Is Right to Repair Gaining Momentum? (nytimes.com) 64
"A movement known as 'right to repair' is starting to make progress in pushing for laws that prohibit restrictions..." reports the New York Times:
This August, Democrats introduced a bill in Congress to block manufacturers' limits on medical devices, spurred by the pandemic. In Europe, the European Commission announced plans in March for new right-to-repair rules that would cover phones, tablets, and laptops by 2021. In less than two weeks, Massachusetts voters will consider a measure that would make it easier for local garages to work on cars. And in more than 20 statehouses nationwide, right-to-repair legislation has been introduced in recent years by both Republicans and Democrats. Over the summer, the House advanced a funding bill that includes a requirement that the FTC complete a report on anticompetitive practices in the repair market and present its findings to Congress and the public. And in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, Marine Captain Elle Ekman and former Marine Lucas Kunce last year detailed how mechanics in the American armed forces have run into similar obstacles...
Manufacturers argue that their products are repairable, and that they are protecting consumers' safety, privacy and security by restricting who does the repairs. Apple, for instance, limits consumers from repairing their devices by requiring specific tools or authorized parts. "When a repair is needed, a customer should have confidence the repair is done right," Jeff Williams, Apple's chief operating officer, said in a release last year. "We believe the safest and most reliable repair is one handled by a trained technician using genuine parts that have been properly engineered and rigorously tested."
Manufacturers argue that their products are repairable, and that they are protecting consumers' safety, privacy and security by restricting who does the repairs. Apple, for instance, limits consumers from repairing their devices by requiring specific tools or authorized parts. "When a repair is needed, a customer should have confidence the repair is done right," Jeff Williams, Apple's chief operating officer, said in a release last year. "We believe the safest and most reliable repair is one handled by a trained technician using genuine parts that have been properly engineered and rigorously tested."
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With Trump you get nothing but graft, complete incompetence, and judges that take such a myopic as to make it impossible for Congress to create laws that serve the people.
Congress, White House, and judiciary are there to serve the population. Not corporations. Not special interests. Not themselves. I'm not saying that Biden / Harris are perfect. But they are light-years better that the hypocrisy laden dumpster-fire shit-show we've had from a failed business man / failed reality TV star and failed talk show host we've been dealing with the last four years.
Trump talks about how great, successful, etc. he is. He has yet to show one iota of success. Everything he's touched has failed:
Marriages
His kids
Businesses
TV Gig
As president
Foreign policy
Domestic policy
COVID
Economy
Immigration
and on and on.
I can't wait to get his monkey ass out of the white house.
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{Credible sources only, no conspiracy theorist bullshit from Trump supporters}
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Anyone can make any 'business' wildly successful -- on paper -- if they're willing to do two things:
1. Make changes that will, in the short term, make that business look fantastic to the general public
2. Lie through your teeth about anything and everything you must, to support the illusion created by the above
That's all Trump and his Administration have done, plus one other thing: riding on the coat-tails of the previous Ad
Re: America looks like Trump's bankrupt casinos... (Score:2)
> riding on the coat-tails of the previous Administrations, which to be fair, every POTUS does.
Except the next one, perhaps.
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Right to exclusive profit fits better (Score:5, Interesting)
When a repair is needed, a customer should have confidence the repair is done right
Or, to put it simply, they want all of the repair market pie. We still let people fix thousands of pounds of steel and plastic that can quickly accelerate to high speed while people are not only standing nearby but are actually on board. There are virtually no problems with this and the ones that have come up have been solved to nearly everyone’s satisfaction. They can take their monopolistic ideals of making repairs illegal and shove them up their collective a$$es.
It goes further (Score:5, Interesting)
FTA: "We believe the safest and most reliable repair is one handled by a trained technician using genuine parts that have been properly engineered and rigorously tested"
And then Apple restricts the sale of these genuine parts such that only their own repair shops can get them. An independent repair shop, even when employing properly trained engineers, simply cannot perform the repair using genuine parts.
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When a repair is needed, a customer should have confidence the repair is done right
Or, to put it simply, they want all of the repair market pie. We still let people fix thousands of pounds of steel and plastic that can quickly accelerate to high speed while people are not only standing nearby but are actually on board. There are virtually no problems with this and the ones that have come up have been solved to nearly everyone’s satisfaction. They can take their monopolistic ideals of making repairs illegal and shove them up their collective a$$es.
