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Tech Companies Are Trying to Neuter Colorado's Landmark Right-to-Repair Law

52 points by liz_ifixit 6mo ago

emiliazar 6mo ago
[dead]
pwg 6mo ago
The journalist on the article missed the mark here: "Manufacturers tend to be less supportive of right-to-repair efforts, as corporations stand to make more money charging for tools, replacement parts, and repair services than if they were to just let people fix things on their own." This is not the reason manufacturers oppose right-to-repair. They oppose right to repair because a device that is repaired is one less sale of a new device, and they do not want anything interfering with that "new device sales treadmill".
- TheCleric 6mo ago
  I think it’s both but depends on the device. For a tractor or car the author’s case is mostly correct. For a smart watch it’s more likely what you describe.
Baljhin 6mo ago
https://archive.ph/vObdg https://archive.ph/vObdg
erelong 6mo ago
In fairness, it's not necessarily a great idea to have as a law as it prevents startups from creating "unrepairable" alternatives on the way towarda a more sustainable repairable future product The ideal is more like a culture of businesses making repairabke products and consumers refusing to buy unrepairable slop
- HauntingPin 6mo ago
  > The ideal is more like a culture of businesses making repairabke products and consumers refusing to buy unrepairable slop Past few decades have demonstrated that this ideal doesn't work. That's why we have laws. I've never understood why the HN crowd is so averse to forcing companies to account for the common good. It's proven to work.
  - okanat 6mo ago
    > HN crowd is so averse to forcing companies to account for the common good HN is a quite economically libertarian place and it is full of "ashamed billionaires" and founders who yearn for creating companies that will fuck their customers over. There are many engineers who also think the same and think themselves as business-aware. Rule of law and strong consumer protection is fundamentally against to contemporary startup mindset that prioritizes monopolization over everything else and rent seeking behavior.
    - therobots927 6mo ago
      We’ll see how economically libertarian they really are when the AI industry needs a bailout from Uncle Sam.
  - erelong 6mo ago
    It's proven to not work and to support the big corps, I don't know why so many of the HN crowd don't see this in kind tbh
    - HauntingPin 6mo ago
      You can imitate what I say, sure, but that doesn't make it true. MAGA complaining about the fascist left is not equal to the left justifiably and correctly pointing out the fascism of the right in the US today.
- liz_ifixit 6mo ago
  The law requires that manufacturers have repair material availability parity between their authorized shops and independent shops. Basically, they can't unfairly restrict access to repair materials. A startup isn't prevented from making whatever "unrepairable" alternative it wants. In fact, if it has no repair operation of its own, it's not required by the law to do anything at all. Most startups fall in that category.

52 points by liz_ifixit 6mo ago

[dead]

pwg 6mo ago

The journalist on the article missed the mark here: "Manufacturers tend to be less supportive of right-to-repair efforts, as corporations stand to make more money charging for tools, replacement parts, and repair services than if they were to just let people fix things on their own." This is not the reason manufacturers oppose right-to-repair. They oppose right to repair because a device that is repaired is one less sale of a new device, and they do not want anything interfering with that "new device sales treadmill".

TheCleric 6mo ago
I think it’s both but depends on the device. For a tractor or car the author’s case is mostly correct. For a smart watch it’s more likely what you describe.

Baljhin 6mo ago

https://archive.ph/vObdg https://archive.ph/vObdg

erelong 6mo ago

In fairness, it's not necessarily a great idea to have as a law as it prevents startups from creating "unrepairable" alternatives on the way towarda a more sustainable repairable future product The ideal is more like a culture of businesses making repairabke products and consumers refusing to buy unrepairable slop

HauntingPin 6mo ago
> The ideal is more like a culture of businesses making repairabke products and consumers refusing to buy unrepairable slop Past few decades have demonstrated that this ideal doesn't work. That's why we have laws. I've never understood why the HN crowd is so averse to forcing companies to account for the common good. It's proven to work.
- okanat 6mo ago
  > HN crowd is so averse to forcing companies to account for the common good HN is a quite economically libertarian place and it is full of "ashamed billionaires" and founders who yearn for creating companies that will fuck their customers over. There are many engineers who also think the same and think themselves as business-aware. Rule of law and strong consumer protection is fundamentally against to contemporary startup mindset that prioritizes monopolization over everything else and rent seeking behavior.
  - therobots927 6mo ago
    We’ll see how economically libertarian they really are when the AI industry needs a bailout from Uncle Sam.
- erelong 6mo ago
  It's proven to not work and to support the big corps, I don't know why so many of the HN crowd don't see this in kind tbh
  - HauntingPin 6mo ago
    You can imitate what I say, sure, but that doesn't make it true. MAGA complaining about the fascist left is not equal to the left justifiably and correctly pointing out the fascism of the right in the US today.
liz_ifixit 6mo ago
The law requires that manufacturers have repair material availability parity between their authorized shops and independent shops. Basically, they can't unfairly restrict access to repair materials. A startup isn't prevented from making whatever "unrepairable" alternative it wants. In fact, if it has no repair operation of its own, it's not required by the law to do anything at all. Most startups fall in that category.