[HN Gopher] Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair
___________________________________________________________________
Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair
Author : janvdberg
Score : 722 points
Date : 2021-01-11 13:15 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reasonstobecheerful.world)
(TXT) w3m dump (reasonstobecheerful.world)
| kevmo wrote:
| The EU and USA are on completely opposite trajectories right now.
| beyondcompute wrote:
| > Fix it.
|
| Where? I'd wanted to repair the most popular electric kick
| scooter in one of the Northern European countries for couple of
| years and I couldn't find any place to do it (I asked all the
| sellers, sent lots of emails to different web shops, etc.). The
| economy in prosperous countries appears to be such that repair
| (especially of less fancy products) is so costly that it makes no
| sense often or is not possible as in the case described above.
| rasz wrote:
| Hacker space is a good place to start.
| sigmike wrote:
| A Repair cafe[1][2] if you have one nearby.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repair_caf%C3%A9
|
| [2] https://www.repaircafe.org/en/visit/
| wombatmobile wrote:
| I strongly prefer to repair devices and am reluctant to throw any
| broken manufactured good out, even when I have poor prospects of
| repairing them. Instead, I just hold on to them. Phones, stereos,
| vacuum cleaners, clocks, computers. My shelves are full of broken
| items, and good intentions, frozen in amber.
|
| Why do I think like this?
|
| I think it is a psychological condition.
|
| It isn't a rational choice. If I apply my educated, articulate
| self to analysis, I can tell you it's an expression of how I want
| the world to be, not a realistic evaluation of how modern
| manufacturing commerce works.
|
| A stereo or an espresso machine that is non-serviceable costs
| 1/10th as much to buy and performs twice as well as an equivalent
| device from 50 years ago. The price we pay for that bounty is
| that 5% of the manufactured items fail early. It costs more to
| provide repair infrastructure than to run a warranty program, so
| the dead stuff ends up as waste. I get it.
|
| Still, I don't like waste, and I love repair. My feelings are not
| economics, they are emotions. And so so they persist. And that's
| perfectly OK.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > an espresso machine ... performs twice as well as an
| equivalent device from 50 years ago
|
| This is a terrible example.
|
| How coffee is made has not changed much, so machines don't need
| to change much. New hardware trends towards more plastic, more
| logic boards and at the worst end of the scale, more
| proprietary parts, including the actual coffee.
|
| I have repaired and built up several 25+ year old espresso
| machines and grinders, and currently run a 37 year old grinder
| and a 23 year old espresso machine.
|
| Older machines are easier to service, easy to get parts for and
| nice to work on. The quality of the coffee is hard to beat and
| I would need to pay around US$3k for a new version of the
| machine, where the old one is generally around US$250.
|
| Often the changes over time are few (eg La Cimbali Junior).
| Brands like La Marzocco, La Cimbali, Rancilio and Mazzer have a
| lot of great machines going back a very long time. Electric
| parts often connect with spades or screws, there is
| documentation and parts are easily ordered and you can usually
| talk to someone at the supply end about difficult repairs.
|
| New coffee machines at the lower end of the price scale are
| mostly just disposable crap, and make bad coffee. They are not
| cheaper over their lifetime.
| [deleted]
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| > I think it is a psychological condition.
|
| People can have trouble letting go of obsoleted, unneeded
| object due to some emotional attachment.
|
| [Unless you hoard socially acceptable items, like status
| symbols or plain money, in that case most people will not see
| the problem]
|
| > an espresso machine ... performs twice as well as an
| equivalent device from 50 years ago
|
| ...or not. A rational reason for fixing stuff is that many
| products are objectively worse.
|
| > My feelings are not economics, they are emotions
|
| Another perfectly rational reason is prevent environmental
| collapse. It does not get more reasonable than that.
| [deleted]
| causalmodels wrote:
| This is an anecdote but I think it's worth mentioning.
|
| Several years ago my washer dryer unit developed a crack in the
| wash basin. Instead of buying a new machine, I ordered a
| replacement basin from GE. When I received the part, it had
| developed a crack from shipping. I was told to throw the broken
| replacement part in the trash and they would send me another.
| This happened two more times. It took four shipments of new wash
| basins for me to actually repair the machine.
|
| Right to repair is a good thing in and of itself. We shouldn't
| need to couch pro consumer movements in terms of other good
| objectives like resource conservation or environmentalism. I
| understand that my experience is probably not typical, but one
| screw up like mine basically wiped out any gain conservationist
| gains for me and several other people. If we want to further
| conservation and environmental efforts we should do so explicitly
| rather than achieving half measures on the back of other causes.
| antattack wrote:
| Speaking of waste. I researched about photoresistor (LDR)
| recently and learned from Wikipedia that cadmium based ones are
| restricted in EU. I wonder why they are not outlawed in US if the
| substance is toxic and can leak into water supply, etc.
|
| As to right-to-repair, EU seems ahead on that front but US has
| one regulation which EU does not which is Magnuson-Moss Warranty
| Act.
| simongray wrote:
| > Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act
|
| I'm not that familiar with US consumer law. What makes this
| regulation favourable compared to the equivalent EU laws?
| jsmith45 wrote:
| In the US it is illegal to "void" a warranty based on the
| user swapping a part out with a third party component, or
| having a third party service the device. There are of course
| some exceptions.
|
| You can void a waranty with respect to damage caused by
| impropper servicing, or damage caused by the replacement
| parts.
|
| Alternatively you can void warranty on basis of using third
| party parts or servicing if you provide said parts/services
| for free.
|
| Idea was: Warranty void is non-GM parts are used => Illegal,
| unless GM provides all parts for free. Waranty void for
| getting oil changes at a non-dealer => Illegal unless oil
| changes are provided completely free at the dealers.
|
| While I suspect that most EU countries have similar rules for
| cars and the like, in the US these rules apply to any
| consumer good that costs $5 or more with a warranty (there
| could be some rare exceptions, as the FTC can grant waiver if
| the manufacturer can show that it is not possible for a third
| party to provide parts or service that will work properly,
| and that granting the waiver is in the public interest).
| Further free parts and services requirement applies to any
| form of repair and servicing.
|
| In the US, if you don't provide free screen replacement for a
| cell phone dropped by negligence, then you cannot legally
| deny warranty on the battery solely because a third party
| screen was used, unless you can show the third party screen
| or the process of installing it caused the battery problem.
| Of course, if you can show the battery problem was caused by
| dropping it in the first place, then you can deny warranty
| replacement.
| fab1an wrote:
| This is to be commended, though I wish the market itself would
| provide this value as an emergent feature as it does in some
| other areas (e. g. Leica cameras and lenses, hundreds of
| thousands of which are still being used after _decades_ - I'm not
| sure if it's true, but read somewhere that the used market for
| Leicas is several multiples of Leicas revenue on new stuff)
| DaedPsyker wrote:
| Leica cameras are also some of the most expensive cameras in
| the world. Their reputation for the build quality is part of
| that. More like a fine watch than an iPhone so there will be
| discrepancy.
| joking wrote:
| Nice, I broke a mixer cup, and now I had to buy a new mixer with
| his electronics and motor because there is no way to buy only the
| cup. My fault for buying a white labeled mixer instead of a
| recognised brand one, but I don't get why there are so many
| systems for mixers, there should have a compatible system and
| mixers and cups should be interchangeable between brands.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| This measure shamefully disrespects the needs of shareholders for
| endless profit and hampers large corporations from exploiting and
| curtailing the rights of end users.
|
| It's the most un-american thing I've ever seen.
| JoshTko wrote:
| This doesn't make sense. I have sold every single iPhone that I
| have owned (about 6), and virtually all were 100% functional at
| time of sale. Making the products openable will likely to make
| them heavier, more expensive, larger, and more prone to damage
| (i.e., water damage), and thus less durable overall. I don't want
| this as a consumer as it will lead to more waste.
| nfriedly wrote:
| I just replaced the battery in my Pixel 2 this past weekend. It
| was a 2-3 hour project that involved a whole kit of tools in
| addition to the new battery.
|
| It was a PITA, but I am thankful that a) iFixit provided a
| helpful guide and a kit with all of the things I needed except
| for the rubbing alcohol and b) it was legal and there weren't any
| software issues to deal with.
|
| Aside from the aging battery and occasionally running out of
| storage, the phone was completely fine for my needs. For ~$50 and
| a few hours of time, I've essentially doubled the lifespan of my
| $700 phone.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| But why not buy a cheap motog phone and save $500 in the first
| place
| nfriedly wrote:
| In general, I am a big proponent of getting used equipment
| and keeping it running for well after the manufacturer has
| abandoned it.