My experience is that company technicians are not always more than parts replacements. They have a bunch of modules, and from basic knowledge, they do replacement. A simple socketed fuse that is on a mother board that fails, often results in the entire board being replaced. Two hundred dollar expense versus one dollar. And for the right to repair, you own the old parts, so you must insist in getting them returned to you.
This is a EU thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Forcing charger compatibility,
GDPR,
now, right to repair...
It seems we got some guys on our side in there, and somehow they manage to run the show.
Since I always assume, every "modern" "democratic" government is a mere oligarchy of think tank lobbies (mosty corporations, but far from only), I wonder what groups might be the ones who are pushing this.
I just wish for a GPCR and a GPMR in the future. ;)
A General Part Compatibility Regulation and a General Product Modularity Regulation.
Meaning everything from phones to power tools to operating systems and apps to cars must be built in a modular way, with standardized interfaces, that allows mixing and matching to what you actually need.
Like PCs.
It is why IBM compatibles became so successful back then, after all.
And that I can buy *plain* versions of foods, cause I am able to put wine in my damn sauerkraut myself, if I wish to, thank you very much! (Yes, I am German. How did you know?
So many "new" products are just two common products, combined. And then you cannot freaking buy them alone anymore, and all the other choices are gone!
And right now, I am hopeful.
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Apple, John Deere, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with companies in principle, I mean nobody wants a botched repair, the fact is that they can charge a fortune for their parts, for the custom tools required for repairs and for the training of repair technicians.
The other fact is that things are a lot more complicated to diagnose and repair than three decades ago. Back then, someone with basic knowledge could swap ICs on a Commodore 64 PCB, repair machinery engine, etc.
These days, everything is to tightly integrated and engineered to extreme specifications that the slightest error in repair can completely destroy what you're trying to repair. And if you botch the repair, you're the one to blame for messing it up but the company is also to blame because their made their product near-impossible to repair.
Maybe the solution is to force manufacturers to make everything modular so that almost any idiot with a screwdriver can open the thing up, remove the defective part, insert the new part, close back the thing. Repair done. However, say goodbye to things like thin smartphones and small, thin and light laptops.
The one light at the end of the tunnel is that I hope, if such laws were to pass, that they'd also force companies to standardize parts. Ex: buy a MacBook Air, open it up, remove the keyboard and install an ASUS keyboard instead. All companies would need to work together to establish the standards, but they've done it before (ISA cards, PCI cards, PCIe cards, M.2, RAM slots, ethernet, USB, USB2, USB3, USB-C, VGA, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, etc). Of course they'd be allowed to set desktop, laptop and tablet+smartphones standards, just like RAM modules today.
Imagine being able to add more RAM to your iPhone or iPad. And while we're at it, force them to use simple names for the standards. Ex: "Smartphone and Tablet RAM 2020".
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Nobody ever demanded thin smartphones.
Or no headphone jacks, no SD slots, no battery slots no card slots, no usb ports, no freaking place for your fingers to put, no freaking nothing at all!
All things people complain about every day.
The last time somebody complained about phone weight/size was when phones still had monochrome displays and Nokia ruled the world. And even then it was mostly the weight
Smartphone anorexia is a defect.
Nowadays, everyone buys a protective case that makes it normal-sized again. B
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And there's the insanity of making the back out of glass, which is heavier than plastic.
IMHO third-party companies should be making replacement shells, not cases.
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iPhone 6S 512GB NAND mods are pretty much street vendor stand thing in Huaqiangbei, to be had for about $40. Sure, it may look terrifying to people who don't work with electronics. But not all that fundamentally different to what you did to C64, you just need proper tooling and a bit of experience.
The more annoying part is Apple specifically programming in planned obsolescence into several chips so that mods like this (or even parts interchangea
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I was talking about RAM modules (DIMM/SODIMM style), not storage. But yeah, storage should also be modular and standard across devices and companies. Imagine an "M.2 but for phones and tablets" kind of thing.
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The one light at the end of the tunnel is that I hope, if such laws were to pass, that they'd also force companies to standardize parts.
While I am all in favour of standardised parts, like the equivalent of nuts and bolts, there are limits to this. For example, a mobile phone probably uses a custom-designed "brain", and only that chip will work in that phone. If all parts had to be standardised, this could stifle innovation.
I work in electronic circuit design. While I try to use generic components as far as possible, I often have to specify devices made by only one company. This tends to be the big, clever chips, rather than the "jelly bean
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The standard would be the physical dimensions, the connector(s) and the protocols.
