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A populist wave is rising to end the 'captive' repair economy
- toss1 6mo agoRight To Repair is a fundamental of freedom from oligarchy. It is literally the question of who owns the things we buy. Or, are we forever just de-facto renting those things, while sending all the data to the corporate overlords? It seems obscure, but is a key element of freedom and democracy.
- knollimar 6mo agobut you see, you own the hardware, but have no permission to modify the software I put on it >:)
- Bender 6mo agoIf I am renting a thing I expect free repairs forever and they should expect to hear from me any time my rental devices is not doing what I expect it to do. If that is not included in the rental fee then I need not use that device and they should expect it returned covered in animal feces.
- toss1 6mo agoExactly. If I am renting it, then anything goes wrong, they either fix it immediately on the spot, or promptly swap it out for an equivalent unit.
- 7777777phil 6mo agoCaptive aftermarkets are roughly the biggest hidden cross-subsidy in consumer goods imo.. printer and tractor OEMs price the unit near cost and pull the lifetime margin out of parts, service, and locked firmware. That's why right-to-repair is one of the few issues where farm states and urban progressives end up in the same column.
- erelong 6mo agoas an alternative to right-to-repair laws, consumers could simply buy repairable products and avoid unrepairable ones my only concerns with these laws is they help corps who can afford to make repairable designs and the laws will just be used against competitors who might struggle in the same way to comply with more red tape
- happymellon 6mo ago> as an alternative to right-to-repair laws, consumers could simply buy repairable products and avoid unrepairable ones The free market only works with a low barrier of entry. In many cases what you propose doesn't exist.