|
| Before the Pixel 2, I hadn't purchased a new phone in like 12
| years - I had gotten a couple of used Android phones, and
| used Windows Mobile before that. They all had the issue of
| essentially 0 support from the manufacturer by the time I got
| them, so I was dependent on community ROMs to keep them up-
| to-date. The phone I was using at the time had multiple
| issues, including an aging battery, physical damage, and
| something wrong with the GPS sensor.
|
| A couple of the big reasons I bought the new phone rather
| than another used one were the promise of 3 years of support
| (which Google delivered) and waterproofing (which has come in
| handy a few times). I also just liked the phone in general,
| and there wasn't much on the used market with a similar
| feature set.
|
| I like tinkering with my phone, but this was shortly before
| my second child was born and I knew I wasn't going to have
| the time to mess with custom ROMs to fix whatever was broken
| that week. Now that my kids are a little bit older and I can
| sleep through the night most nights, I think I'm ready for
| that "fun" again.
| larelli wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. What kept me from replacing the battery
| is that the device is EOL and won't receive any software
| updates, including security fixes. Did you also change the
| firmware?
| nfriedly wrote:
| Not yet - it's currently on stock software, but I've run
| custom ROMs before and I'm planning to switch back to one
| soon. I was basically waiting to see if I could successfully
| replace the battery before putting much effort into the
| software side.
| ossuser wrote:
| Just switch to Calyx or Graphene, Pixel 2 is well supported
| nashashmi wrote:
| As a someone who goes against anti-right-to-repair laws, I am not
| so enthused with a mandate that all devices be repairable.
| Because there maybe cases where devices can't be repaired.
|
| What kind of problems will something like this create for future
| device manufacturers?
| simion314 wrote:
| At least publishing schematics, providing parts to third
| parties and allowing third party repair by not using DRM or
| other locks should not influence how the device is build.
|
| An example would be that if I won 2 identical broken
| devices/cars I should be allowed to swap parts from one to the
| other and fix one of them as it was possible before DRM was
| invented.
|
| Also there should be a "tax" for products with no way to change
| the battery or one time use electronics.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| What are those cases? This is just ensuring that consumers have
| the option to repair so the manufacturers aren't mandating
| waste or planned obsolescence
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I make a small specialty electronic device that is optimized
| for size and weight. Its a side hustle, so I do it just to
| break even.
|
| It consists of three parts: a 2-piece plastic case, and a
| single circuit board with around 25 smt components. The user
| can replace the battery.
|
| I'm not going to publish my schematic or board design because
| I already open sourced my code, and the device is designed to
| be stupidly easy to manufacture for my own sake. Basically I
| don't want people to start making their own. A competent EE
| could figure it out in a day or two, but a anyone with that
| ability could design their own in the same amount of time.
|
| If something on the board goes bad, I'm not going to offer
| guidance to repair it. It isn't worth anyone's time. That
| said, I do offer a lifetime warranty/buyback option since the
| unit cost is less than $10.
|
| This is a bit of a contrived example since there is literally
| only one part that can fail, but the point is that there is a
| very fuzzy line around how far we can go with repairability.
| Should I be forced to provide a full schematic/board design
| (giving away my IP essentially)? Should I be forced to
| provide 'parts' (there is really only one part, and that is
| the product itself)?
|
| I'm sympathetic to the 'right to repair' movement, but I'm
| curious how it would be implemented across such a broad
| spectrum of products. Perhaps it could just be a transparency
| rule: planned obsolescence (unrepairable) items should be
| marked as such and an e-waste tax added. If you want to avoid
| that marking you have to offer to trade broken parts for new
| for 5 years after first sale at cost.
| gostsamo wrote:
| The legislation does not cover all devices so there is both
| deliberation and lobbying when choosing which are going to be
| regulated.
| wintorez wrote:
| I don't want to repair everything, but please let us replace
| batteries.
| apexalpha wrote:
| This couldn't come soon enough.
|
| I just had my washing machine break. It kept giving error codes
| and the door won't lock.
|
| I called the company who said the model is way to old to have
| warrenty, which is true, and then said they couldn't assist me in
| repairing. They said they could only send a (paid) technician.
|
| I Youtubed the model and found an array of DIY repair videos. I
| used those to dissassemble the door lock mechanism only to find
| out it had short circuited. Here's the pics:
| https://imgur.com/a/ECM5AuI
|
| And after I called for replacement parts they started berating me
| for trying to fix it myself, saying it could be dangerous and a
| potential fire hazard.
|
| I hope this new law will help in this aspect; it's ridiculous I
| have to go to YouTube to find out how to repair a washing machine
| and the company itself refuses to help...
|
| And 2 year warrenty is way too short anyway. I hope they change
| it into something dynamic like 1 year per EUR200 sale price or
| so.
| haakonhr wrote:
| This is great, although it somehow seems to me to be starting in
| the wrong end. The underlying problem is that it is more
| profitable/cheaper to just give you a new product (if something
| breaks while under warrantee) and then just throw away the old
| instead of repairing it. I don't know if it is because the
| externalities of waste are not taxed properly or if it is because
| manufacturing products that are hard to repair gives more robust
| products and less waste in the end.
| titzer wrote:
| > I don't know if it is because the externalities of waste are
| not taxed properly or if it is because manufacturing products
| that are hard to repair gives more robust products and less
| waste in the end.
|
| It's because our entire economic system is oriented toward
| growth and puts profit above everything else.
| haakonhr wrote:
| Profit is fine; the problem is that the true costs aren't
| borne by the consumers. We subsidize by polluting, by relying
| on forced labor, by relying on people working in dangerous
| environments and so on
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| When repair labor costs more than automated production, then
| it's cheaper to replace whole units than mend parts.
|
| This is very much in line when what the Luddites understood.
| Fixation on "waste" is a by-product of unrelated worries which
| are fashionable today, but cheap production at a distance is
| what labor should worry about, instead.
| tsdlts wrote:
| When the repair costs are controlled by the manufacturer, you
| shouldn't be surprised when the repair becomes cost
| prohibitive. This is why having only Ford being able to
| repair Fords and Apple only able to repair Apple devices is a
| negative. When they own the monopoly they can make any claim
| they want and you have no option of a second opinion.
| simongray wrote:
| > Fixation on "waste" is a by-product of unrelated worries
| which are fashionable today
|
| We have finite resources on this planet. Policies like this
| that deal with negative externalities aren't driven by
| fashion, they are driven by our long term needs. And we do
| need to recycle more and consume less. This is part of the
| solution.
|
| > cheap production at a distance is what labor should worry
| about, instead
|
| You're simply describing the status quo. The same status quo
| which has resulted in the warmest year on record for how many
| years in a row now...?
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| It's the most fashionable cause, since it can be shoehorned
| into anything. Yet carping about warming, and unstated
| assumptions about efficiency differences between levels of
| consumption and locations of production, don't guide us to
| fair labor practices.
| zug_zug wrote:
| >> When repair labor costs more than automated production..
|
| When companies deliberately build products in unrepairable
| ways then repair labor costs more than automated production.
|
| Imagine if mac butterfly keyboards were replaceable. Or for
| example I recently fixed my dad's washing machine, but it
| took a couple hours of labor to replace the pump because you
| had to remove about 4 other things to get to it (when they
| could have just made a door on the side/bottom.
|
| It's sort of like if you had to spend an hour disassembling
| your case to swap the ram in your machine.
| cbmuser wrote:
| > When companies deliberately build products in
| unrepairable ways then repair labor costs more than
| automated production.
|
| They don't. They optimize for production costs, not
| repairability, that's all.
|
| And glueing 100,000 iPhones together is faster and cheaper
| than screwing them together.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >When repair labor costs more than automated production, then
| it's cheaper to replace whole units than mend parts
|
| We're not there yet. There are profitable businesses that can
| do repair and/or replacement of broken soldered IC chips in
| laptops and smartphones (see YouTube channels of Jessa Jones
| and Louis Rossmann). So cost of repair is not a barrier in
| many cases.
|
| The problems they highlight, that should be very easy to fix
| through regulation, is lack of access to technical manuals,
| lack of access to diagnostic equipment and tech giants (like
| Apple) bullying their suppliers to prevent sale of
| replacement parts to independent repair shops.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Yes and no, supply chain restrictions leads to some funny
| outcomes.
|
| When I parted out my 2012 MacBook Air in 2016, I came close
| to covering the full cost of my brand new 2016 MB Air.