USB, SATA, DIMMs/SODIMMs are great examples, M.2 drives are another and can use any type of flash ICs, cache RAM, controllers, etc.
The innovation would be in upgrading the standard every year ("Phones and Tablets Storage 2025"). Connectors would need to be as future-proof as possible so people could re-use their old modules in their new phones, or new modules in their old phones (at reduced speeds since the old phone only supp
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There are a lot of secrets too.
I have a bricked PH-1 phone. Theoretically a $799 phone. There's some bug where it needs to be reflashed in 'QAM' mode but that needs a key. Essential had the key but their NDA with Qualcomm meant they couldn't let customers flash (sometimes they would let people mail them in and tell abdev to reflash). Then they went bankrupt. Qualcomm has the key but won't give it to anybody.
A magic number makes this device ewaste instead of a perfectly usable phone.
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"The other fact is that things are a lot more complicated to diagnose and repair than three decades ago."
No. Electronics and electronics theory remains the same, the components are just smaller. A multimeter, oscilloscope, and benchtop power supply is still all you need to figure out any problem. SMT has been around for decades and is a well-understood process, so simple that even random morons can do it with a heat gun from Harbor Freight.
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How do you debug something like a custom, proprietary AIO IC? What if the problem is in the firmware that you can't access?
Electronics are not the same when the main parts are huge black boxes that you can't probe.
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That's too defeatest. I remember thinking what you're saying a number of times and getting proved wrong.
First, I thought it when I saw tiny connectors on PDAs. Then some genius started hot gun soldering those tiny connectors. Then I thought it again with glued together stuff. Then some genius melted that apart at just the right temperature. Then I thought it with the LCD lens on screens being glued on... only to find people freezing it off with dry ice!
It seems like it just takes a bit of time and some geni
LOL @ Apple. (Score:1)
AFAIK, those "geniuses" just swap the entire board, when they could simply solder on a new chip ... IF they were expert. And you are lucky your data isn't gone! If they don't just charge you $600 to return a broken device.
So "trained technician" and "reliable repair" my ass!
Such dictators' definition of "safe" is the opposite of "living" and "freedom" anyway. --.--
what came first, ability to repair or EULAs? (Score:3)
Old guy here, I did many car repairs in 1970s. Some minor repairs in this century (replaced leaking heater hose). But cars a lot more complex which beyond my skill i.e. I had an Acura that one day didn't start at all. There was a faulty switch mechanism deep inside that required many components be removed to get to the part, at least what I heard when I got the car back. If I did it myself probably taken weeks, I'd first need test equipment and what not to determine where fault is.
Then we have electronics. Drop a TV set, it's happened to me before, I didn't even think about repairing it. Simply got another 40" from Target for $150, and the picture looks better. I see numerous big screen TV sets in the trash at condo complex. It seems not that long ago those wide flatscreen TV sets sold for thousands each. A far cry from the days when you can find tube testers in common drug stores. This illustrates the throwaway society adding waste to landfill.
But wait, some of this stuff can be repaired? But you need legal counsel instead of Howard Sams Photofacts?
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Some electronics is so difficult to work on that nobody bothers. I am not talking about glued-in batteries here, but chips with hundreds of close-spaced pads hidden under the package, that only a specialist would attempt to replace. I came across this with an electronic design and firmware contract. The hardware was faulty, because the wrong type of RAM chip had been fitted. So I took the job to a local contract assembler I knew. He described the repair job as "challenging", which was his polite way of sayi
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It does seem that BGA-soldered components of any significant size and density effectively become part of the circuit board they're attached to. However, there's always the option of BGA sockets as well, which (in my limited experience) actually seem to be quite reliable. Of course that slightly increases the price, and notably increases the thickness.
It seems to me that a good rule of thumb for repairability purposes is that for any collection of components, any single component responsible for more than m
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there's always the option of BGA sockets
On a laptop, perhaps, but unlikely on a mobile phone, for space reasons.
Another point is the added cost of socketing BGA components, instead of permanently soldering them to the board. Right to repair is all very well, but why should I pay for it if I never use it?
Years ago, I used through-hole microcontrollers, and usually plugged them into sockets. This was partly due to how they were programmed, in an external programmer. Now we have in-circuit programming, I solder ICs direct to the board, and just have
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>unlikely on a mobile phone, for space reasons.
Those space reasons being the pursuit of insane thinness that's often ranted against, and causes almost everyone to shield the associated frailty inside a thick protective case?
