999 7mo ago
    I don’t understand this authoritarian need to ban everything you don’t like. Should the government have a reparability board ? Who gets to be on it ? If it pleases the King , may I buy a laptop while traveling and bring it home. An argument could be made for a refundable recycling fee. Say 5% that gets returned when you take the device to a recycling center after your done with it
    - streetfighter64 7mo ago
      I mean, do you also consider it "authoritarian" to have e.g. regulations on vehicle exhaust? Should the government have an environmental protection agency? Who gets to be on it? What about my right to insulate my house with asbestos and paint it with lead? And who's talking about banning private import of laptops? You do know that you can regulate national sales without controlling absolutely everything right? Whoever bothers to travel to a different country just to buy a worse laptop should be allowed to do so, it's whatever. Regarding "recycling", that's all a show in order to seem more environmentally friendly with very little actual impact. You can look up how electronics "recycling" usually works in practice, which normally entails sending the waste to third world countries to have some precious metals extracted using dangerous and not exactly environmentally friendly processes. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vufLW4xOsS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vufLW4xOsS4 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ8BjHOdI8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ8BjHOdI8g

defrost 7mo ago

You might be interested in the vast world of public policy. There's more to the world than banned / not banned. In this instance, people might want a sensible pragmatic government to levy against companies that have high numbers of items ending up in eWaste processing (or discarded in fly tipping) and offer reductions to companies that invest in eWaste processing and collection. There are also legitimate total lifetime cost of item models that suggest clean, fast, simple manufacturing that leads to a product hard to deconstruct might actually be "cheaper" in time, resources, and energy across a large consumer population than a functionally equivalent item designed to be "unbuilt" and rebuilt (ie repaired).

streetfighter64 7mo ago
> clean, fast, simple manufacturing that leads to a product hard to deconstruct This seems like a total fantasy. Do you actually have any examples of non-repairability making the process cheaper? Sure there are lots of economical incentives to making stuff that you use until it breaks and then throw away, but that's just because the cost of e.g. mining metals or taking care of e-waste are externalized, due to using unethical labor in third world countries. If the "large consumer population" of the west actually had to bear the real cost of the electronics they produce, things would be vastly different.
streetfighter64 7mo ago
Another point regarding your last paragraph, there are actually tons of examples of Apple (and others) making a more complicated (and thus expensive) design sorely to prevent independent repair shops from providing cheap repairs, thus "encouraging" customers to buy a replacement, or use Apple's own "repair", which just replaces entire parts instead of repairing them, and bills enough for Apple's liking.

rglynn 7mo ago

I guess you can make the argument that legislating repairability will raise the price floor for devices because it increases the cost to the manufacturer. This isn't a problem for most of us in tech, but affordability can be an issue for many.

streetfighter64 7mo ago
Making devices un-fixable often costs more than just building them in the most straightforward way. In either case, I don't think a few dollars more or less in manufacturing costs will impact the consumer prices in any way. Let's not pretend that Apple (or other computer / phone companies) has thin margins.

999900000999 7mo ago

Half the responses in this thread are from people who replaced the keyboard for about 50$ or so. Even then, if I want a new ultra thin device that doesn’t have replaceable storage or user input devices, that’s my right to buy. Who is going to magically determine what replaceable means ? From the post it looks like OP tried to fix it incorrectly. Does apple owe op a new laptop even if they damaged it ?

streetfighter64 7mo ago
Well yeah, you can probably fix it for pretty cheap if you've just got some know-how. But why do Apple need to make it more difficult to fix for no reason? Riveting the keyboard to the frame doesn't make the device "thinner", and as proved by people being able to fix it without rivets, doesn't even really serve a purpose. Your last sentence is a total non-sequitur; as far as I can tell it does not relate to anything I've said. Why are you so adamant about protecting your "right" to buy a worse product?
- 999900000999 7mo ago
  I don’t understand this authoritarian need to ban everything you don’t like. Should the government have a reparability board ? Who gets to be on it ? If it pleases the King , may I buy a laptop while traveling and bring it home. An argument could be made for a refundable recycling fee. Say 5% that gets returned when you take the device to a recycling center after your done with it
  - streetfighter64 7mo ago
    I mean, do you also consider it "authoritarian" to have e.g. regulations on vehicle exhaust? Should the government have an environmental protection agency? Who gets to be on it? What about my right to insulate my house with asbestos and paint it with lead? And who's talking about banning private import of laptops? You do know that you can regulate national sales without controlling absolutely everything right? Whoever bothers to travel to a different country just to buy a worse laptop should be allowed to do so, it's whatever. Regarding "recycling", that's all a show in order to seem more environmentally friendly with very little actual impact. You can look up how electronics "recycling" usually works in practice, which normally entails sending the waste to third world countries to have some precious metals extracted using dangerous and not exactly environmentally friendly processes. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vufLW4xOsS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vufLW4xOsS4 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ8BjHOdI8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ8BjHOdI8g