| macspoofing wrote:
| Sure - there are repairs where the costs are higher than
| replacement. There are repairs where the costs are lower
| than replacement. The latter should be a low-hanging
| fruit for regulation to assist with. And we have a model
| how this could be done - car repair. Because of
| historical factors, there are regulations that mandate
| car manufacturers to provide diagnostic tools and
| replacement parts to independent mechanics and though car
| manufacturers gripe about it, the system works well. And
| yes, in some cases, your mechanic will tell you that a
| particular repair isn't worth it because the car isn't
| worth it.
|
| Independent mechanic shops are also a sizable market
| (around 150k+ businesses in US alone) providing good
| paying blue-collar jobs for hundreds of thousands of
| people .. and this competition also lowers repair costs
| for consumers.
|
| No reason why it couldn't be the case for electronics.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| A proposal:
|
| All durable consumer goods may apply for a repair QR code. At
| landfills, items with repair QR codes are scanned and the company
| is charged 50% of the cost of processing the item.
|
| If one is not applied for, the producer must pay the full cost of
| processing the item up front.
|
| This would encourage companies to make repair & upgrade and
| longetivity a priority.
|
| It's a rough idea.
| gruez wrote:
| >All durable consumer goods may apply for a repair QR code.
|
| What if the QR code is mutilated?
|
| >At landfills, items with repair QR codes are scanned and the
| company is charged 50% of the cost of processing the item.
|
| This already exists in some jurisdictions, but the fee is
| levied at purchase time. eg. https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-
| and-fees/ewfaqsgen.htm
|
| >This would encourage companies to make repair & upgrade and
| longetivity a priority.
|
| not really. if you made a phone that lasts 6 years rather than
| 3 years, the fees manufacturers pays doesn't decrease by 50%,
| it remains the same. That's because at the end of the day,
| everything ends up in a landfill. The only benefit to the
| manufacturer in this case would be the time value of the
| deposit fee for 3 years.
| rlpb wrote:
| How about this, along the same lines:
|
| Manufacturers must pay 100% of the cost of safe, environmental
| disposal of all consumer goods they sell. This is collected in
| the form of a tax, for all manufacturers over some threshold
| sales value/volume, based on an impact assessment of disposal
| cost. The assessment is based on the typical practical burden
| to disposal facilities to process each SKU.
|
| There's no need to individually account for every item going
| into waste disposal facilities. It can be assumed that every
| item sold will eventually be disposed of. And the problem is in
| primarily bulk sales of consumer items, so accounting in bulk
| is fine, and considerably cheaper in processing cost.
| m000 wrote:
| Bad plan. The problem is not have someone pay for the
| disposal, but delay disposal for as long as possible. And the
| ones who make the decision for the disposal are the
| consumers. Having the manufacturer pay a tax in advance puts
| little pressure on the consumer.
|
| Moreover, anything that involves an "assessment" is bound to
| be gamed by the manufactures. See e.g. the recent VW car
| emission scandal.
| rlpb wrote:
| The point is that the economic equation will change. Why is
| it that it's cheaper to buy new than repair old? In part,
| it's because the cost of disposal has been shifted away,
| rather than being incorporated into the price of the
| replacement.
|
| Having the manufacturer pay a tax in advance does put
| pressure on the consumer, because that tax has to be
| incorporated into the product pricing.
|
| > Moreover, anything that involves an "assessment" is bound
| to be gamed by the manufactures. See e.g. the recent VW car
| emission scandal.
|
| I agree it's a challenge. I wonder if there's some way to
| close the loop - so that manufacturers who game the system
| to achieve an artificially low disposal price end up making
| up the shortfall when the fake price isn't achieved.
| boatsie wrote:
| I think a good way to ensure repairability is to require
| manufacturers to honor a relatively long warranty. For example
| many large appliances have 1 year warranties. After that you have
| to pay to repair (which is often 25-50% of the cost of new and
| not guaranteed) or toss it and buy new. If there were required
| warranty service based on waste generated from an item, eg a
| refrigerator must be warranted for 20 years, then you would see
| much better reliability and repairability.
|
| Smaller, cheaper, more tech heavy items might have shorter
| required warranties, but the point is that you need to align the
| incentives by forcing manufacturer to bear the cost of the
| repair.
| fridek wrote:
| I can't describe how much I hope something comes out of it. Not
| because I have some illusion of this tackling corporate greed, or
| helping the environment - devices will likely become more
| expensive and bulkier as a result, supply chain of replacement
| parts is generating heaps of waste too.
|
| I simply am surrounded by tens and hundreds of sort-of-broken
| devices that don't force me to replace yet, but are not fixable
| either. The laptop overheats, phone compass never works properly,
| one port in the TV is dead, there is no light in the fridge (but
| it still works). The list goes on. I just want a world where
| stuff lasting a lifetime exists.
| emteycz wrote:
| But it exists - it's not that stuff is worse now than it was
| before, you just have to spend the value (not amount) of money
| you spent back in the 60's. Our family houses are full of stuff
| that lasts a lifetime and/or can be easily fixed - you just
| can't buy the first thing the ad in TV suggests.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| That manufacturers are actually hostile towards end users
| says a lot about our current state of helplessness.
| emteycz wrote:
| I had multiple manufacturers of kitchen appliances send me
| schematics so I could fix it myself instead of paying for a
| service visit. Many vendors have service guides online,
| including lists of parts. That's not hostile at all. You
| have to choose what you're buying, but it's not hard to buy
| from a solid company.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I had to fix my circa 2005 Kenmore dryer and it had a
| folded up paper schematic behind the panel!!!
|
| Note: whenever throwing those things out, save the knobs.
| They're like $10+ each.
| emteycz wrote:
| Indeed, a lot of appliances have the schematics embedded.
| My ETA oven does too.
| fridek wrote:
| Disagree. I'm willing to throw heaps of hard earned money to
| recover my time spent being bothered by such problems. I
| researched and tried many "premium" brands, with minor
| exceptions they proved to be planned for obsolence too. I had
| good experience with small companies/kickstarters. Once they
| grow to the point of being "popular", economies of scale and
| CFOs show up to the table and eat your cake.
|
| In all of the following I got a new thing looking for some
| new feature or because I could I guess, and had the older
| device outlasted the newer one: Bose headphones, any mobile
| phone really, Thinkpad laptops, Audi cars, Brother printers,
| any and all household appliances.
| emteycz wrote:
| Well... My headphones are 10 years old, my phone is 3 years
| old and all my previous ones including my Galaxy S2 (my
| first smartphone) are still in use by family, my kitchen
| doesn't have _anything_ younger that 15 years - most stuff
| is 25+ years old - except the fridge, I replaced it because
| of power efficiency and the old one is at the cottage,
| nearly 35 years old. None of it was bought from a
| kickstarter as most of that stuff predates internet.
|
| I really don't see the problem. Like you're saying people
| are buying new stuff because they want the new stuff, not
| because old is broken. There are tons of extremely cheap
| second hand things that could do the job and yet people
| keep buying new things.
|
| How will this right to repair change anything? How much
| money was spent making it reality that could've been spent
| productively?
| paradox242 wrote:
| Common things that existed 20, 30, or even 40 years like
| refrigerators, coffee machines, dishwashers, washers, and
| dryers, often lasted 10 or 20 years in some cases, and could be
| repaired. We have witnessed the steep decline of device
| reliability in my lifetime, and our expectations are so low
| that the latest appliance we buy we consider lucky if no
| problems develop in 2-3 years. Anything serious requires you to
| usually toss it out and buy a new one.
| ska wrote:
| This is true, but it seems to be mostly consumer preference.
| That 30 year old refrigerator cost more (normalized) and does
| less than most of the ones you can buy today. When people
| offer longer lived, better built versions for more money,
| most people don't buy them.
|
| The same thing happened to furniture.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The situation is not so clear-cut with domestic appliances.
| Modern fridges are much more energy-efficient. So there is a
| tradeoff: either you buy a new fridge, thus polluting the
| environment with the old fridge, but saving energy. Or you
| let your good old 30 year old fridge run, saving the
| resources needed for a new fridge, but burning a lot more
| energy in the process.
| gsich wrote:
| It's a simple calculation. How much energy costs do I save
| compared to keeping the old one. Also I wouldn't expect any
| "modern" appliance to last more than 5 years.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Miele appliances (for example) still last decades and all
| efforts are made by the manufacturer to find you spare parts
| if you need. But they cost 3-4x more than a budget appliance.
|
| That's a key aspect of the market here: People tend to
| compare on purchase price. If manufacturers have to compete
| on price, of course something has to give in order to make
| cheaper appliances...
|
| The market tends to give consumers what they want.
|
| It's not all bad, though, because this also puts pressure on
| manufacturers to optimise, including by using less material.
| Appliances tend not to be that bad either unless perhaps if
| you buy really cheap cr*p.
| mch0lic1 wrote:
| What I really hate about Miele is their stupid will to push
| their stupid branding on the retailers (online), it always
| feels broken and its absolutely a pain to try to navigate
| any sites that integrates with them.
|
| Their tight grip on retailers also makes it hard to buy
| their products outside EU because nobody is willing to go
| through the pain. Add higher than average price and most
| smaller retailers just sell samsungs, lg and random chinese
| brands.
|
| The biggest problem remains, manufacturers are not required
| to sell repairable devices and parts everywhere,
| requirement is only applicable to EU, so they will continue
| to manufacture trash and will never have their parts
| available outside EU. And no, those EUR parts will
| definitely won't fit 99% of their products outside EU.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _The market tends to give consumers what they want._
|
| The market tends to give consumers what they _buy_. This is
| distinct from what they _ask for_ , which too is distinct
| from what they _want_ , which too is distinct from what
| they _like_ (and, while we 're at it, from what they
| approve of).
| BurningFrog wrote:
| It's very hard to know what people, including yourself,
| really want.
|
| So best we can do is observing "revealed preferences",
| which is what Economists call "what people actually
| choose".