As for other costs - a quick google suggests that BGA CPU sockets typically retail for less than $1 apiece in small quantities. In mass production I seriously doubt socketting a few of the most expensive/consumable chips in a phone would increase the retail price by more than a coupl
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I just had a quick look for BGA sockets from my usual component distributors, but I do not think they are very common. I wanted to get an idea of physical size. I will take your word for it on price.
It is worth noting that the Raspberry Pi uses an ARM processor and other chips in BGA packages, soldered directly to the PCB. I do not think this is for reasons of making the product unrepairable, in order to gouge more profits from replacements or upgrades.
I agree about the silliness of mobiles being made so th
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The Rasberry Pi is also targetting the ultra-budget market - there are knock-offs successfully selling for only a few dollars cheaper. A ~$2 increase in price for sockets represents a 10% increase, and would almost certainly drive a large part of their customer base to (short-term) cheaper alternative.
One of the reasons we so often need regulations to improve the situation, is because the free market doesn't actually work. Even when there are no dirty tricks that being played, the entire concept of "the i
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The "invisible hand" is attributed to the economist Adam Smith. Though he used that phrase, it was not central to his reasoning, as far as I can tell. Later politicians have used the phrase to justify various forms of corporatism, where the free market magically creates an optimum. The basic economics I have studied relies on buyers and sellers being well informed and rational, when they act in their own interests. Your example of people preferring incandescent bulbs to more efficient technology illustrates
No (Score:1)
there are too many dipshit hick auto mechanics who have been fooled by corporate propaganda and are telling their customers to vote no
I also believe that Apple does the best repairs (Score:5, Interesting)
...But I still think there should be a right to repair.
I took my iPhone XR to the Apple Store to have the screen replaced. It was under warranty. Even though it was during the iPhone 12 launch day, and they have a lot of stuff going on to limit contact between patrons at the store and the employees, I never spent more than 5 minutes during drop-off and pick-up in the store (I timed it). It took them about half an hour to replace the screen. Same day service, which is important when the device is as important as your phone.
All that to say, if I broke my phone again, even out of warranty, I'd probably take it to Apple. I can trust them to do the job well, and quickly. I'm willing to pay for that.
But it's absurd for Apple to bar other places from repairing Apple devices, whether explicitly or by withholding parts and manuals. Apple's provided me with customer service that I'm willing to pay for, and that should be enough. People will come to your store for repairs if the value exceeds the price. Just keep doing a good job on the customer service front and you won't ever have to worry about 'losing' valuable repair dollars to 3rd parties. Honestly, if everyone is as bad at it as Apple thinks, they should be happy for the new business when someone comes in and buys a whole new iPhone because a screen replacement was botched.
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>People will come to your store for repairs if the value exceeds the price
Quite so. An the fact that Apple has gone to such lengths to make it almost impossible for anyone else to do the repairs should tell you everything you need to know about the actual relationship between the value and price of their own repairs.
Then why do they charge for repairs? (Score:2)
Charge for repairs?
Farm out their repairs to third parties?
Build shitty products?
Not fix stuff when we bring it to the manufacturer for repairs?
Of course, this is a load of bullshit. They want all the beneftis without any responsibilities. They look at us as un-ending revenue streams without considering that we are actually people -- their friends, their neighbors, their families, their
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>without considering that we are actually people -- their friends, their neighbors, their families, their fellow citizens.
If you were the friend, neighbor, or family of anyone making these decisions, you'd be so rich you'd barely notice the inflation in their repair price.
If you were their fellow citizen, you'd be able to vote in the pre-primaries that decide who the masses are allowed to choose between.
You, like most of us, are a member of the proletariat. A full citizen only due to a historical "mista
Momentum squashed (Score:2)
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If that is the side you are supporting, Mr. Molkusc Floppy van Spineless, then that is why. ... no. That is not what is happening..
Thanks a fucking lot, but
Because other than you, we are still actual people, and influence our world.
yes, but... (Score:2)
If I run an unauthorized mod or hack/unlock on my Tesla, the comp
Re: yes, but... (Score:2)
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So... Apple gets to submit it's proprietary designs for the iPhone 14 to the US congress or EU parliament for vetting? The politicians get to check on the amount of glue and hard-soldered chips and make a yes/no decision with regards to manufacturing, or maybe send Apple back to the drawing board to add more thumbscrews to allow easy case opening? Yeah, that'll work. What could possibly go wrong with that.