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Have you tried _asking pe_ -- sorry, "market research"?
| If you can make something that people _want_ to pay for,
| that goes down a lot better than trying to _make_ them
| buy what you 're selling via an elaborate multi-agent
| optimisation algorithm.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| And "revealed preferences" are mostly bunk, because of
| what GP alludes to. It's evaluating people's choices out
| of options available on the market, not what they would
| buy if they could freely optimize the feature/price
| matrix. Another way to put it: "revealed preference" is
| just what one considers the least bad of the bad choices
| available.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Perhaps but that should be an unstable equilibrium, i.e.
| temporary.
|
| As long as real competition exist, if it is possible to
| deliver what consumers really want then sooner or later
| someone will discover it, make a killing and prompt
| everyone in the market to follow suit or die.
|
| It's easy to blame corporations but _in fine_ I believe
| that the current situation has been driven by the choices
| of the consumers, i.e. all of us.
|
| Sure we want better quality, repairability, longevity,
| but we also want cheaper, among other things. I think
| product ranges simply reflect where our priorities really
| lie.
| ska wrote:
| And on the producer side, what they market as is distinct
| from what they make, what they try to make is distinct
| from what gets shipped, etc.
|
| A major point of markets is to try and figure this out
| iteratively. You can usefully think of it as an
| optimization algorithm that in practics prone to local
| minima but has some mechanisms to try and get out of
| them, which sometimes work.
| gruez wrote:
| >Common things that existed 20, 30, or even 40 years [...]
| often lasted 10 or 20 years in some cases
|
| It's worth mentioning that the common problem with these
| anecdotes is that it doesn't account for survivorship bias.
| That 30 year old refrigerator at your parent's house might
| lead you to conclude all refrigerators back in the day lasted
| 30 years, but in reality you're only seeing the refrigerators
| that lasted 30 years, not the ones that broke down and were
| replaced.
| varjag wrote:
| About any fridge you buy now would last a decade easily.
| Several decades even, if you bother to invest into its
| maintenance and repair like people did 40 years ago.
| mc32 wrote:
| Part of the problem with electronics is often a brand new unit
| costs less than replacing a faulty part on an old unit due to
| miniaturization and having everything on chip combined with
| economics of scale.
|
| Still it's a worthwhile pursuit. At some point pocket
| PCs/phones will be good enough, just as for many a 2014 laptop
| is still good enough.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| If we properly accounted for environmental externalities, and
| frankly, the rat race of labor arbitrage (is a good use of
| people's time in the 2nd world to work 9 days a week to crank
| out replacements for this shit?), I think we would get there
| faster.
|
| Though yes, thank goodness the end of Moore's law is here to
| help.
| mywacaday wrote:
| Youtube on my mother in laws Samsung tablet from 2013 has
| stopped working. It has stopped because it has android 4 and
| you can't update chrome past V42 and youtube won't load
| without a later version of chrome. I installed firefox and
| she has access to youtube through the web for now. The tablet
| is in immaculate condition physically. if it played youtube
| in 2013 it should be able to play it now, it cost over EUR500
| at the time. How is this anything else except planned
| obsolescence. I know there will be comments about security
| etc but she only needs it for youtube and solitaire.
| ako wrote:
| That is not planned obsolence. Nobody said this tablet
| should stop working by 2021. It's simply the result of
| limiting cost of software development. If you are creating
| a new version of android, you cant affort to support all
| devices. If you create a new version of chrome, you cant
| affort to support all version of android. If you create a
| new version of youtube, you cant afford to support all
| versions of chrome, etc, etc.
| mc32 wrote:
| While true, Microsoft used to be able to do a much better
| job of it (and still does, compared to Android).
| delecti wrote:
| Agreed. I think there needs to be a better term for the
| reality of the situation, something like "negligent
| obsolescence". There's no technological limitation
| preventing Samsung from updating those for a decade or
| more, they just don't care. A battery degrading over time
| isn't _planned_ obsolescence, and while not being able to
| easily replace the battery _might_ be, more likely it 's
| that they just don't bother to put in the slightly extra
| effort to make the batteries easier to replace. Right to
| Repair mandates would be a good start in ensuring
| manufacturers are properly motivated.
| steerablesafe wrote:
| Maybe give Newpipe Legacy a try.
|
| https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipelegacy/
| harrygeez wrote:
| There's a good chance you can find a compatible version of
| LineageOS. That should extend its lifespan considerably
| gruez wrote:
| If you go through the lineageos device list there's
| literally no samsung tablets from 2013 that's currently
| supported. If you count the devices that had builds but
| aren't currently supported you get more devices, but I
| suspect your odds are still not good considering there's
| several unsupported models for every supported model.
| codethief wrote:
| I sympathize with your (mother-in-law's) situation! I, too,
| own a Samsung tablet from that period.
|
| Have you checked whether you could install LineageOS or
| some other custom ROM on the tablet? That way, you might be
| able to extend its lifetime by another couple years.
| onli wrote:
| They already are. Phones from 2016 for example feel
| completely usable today. That goes for the repairable ones at
| least, like the LG G5, but even the older LG G3 holds up
| well.
|
| If all modern phones were as repairable as those we could
| eliminate so much garbage!
| stronglikedan wrote:
| My old phones are often usable, which is why I only upgrade
| every three years or so. However, when I do upgrade after
| waiting so long, it's like I've traveled through time with
| the improvements.
|
| It seems that most people want more than just usable. They
| may not want to pay more for a device up front, knowing
| they will be missing out on the latest technology down the
| road.
| ganafagol wrote:
| Considering 3 years a long time to replace a device is
| part of the problem.
| mc32 wrote:
| Agreed but that part of a larger problem such as fast
| fashion and throwaway trinkets for the home.
| sergeykish wrote:
| It is quite easy -- invest in the most limiting factor,
| for example:
|
| * OnePlus 3, released in June 2016, 6 GB RAM.
|
| vs
|
| * iPhone 7, released in September 2016, 2 GB RAM.
|
| * iPhone 12 Pro Max, released in October 2020, 6 GB RAM.
|
| From my perspective smartphones have not changed much.
| na85 wrote:
| The processors have changed significantly. I had a
| OnePlus 3T which I really liked, and recently pulled it
| out of a box because my daily driver phone broke. The 3T
| struggled to load modern, bloated apps like Google Maps.
| The device would chug at most tasks more intensive than
| scrolling a webpage (and sometimes even then... what a
| sad state the web is in these days)
|
| By contrast the processor in my work phone (an Iphone) is
| faster than my laptop.
| onli wrote:
| They do not need to pay more. The equation that
| repairable means more expensive for the customer is
| propaganda. It assumes that every cent companies save by
| making devices worse lowers the price. That's trickle
| down economics and has never been true.
|
| People can still buy new stuff earlier if they want. But
| their old stuff can be reused by those that do not need,
| want or can afford the new devices. There are many
| categories of devices where that's a good option for
| many, not only phones. Besides, it's always good to have
| the option to repair that thing you have when it breaks
| even if initially you did not think you would need that.
| You might have grown to like it.
| macNchz wrote:
| I've had an iPhone since 2009 and I'm definitely familiar
| with the "time traveling" effect of upgrading phones, but
| I think it has diminished a lot as the technology has
| matured.
|
| I've been using a 6S since 2015 (this thread caught my
| interest because it's now somewhat of a Ship of Theseus
| as I've replaced so many parts over the years), but the
| 11 Pro I bought last year was the first time a multi-
| year-gap upgrade felt rather incremental, especially for
| $1100. I returned it and expect to continue to use and
| repair the 6S until they drop iOS support for it.
| syshum wrote:
| My phone today is completely usable but the carrier has
| decided to stop issuing updates to the phone....
|
| This is the worst kind of planned obsolesces
| onli wrote:
| Right. Repairable hardware is just the one side, security
| updates needs to be available as well. We need mandated
| open sourcing of device software (including firmware and
| drivers + unlocking of the bootloader) after the support
| timerange, or at the very least alternatively the
| obligation to continue security updates for decades.
| harrierpigeon wrote:
| OTOH, you can wind up with stuff like installing an OS
| that _requires_ more than the device has to offer- like
| installing the most recent version of Ubuntu Desktop on a
| Intel Core2 Duo isn 't going to go well, nor did
| installing iOS 7 on iPhone 4's- which I remember eagerly
| installing without realizing the _major_ slowdown all the
| new features added that I couldn 't undo.
| onli wrote:
| Linux usually works perfectly fine with old hardware, a
| Intel Core2 Duo should be completely enough. That's even
| 64 bit hardware. Worst case you have to swap out Gnome
| with something more minimal, but that's unlikely.
| martinald wrote:
| Who is actually going to update this even if it is open
| source though? There are so many drivers and firmware in
| a smartphone, nevermind the tens of thousands of models
| of smartphones out there. It would require an army of
| people to patch, test and distribute everything. That's
| even if you can figure out all this code.
| fsflover wrote:
| Have a look at Pinephone. It has no official developers,
| but the community created >17 operating systems for it
| with constant updates.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I don't think this should be a consideration.
|
| I agree that the manufacturer or carrier doesn't owe you
| updates indefinitely, but they definitely should give you
| all the resources you need to develop these updates
| yourself if you wanted to.
|
| The landscape can change. Maybe there's going to be a
| huge open-source project that will make these updates.
| Maybe someone will figure out a way to automatically
| handle a large number of hardware configurations at scale
| (a powerful enough hardware abstraction layer should be
| able to deal with it). Maybe someone will make a business
| out of it, providing security updates at a reasonable
| cost. Either way, there shouldn't be any artificial
| hurdles against the customer developing and running their
| own firmware on hardware they paid money for.
| reegnz wrote:
| It's not about 'who's going to do it' but about 'if I
| want to do it, I can'.
|
| I would really like to hack on a tablet I have that's 5
| years old, but I can't because the firmware and drivers
| are both closed source.
|
| I think when I buy a device, I should get the source code
| to it once the manufacturer decides it's not worth it for
| them to continue patching the software for the device
| I've bought.
| onli wrote:
| We see that happening all the times with devices that are
| open and popular enough, as much as is possible now. Have
| a look at the xda forum to see how it is done today.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Creating those updates costs money. At what point is the
| cost no longer worth it? It is not realistic for
| companies to support every phone forever; I think that's
| something we can all agree on.
|
| Would you be willing to pay whatever your share is of how
| much generating the update would cost, in order to get
| it? With a clear indicator when you buy the phone that
| you automatically get a subscription to 3 years worth of
| security updates; past that, you pay whatever amount is
| needed to keep it up to date.
| acka wrote:
| In my opinion, manufacturers who cannot be bothered to
| provide updates to their software should not be allowed
| to claim intellectual property rights on the hardware.
| When support ends, drivers and documentation should be
| made open source, enforceable by law if need be.
| syshum wrote:
| In my case the Manufacturer (LG) already did the updates,
| the phone was offered on 2 of 3 carriers, of the 2 one of
| those carriers are still offering updates for it, but
| because it was a less popular model on the 2nd carrier it
| is not longer getting updates
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| I think that the problem is central to how phones are
| developed and constructed. Dell doesn't determine how
| long my XPS 13 gets updated; they provided the hardware,
| and I can put any software I want on it. It can keep
| running a secure, up-to-date OS as long as I want it to,
| until the hardware truly can't keep up (which, based on
| computer lifetimes these days, is a long time).
|
| Conceptually, I dislike that mobile development hasn't
| followed a similar path. Samsung should not dictate how
| many updates my phone gets and for how many years.
| Practically, I realize that this is a consequence of how
| we've built SOCs and mobile hardware and there's no
| incentive for companies to change. That doesn't make it
| less problematic.
| mc32 wrote:
| I tend to agree if we consider current use cases. Issue
| comes when we add new use cases which require more
| processing power or new components.
|
| Also, we'll have to figure out how to manage with a sort of
| stagnation.
|
| Essentially this entails curbing change. Curbing change
| means slowing progress (initially in this niche), but if we
| extend this into other areas it can mean significant
| stagnation because since things are good enough we don't
| need to improve and progress (ie. we're at equilibrium )
|
| We'll have to grow comfortable with that outlook.
| onli wrote:
| Sometimes it's more a question of software. On older
| phones badly made sites like the new reddit for example
| were unuseable in all browsers - until the new Firefox
| came along.
|
| But sure. Repairability is one thing, it just means that
| devices can continue the things they were made for. For
| new workloads they would need upgradeability, which is a
| completely different beast.
|
| I don't think having repairability will slow things at
| all. It will simply prune some behaviors corporations
| engage in that destroy the planet, like glueing in
| batteries. Stopping such practices will not even make new
| devices more expensive - we have old designs that did it
| right. Falling back to them and innovating there could
| even save money.
| alxlaz wrote:
| > Part of the problem with electronics is often a brand new
| unit costs less than replacing a faulty part on an old unit
| due to miniaturization and having everything on chip combined
| with economics of scale.
|
| That's simply because "make it easy to replace" has not been
| a design constraint in a very long time -- in fact, making
| things _hard_ to replace or fix has been a design constraint
| that product management has enforced more or less explicitly
| in lots of places. "Miniaturisation" has been a reality of
| electronics design since at least the 1950s -- not being able
| to fix things is a more recent phenomenon.
|
| Even if that weren't the case, IC manufacturing reliability
| has come a long enough way that, in fact, "everything on-
| chip" doesn't account for all that many broken units.
| Virtually all of the phones I've repaired in the last 10
| years or so had broken volume buttons, cracked displays and
| so on. The phone I currently use had a blown battery
| management controller, which was trivial to replace.
|
| "Everything is small now" is just one of the excuses that
| companies bring to the table. It is a legitimate reason in
| that, yes, the fact that everything is small amplifies the
| effect of the fact that, _at best_ , making things easy to
| repair hasn't been a design goal. That doesn't mean the
| design can't be improved.
|
| Edit: also, a lot of the high repair cost comes from
| constraints that derive directly from the fact that repairing
| things is all sorts of faux pas. E.g. replacement screens
| often have to be shipped, in small batches, halfway across
| the world, which isn't exactly easy or cheap if you're a
| small repair shop. If repairing things were easier and
| carried less of a stigma, replacement parts would be cheaper,
| repairing things would take less time and so on.
| mc32 wrote:
| I agree with you; however making things discreet and
| replaceable will increase costs significantly and slow
| progress --however, if we consider phones to have reached
| "good enough" status then that makes sense. Double the
| price but make it easy to repair or replace components.
| alxlaz wrote:
| > making things discreet and replaceable will increase
| costs significantly and slow progress
|
| Nobody is asking to split the current, high pin-density
| SoC into eighty chips with DIP sockets, they're mostly
| asking for things like:
|
| * Publishing service manuals and schematics
|
| * Making replacement parts available (replacing the SoC
| isn't _that_ big a deal, the problem is that you often
| can 't _get_ that SoC anywhere)
|
| * Not selling things with an EULA that explicitly
| prohibits "unauthorized" repairs
|
| "Making things discreet" is pretty much a red herring.
| Sure, making everything discreet would result in bulkier,
| pricier, and probably worse phones, but you can massively
| improve the general public's access to repairs without
| doing that.
| Slikey wrote:
| > Part of the problem with electronics is often a brand new
| unit costs less than replacing a faulty part
|
| This is only partially true. The true cost is hidden and at
| least by average people like me immeasurable. We are putting
| a lot of cost out of sight if you consider the environmental
| impact of e-waste.
| mc32 wrote:
| Good point. What is a good estimate for e-waste costs? I
| don't think it's more than 10% of a phone's unsubsidized
| costs.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| With China clamping down on E Waste imports, the EU may
| actually be happy to push for something that's pro-environment.
| I think aligning the incentives properly will be a great thing
| long term.