With regards to the warranty
It's not a cut-and-dried subject (Score:2)
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Monopoly is literally a crime. For a reason. Just saying.
Oh and regarding your sig: How deep has the US fallen, if one candidate is so insane, that Biden is called sane by conparison? In an actual sane world, if sanity had a dog, and that dog had a dog ... that dog's half-shredded squeaky toy would be Biden. And the poop it is eating up, would be Trump. :P
Vote sane, vote NEITHER of the good cop / bad cop team.
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Oh and by the way I was a fence-sitting non-partisan voter for DECADES and finally learned the error of my ways so I can say what I want about it.
Vote for Biden or we g
No, it's quickly losing ground (Score:2)
The only reason you might think "right to repair is gaining momentum" is that there is finally outcry that we're quickly losing this right.
It became a word because companies started to realize that there is a lot of money in making repairs impossible except via them. So we're quickly losing our right to repair, and it's become so bad we had to invent this word to name this issue and try to get our rights back.
So great that it's becoming a bit more known, but in the end, year after year there are less right
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Why exactly do you militantly side with what you act like is your own enemy?
On what side are you?
You have heard of self-fulfilling prophecies, right?
Well, you are currently punching your own face, so you can use that as an argument for you losing the fight.
Great job there.
Man up and win. Or you too will be said enemy you lament about.
Translation into English (Score:3)
"We believe the safest and most reliable repair is one handled by a trained Apple technician using genuine parts bought from Apple that have been properly engineered by Apple and rigorously tested by Apple."
They are claiming that they're the only company in the world capable of doing these things, and no one else in the world should be allowed to.
Rationale (Score:2)
Not new (Score:2)
Gaining momentum? This is an old and well established concept that is the reason automobiles are opened up. I'm not sure why medical devices and iphones thought they were exempt in the first place.
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Gaining momentum? This is an old and well established concept that is the reason automobiles are opened up. I'm not sure why medical devices and iphones thought they were exempt in the first place.
I think the basic problem is product failure liability. For example, lithium batteries can be very dangerous if not properly made, or if used outside of recommended operating conditions. The legal problem is where the original manufacturer is blamed for a failure due to a botched repair which they had no control over, like fitting a cheap battery, that causes a fire, or whatever. I would not like medical kit I rely on to be subject to failure due to not being properly maintained. Also, I would not like unau
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This is no different than automobiles and the arguments made for them. In reality if the manufacturer can reasonably blame a third party repair it helps them avoid liability and there is no particular reason we need to aid suability when there isn't criminal negligence involved. There is no reason to believe third party repair experts would significantly impact the rate of outcomes due to equipment error or perform lower quality repairs than the manufacturer. There is a false effort to anthropomorphize comp
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This is no different than automobiles and the arguments made for them. In reality if the manufacturer can reasonably blame a third party repair it helps them avoid liability and there is no particular reason we need to aid usability when there isn't criminal negligence involved.
I do not doubt that a car manufacturer could disclaim responsibility in the case of an unauthorized repair. But in practice, this costs money and time with insurance investigations and court costs. When I started work with my current employer, we used to buy in some electronic kit which was a bit variable in quality, to the extent that the call-out and replacement costs were a serious problem. We tried to take the manufacturer to court for supplying defective goods, but our lawyers pointed out that this wou
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For the iPhone is it at best an attempt at patronising the industry or worse, an attempt at a monopoly. Medical devices however are critical devices and must undergo safety inspections, because lives may likely depend on these and anyone who repairs these must be able to take responsibility for their work. It isn't so much a question of competence, but of consequence. You cannot want to sentence a kid to 5 years in prison for badly fixing a medical pump that lead to the death of a patient, but you can and s
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You and another poster made similar arguments. Rather than repeat myself I'll just point to my reply there to give you a chance to respond if you care to.
https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=17480718&cid=60648436#
Whadda you think? (Score:1)
Uh, with new phones costing over $1000, whadda you think? Repair or replace? Duh.
They believe in an open market while it suits them (Score:1)
""We believe the safest and most reliable repair is one handled by a trained technician using genuine parts that have been properly engineered and rigorously tested."
Safest for profits. Most dangerous for the environment. Let's apply this logic to the company itself:
""We believe the safest and most reliable company is one handled by a trained bureaucrat using genuine processes that have been properly engineered and rigorously tested." Thus, we must convert Apple into a state owned Chinese style corporation.
Apple won’t replace fat batteries on OOW wat (Score:1)