| titzer wrote:
| > I just want a world where stuff lasting a lifetime exists.
|
| I think this is part of the point you are trying to make, but
| _everything_ requires maintenance. Not sure what model fridge
| you have, but a bulb replacement should be not too hard to pull
| off on your own.
| interestica wrote:
| 'maintenance' requires maintainable/replaceable parts.
| iamsb wrote:
| I sincerely hope that providing upgrades to software is also
| included as part of this. The only device I have which I dont
| actively use or give away is a Samsung galaxy tab which never
| received a single Android OS upgrade. I think it is reasonable
| for a consumer of a software+hardware integrated device to
| expect upgrades of software for say 3-5 years.
| reegnz wrote:
| Guaranteed upgrade cadence is not enough. I think what would
| be regulated is that they MUST open source afther that 3-5
| years.
|
| Just as we have with pharma patents, after a protection
| period it should be free game, and they should open-source if
| they don't intend to continue pushing updates, say evety 6
| months or so.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I think a better approach would be to force manufacturers to
| provide everything necessary for someone (the user or a
| third-party company) to develop alternative firmware. This
| means source code, datasheets of the hardware, and a way to
| bypass locked bootloaders or other code signature checks.
| Essentially, if you can't provide updates yourself, you
| should be giving away everything that's necessary for someone
| else to do it.
| iamsb wrote:
| That is a brilliant suggestion.
| nolite wrote:
| I just had my 4000EUR MacBook Pro (2017) die, 5 months out of
| warranty, because of a blown capacitor. (probably a $0.20 part
| tops)
|
| They have to change the whole motherboard, lose all my data.
| Price of a new machine...
|
| grumble, grumble
| bmn__ wrote:
| Go with third-party repair. It's cheap and fast.
| evilos wrote:
| Sounds like a job for Louis Rossman:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos
| globile wrote:
| Phone unlocking doesn't get much attention, but it is an
| integral part that no one wants to address or get their hands
| dirty with.
|
| There are many more locked phones in drawers or acting as mere
| paperweights than people actually care to disclose.
|
| Several years back we ran a poll to understand lifetime
| recycling habits. People aren't proud of dropping a phone and
| shattering the screen, but they are less proud of having thrown
| a phone into a drawer because they couldn't be bothered to run
| the obstacle course set up by their telco to keep them in
| check.
|
| Phone right-to-repair should be EXPLICITLY INCLUSIVE of
| unlocking, otherwise it is only solving a part of the problem.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Mobiles in Europe are generally unlockable by calling the
| network supplier after the contract expires. In Norway, in my
| experience at least, this is free.
|
| But the reason I have a handful of paperweight mobiles is not
| that they are locked but that they are no longer useful. They
| have low resolution cameras, little memory, small screens,
| obsolete operating systems, etc. I sometimes try to sell them
| but no one wants them even free.
| oauea wrote:
| I live in the EU and have never encountered a carrier locked
| phone. It's quite an amusing concept, and the first carrier
| to come up with it must truly have been evil.
| Fradow wrote:
| I live in the EU too (France), and any phone you buy
| directly from a carrier (generally heavily discounted, but
| tied to a more expensive plan) is carrier-locked, and can
| only be unlocked after a set amount of time has passed, or
| earlier by paying a fee (regulated by the EU if my memory
| serves me well).
|
| Perhaps it's because I was less financially literate in the
| past, but I remember that as being the only way in the
| 2000s. There might have been laws passed to limit that
| practice and its abuses.
|
| The smart solution, provided you have enough money, is to
| buy the phone elsewhere, and take a plan without a phone.
| It's always less expensive in the long term.
| oauea wrote:
| Interesting. More specifically, I live in the
| Netherlands. Perhaps we already had regulation about
| this, or I've just been lucky.
| SonicTheSith wrote:
| Hmm,
|
| in Germany, the Telco's gave up locking the phones in
| 2017. Because it was to expensive. I can not remember if
| it was a hard lock - as in any other sim card is blocked
| or just their additions to the OS. bought a phone in
| 2017/early 2018 - Xperia 10, where on the boot screen a
| Deutsche Telekom logo appears but otherwise the OS
| unaffected by vendor edits/additions. But updates are
| really slow since they go through Telekom instead of
| directly from sony which is already slow.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I live in the EU and I've avoided carrier locked phone for
| my entire life.
|
| I know many who can't do math and paid twice the value of
| the phone for a locked device and some plan they never
| really used fully.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Carrier locks are an absolute scam. The argument is that it
| allows carriers to offer subsidised phones and "repossess"
| them if the customer defaults on their bill by making it
| unusable.
|
| However, in reality, not only does the carrier not mind if
| the phone keeps being used (as long as it's on the carrier's
| network) but the lock doesn't expire once the customer pays
| off their plan.
|
| Furthermore the process for unlocking a phone is
| intentionally made convoluted. Until recently, you couldn't
| even figure out which carrier an Apple device was locked to
| without playing brute-force with all the carrier's SIMs in
| the entire world and even Apple support couldn't be of any
| help. And when you finally figure out which carrier it is,
| getting in touch with them is a pain and some have stupid
| policies like keeping the device on their network for 30 days
| before being able to request an unlock (a scummy attempt at
| getting some people to give up and just keep using their
| network past the deadline, or revenge against someone who
| doesn't intend to do so by essentially making their device
| unusable for 30 days).
| globile wrote:
| Absolutely. Remember the "2014 Obama Unlocking Law" [1] ?
| It was supposed to not only not make it ilegal to carrier
| unlock a phone, but also forced all carriers to adopt a
| specific code of conduct to assist users with unlocking.
|
| Fast forward 6 years, and it is much harder to unlock a
| phone than it was then. The whole thing backfired for
| consumers. It was actually easier to unlock a phone in a
| "non-legal" way before the law than it was right after.
|
| This whole new code of conduct for carriers actually made
| them convert their SIMlock departments to be more like a
| customer retention lifecycle.
|
| This mainly applies to US carriers (in the US and Latam),
| and there certainly are exceptions in Europe where EVERY
| cell phone is unlocked from day one, regardless of your
| contractual status.
|
| [1]: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/08/15/h
| eres-h...
| lostlogin wrote:
| > This mainly applies to US carriers (in the US and
| Latam), and there certainly are exceptions in Europe
| where EVERY cell phone is unlocked from day one,
| regardless of your contractual status.
|
| I had no idea this was still a thing, it's horrible. What
| mechanism is creating the current situation? Phones are
| all unlocked here in New Zealand.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > What mechanism is creating the current situation?
|
| Lack of general consumer protection regulation (or their
| enforcement), and specifically with regards to
| telecommunications the regulator who's supposed to
| oversee the field (the FCC in the US, or OFCOM in the UK
| for example) is often in bed with the companies it's
| supposed to regulate.
| b06tmm wrote:
| > However, in reality, not only does the carrier not mind
| if the phone keeps being used (as long as it's on the
| carrier's network) but the lock doesn't expire once the
| customer pays off their plan.
|
| I recently paid off my AT&T iPhone X and the process to
| unlock it couldn't have been easier.
|
| https://www.att.com/deviceunlock/
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| That's if you meet the terms and conditions:
|
| https://www.att.com/support/article/wireless/KM1262649
|
| Notably, you have to have been paid up (somewhat
| understandable), active for 60 days if postpaid (not
| really reasonable at all), or if prepaid, active for 6
| months (absolutely not reasonable). This basically
| precludes someone selling a phone secondhand entirely if
| they haven't unlocked it first by holding the value of
| the phone hostage (phones are worth less when locked).
| Completely anti-consumer. And AT&T isn't even the worst
| about this. I once tried to unlock a phone through Rogers
| and they wanted $120 to do it! This was back around 2011
| so their policy might have changed but given Canada's
| terrible telco situation I doubt it has changed much.
| tim333 wrote:
| > "repossess" them if the customer defaults
|
| It's not usually like that - and I've had a few locked
| phones.
|
| Usually the deal is that a network, say Vodafone,
| subsidises the handset by PS50 of some such in return for
| you being forced to use Vodafone services for a couple of
| years, unless you arrange to unlock it.
|
| It's sort of ok as a deal but a pain in many ways if you
| want to travel and use a local SIM or sell the phone for
| example.
| [deleted]
| dijit wrote:
| Selling locked phones in the UK and EU is already illegal
|
| UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54692179
|
| EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_Commercial_Practices
| _Di...
| ce4 wrote:
| The new phone lock du jour is the manufacturer's anti theft
| mechanism.
|
| I recently got two iphones from their owners, pulled out of
| the drawer to monetize them on classifieds. Both locked and
| unresettable without the previous owners help (one could be
| unlocked because I got her account password over the phone,
| huge nogo but she trusts me to not screw with her account).
| The other not, account was lost.
|
| Apple also now tags and ties both battery and camera to the
| logicboard. Shame.
| ska wrote:
| This one is a pretty obvious trade off, does anyone know
| of good data on the impact of Apples policy on iphone
| theft rates and/or sales rate of stolen phones?
| emteycz wrote:
| You can't find a Macbook in any second hand store around
| Prague. It used to be full of them.
| nousermane wrote:
| SIM/operator locks have been already rare (in Europe) for a
| while, and that's great!
|
| But there are Android phones that come with bootloader/OS
| lock, which often means old device is stuck with some
| ancient OS version (and some bundled bloatware), instead of
| being able to be reflashed to a recent LineageOS.
| BossHamster wrote:
| Even LineageOS can only help so far. I've got a Galaxy S7
| Edge, bought it dec. 2016. It's not even supported by
| Lineage OS any more.
| [deleted]
| emteycz wrote:
| You should switch to the official OS then - it just got
| an update. As it also did 3, 6 and 12 months ago.
| [deleted]
| kuzko_topia wrote:
| Xiaomi's phones are locked like this, requiring a mi
| account to unlock the device to allow flashing the
| device...
| bengale wrote:
| > there is no light in the fridge (but it still works)
|
| I normally find these types of appliances make parts readily
| available. I just replaced the locking mechanism on my washing
| machine for example, it was cheap and easy to order the parts I
| needed.
| rusk wrote:
| Pretty sure these are usually standard bulbs ...
| echelon wrote:
| Not modern fridges.
|
| That trend has become ubiquitous: cars, laptops, phones...
|
| Nothing is designed to be fixed at home anymore. If there
| were regulations that required it, we'd still have the same
| advanced tech, but it'd be repair friendly.
| fridek wrote:
| Trust me I'm an engineer? But always happy to have HN debug
| my fridge, so here we go: turns out the light bulb, when
| replaced, keeps overheating and even metled the surrounding
| casing. Some electrical issue I'd have to take the fridge
| apart to debug. I might be unfair with this one though,
| it's a 20 year old fridge and is probably serviceable.
| interestica wrote:
| Sometimes the manufacturer makes it difficult. Replaced the
| light bulb in my parents' oven last week. The manufacturer
| only sold the bulb with the entire (expensive) housing as
| well. A bulb! We managed to find a supplier with a compatible
| bulb (which meant a quick swap).
|
| I'd like to think there was a reason the manufacturer wanted
| the entire housing replaced?
| harrierpigeon wrote:
| My guess is that some product manager somewhere realized
| that if they only offered the bulb housing assembly they
| could make a bit higher profit margins
| RankingMember wrote:
| It depends. A lot of modern fridges use LEDs and have control
| boards driving them that cost hundreds of dollars. If the
| LEDs are out, the likelihood is not that the LEDs are dead,
| but that something much more expensive failed.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| My guess is that the LEDs are in series on a strip, and one
| burnt out.
|
| The fridge manufacturer probably assumed it'll always run
| cold (it's a fridge right?) and overdrove them too hard to
| get just as much light out of 20 LEDs instead of 24.
|
| Could bridge the faulty LED with solder to buy some time,
| and find a donor LED from a "burnt out" LED light bulb or
| whatevs and solder it in.
| throwanem wrote:
| The prices on those controllers are totally absurd, too.
| You end up paying four hundred bucks for something with a
| sub-$20 BOM cost.
| wizzard wrote:
| YouTube has been a game changer for me. I've repaired my
| dishwasher, shower handle valve, refrigerator drain, replaced
| thermal paste in my laptop, all kinds of things. It seems
| like there's a decent video for everything, and some random
| website (or eBay) selling parts.
| megous wrote:
| My experience:
|
| - no service/troubleshooting manual/videos available online
|
| - no way to identify what replacement part to buy unless
| you're in the know already
|
| - getting access to locking mechanism looked like it would
| lead to washing machine completely falling apart structurally
| (there was a somewhat hidden "safety" screw that looked like
| a last defense against people removing the front panel just
| by removing the apparent screws and hurting themselves)
|
| So I bailed on this without a proper guide on safe
| disassembly procedure.
|
| Thankfully wiggling the connector to the locking switch made
| the lock and thus the washing machine work again, after a
| first failure since 15 years ago or whatever. It looked just
| fine inside (surprisingly). Vibrations probably don't allow
| much dirt to accumulate. No obvious rusting/leakage. I was
| surprised.
| foofoo4u wrote:
| Products are having shorter lifespans with ever decreasing levels
| of repairability. Like what others have said here, our
| expectations have become so low that it is commonly expected that
| the things we buy will only last a year or two before we end up
| throwing them away. This can be easily resolved if people simply
| paid more money for better quality products and brands that
| ensure repairability and longevity. But, of course, as time has
| shown, cheapness has won over consumer behavior. I'd consider
| this a market failure. I've always thought that this failure
| could be corrected by simply increasing the cost of disposal
| ("throwing things away") via some kind of tax. When my vacuum
| cleaner, my toaster, or even my coffee maker dies, throwing it
| away costs very little money. So little money that it is better
| worth my time to simply dispose it in the trash and buy a new
| one. But if I find disposing them to be costly, I'll certainly
| reconsider my options.
| MzHN wrote:
| How do I as a consumer know if a product will last or not? High
| price does not automatically signal longevity.
|
| The other thing is that nothing lasts forever, so eventually
| you'd need to repair. Most things you can't repair by yourself,
| so if the repair costs more than new, and the suggested
| increase for disposal, I'd still end up buying new to save the
| hassle.
|
| My wishlist is:
|
| - For consumers, incentivize repair over disposal and buying.
|
| - For companies, incentivize manufacturing quality and design
| for repairability.
|
| But the question still stands how to do either?
| foofoo4u wrote:
| All good questions. I am not going to pretend I know the
| answers here. I'll share my thoughts though.
|
| > How do I as a consumer know if a product will last or not?
|
| You, yourself, wont know. Not unless you are an expert on the
| product, which most people are not. The manufacturer may know
| what they are selling you is terribly engineered and will
| break, but you will not. So how can we overcome this
| imbalance of knowledge? I think the automotive industry is a
| good example of this being addressed. If I want to buy a car,
| how do I know that it is going to be reliable? I don't. Even
| if I were an expert, I don't have the luxury to buy the car,
| inspect its mechanics, and return it if I don't like it. But
| yet, even when situated with this predicament, I can still
| make a well informed decision that will give me a great
| chance of obtaining a reliable car. Why? It's because there
| is a plethora of institutions I have access to to evaluate
| what brand I should go with. The IIHS, NHTSA, Kelly Blue
| Book, J.D. Power, Edmunds, Motor Trend, Consumer Reports, my
| local car mechanic, and more. As great as these institutions
| may be, I believe it only part of the solution. The second is
| there needs to be a *demand* for reliability. The demand for
| automotives exists because the price of not having it is
| costly. Failure can mean major surprise repair bills, a
| ruined vacation, stranded on the side of the road for hours,
| etc. Such a price doesn't exist for the failure of my little
| toaster. But perhaps this can be artificially made with a
| disposal tax as I suggested in my post.
| musingsole wrote:
| Paying more isn't enough. Consumers can't cover the liability
| costs that come along with opening an electrical panel
| channeling a household's mainline. The cost argument imagines
| 5% more cost for a few features to aid some simple maintenance.
| The off-the-shelf cost of those features could well be 5% more.
| But the support logistics, legal coverage, manual drafting, etc
| won't be covered by that 5%.
|
| The idea of repairing a washing machine is great. But our world
| is growing more complex by the day. The average individual is
| going to lose any hope of having even enough shallow expertise
| to crack into these devices without endangering themselves and
| others. If you pursue this fight, I'd put money in the
| industries developing "needed" technologies that pack toxic gas
| in vacuum parts to further increase the expertise needed to
| touch their internals.
| xixixao wrote:
| There was a simple system for this with bottles: There is a
| premium which you pay, that is returned when you correctly
| dispose of the bottle. Perhaps a similar mechanism could be
| applied. The "cost" of disposing is then the time to get the
| money back, not the premium itself.
| labawi wrote:
| This might work.
|
| A big issue with paying for disposal is the motivation to
| avoid payment. It's hard to get people to dispose of trash
| responsibly. If they had to pay, we'd be surrounded by
| illegal dumps.
|
| I think there should be disposal fees, but they must be paid
| upfront. EU actually has recycling fees on purchase, but they
| seem to be laughably small (like < 1 EUR for a vacuum
| cleaner).
| pkaye wrote:
| They need to also demand "design for reparability". I had a dryer
| where to replace a thermal fuse, you had to remove all the outer
| panels and a bunch of other things to replace a tiny component.
| They could implemented a service panel on the back which you
| could unscrew to replace that part.
| [deleted]
| Proven wrote:
| Translation: a minority made of vocal socialist fanatics assisted
| by manipulative politicians have managed to introduce a new tax
| on EU consumers.
|
| Whereas before you could buy a device that would be smaller and
| cheaper to own because it was built with a minimal number of
| field-replaceable parts, soon you'll have _no choice_ (whether
| you want to fix old junk or not) but to buy a bulkier, more
| expensive device for which suppliers have to stock and sell spare
| parts and provide support. All of which will reflect in the price
| of that product.
|
| "Europe is guaranteeing citizens the right". I'm touched! Thank
| you, Brussels!
| acd wrote:
| We must mandate that all consumer devices can load open source
| operating systems. That manufacturers provide open design
| specifications and follow reasonable standards. That is after a
| few years, manufacturers do not have an incentive to fix the
| operating system of devices. Unless we can load open source
| operating systems, old devices will have security holes which is
| bad for security.
|
| What I want to say is we should be able to fix and repair the
| hardware and software of devices.
|
| I want to reach out and thank citizens of France for leading the
| way on repair index!
| mkhpalm wrote:
| How does this affect Tesla in Europe?
| immmmmm wrote:
| Louis Rossmann's youtube channel is a great source of information
| on this topic.
| dartharva wrote:
| If the admin of this site is seeing it, please note that the
| captcha guard you're using is broken. Not only is it mandating
| storage of cookies, it is absolutely refusing to accept my
| answers as correct despite several trials.
| phaedrus wrote:
| In my opinion, if they really cared about their stated goals, the
| EPA should have also rolled right-to-repair protections for the
| relevant equipment into emissions rules for car manufacturers.
| They should have mandated interchangeable parts, standard
| connections, and openly available documentation.
|
| Recently I rebuilt a 1996 car. The previous owner had misplaced a
| fuel tank topper that contained valving for the emissions
| controls. The parts needed were simply not available for purchase
| from the manufacturer or the aftermarket. At the time I couldn't
| source a used fuel tank for the 96, but I was able to find a 1999
| model year of the same car in a junkyard.
|
| Between 1996 and 1999, the fuel vapor emissions controls went
| from "somewhat complicated" to "really complicated." In theory I
| should have been able to either hook up just the plumbing needed
| by the 96 system, or upgrade the whole car to the 99 system.
| However in practice I could do neither. The fittings had all
| changed. The charcoal canister was changed from round to square.
| (And really what is the point of installing either canister when
| both are probably "used up" at this point? Why can't I buy new
| canisters at the same stores where I can buy new air filters?)
|
| But the biggest impediment was obtaining information on the two
| systems. The information in the service manual was perfunctory
| and nonspecific; multiple different systems had been used in
| different years and regions. The diagrams of internal valving on
| the tank toppers small enough that important connections (or lack
| of them) were obscured by smudges. I had more luck reading EPA
| whitepapers to at least get a theory of operation.
|
| In the enthusiast community I can find information about how to
| put a cylinder head from one year of this car onto a block from
| another. I can even find information about what ports to block
| off or drill open to remount the cylinder head on BACKWARDS, if
| I'm so inclined. There's not a similar subcommunity for people
| trying to repair their emissions equipment.
|
| A similar problem exists with safety equipment. Most enthusiasts
| of this car just delete their ABS, or they never service it. I
| want to rebuild mine (this just consists of replacing internal
| O-rings), but I can't find information or get parts except from
| overseas. In Europe and other countries that are not the USA, the
| manufacturer did service and rebuild these ABS units.
| shimonabi wrote:
| I recently bought a 50EUR electric chainsaw at an Aldi discount
| store in Europe (against my better judgement).
|
| After a few uses, the chain tightening bolt broke into two
| pieces.
|
| I begged them to send me just the bolt, but NO. They said I'm not
| entitled to repair it. I was even willing to pay for it, but I
| couldn't find it below 15EUR on the internet.
|
| So I sent the whole chainsaw to the repair service on their dime
| and they sent me a brand new one. They probably tossed the
| perfectly fine old chainsaw into the dumpster. Because of a
| 0.10EUR bolt.
|
| The corporate throwaway culture is incredible.
| grecy wrote:
| Now you have one with an in-tact screw you should take it out
| and figure out the size and thread-pitch so if it breaks again
| you can buy a generic one.
|
| And then post the info online somewhere - even if it's a random
| Reddit thread Google will pick it up and a search like "Aldi
| chainsaw chain tightening screw replacement" should pick it up.
| shimonabi wrote:
| It's a special bolt. I would have to buy a lathe. I have a 3D
| printer at home and I taught myself 3D design so I already
| made a bunch of replacement parts out of plastic.
| lostlogin wrote:
| How is the saw? I went the expensive route and got an
| electric Stihl. It's a monster.
|
| I find the proper use of the saw to be more important that
| with a petrol saw as it isn't immediately clear if it's on
| or not. Others in the area are immediately aware when there
| is an idling chainsaw, but not so much with an electric
| one.
| macspoofing wrote:
| If you follow the laptop/smart-phone repair community [1], the
| problems they run into is lack of access to technical manuals,
| diagnostic tools and in cases, being prevented from buying
| replacement parts by suppliers under the direction of Apple (for
| example). To me, it seems that this is where government or
| industry regulation would be helpful and provide most value with
| minimal impact on innovation and market disruption.
|
| On the other hand, I am uneasy with regulators mandating specific
| designs (e.g. all phones must have replaceable batteries), or
| specific standards (e.g. all phones need to use USB-C) or doing
| things like forcing Apple to include a charge cable or headphones
| with their devices.
|
| [1] I'm thinking of Jessa Jones and Louis Rossmann specifically.
| tracnar wrote:
| Europe imposed a standard for phone chargers and thanks to that
| you don't need a different charger per brand, or even per
| model, like it was 15 years ago. AFAIK they did not specify the
| exact standard, except that it has to be some common industry
| standard, so it did not prevent moving from micro-USB to USB-C
| (and whatever Apple is using).
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I kind of wonder if we're looking at solving this the wrong way.
| Instead of mandating that manufacturers take specific steps to
| fix the waste problem, maybe it would be better to tag items at
| manufacture and charge device makers a percentage based on how
| long before it enters the waste stream.
|
| Manufacturers could solve this by either:
|
| - Making their things easy to repair
|
| - Creating in house recycling programs
|
| - Making equipment more durable and longer lasting
|
| Any combination of the above. By picking _one specific_ way of
| reducing waste, we are ignoring other factors. Few people care to
| repair Android phones because you can 't upgrade the OS after 2
| years regardless. It doesn't matter if the hardware is
| repairable, the device is greatly devalued at that point. Like
| wise, if it's super expensive to repair an iPhone, people aren't
| going to bother and will just replace it.
|
| By focusing on the end result -> Devices entering the waste
| stream <- the manufacturers are responsible for ensuring hardware
| gets responsibly recycled, repaired, or just doesn't break.
| Obviously, to make this work the cost per device entering the
| stream would have to be significant compared to the cost of the
| device.
|
| Also, the cost should be the responsibility of the maker.
| Currently in some place in the US, consumers pay the cost to
| dispose of/ recycle televisions. The result is we end up with TVs
| on the side of the road. Often on the way away from the dump
| where people refuse to pay the disposal fee then toss the TV out
| the door on the way home.
| jka wrote:
| Your suggested strategy isn't mutually exclusive - consumers
| could have the right to repair _and_ manufacturers could be
| billed based on the value (negative or positive) of waste
| material that they generate.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| What I'm suggesting is the problem isn't repairability, its
| stuff breaking and getting tossed.
|
| I don't care how manufacturers address this issue, but I do
| think it's clearly their responsibility to address it.
|
| Also, any legislation should recognize that these devices
| aren't just physical devices that might need to have a screen
| replaces. A device which you can replace the screen on, but
| can't get secure software for is just as worthless as one you
| can upgrade but can't replace the screen on.
| PeterisP wrote:
| The problem here is with the time delay between manufacturing
| and the waste, especially as many manufacturers are abroad and
| short-lived.
|
| It's feasible to enforce repairability conditions and
| documentation requirements before a device is sold, at the
| point of manufacture or import - if you're not compliant, you
| get excluded from the market.
|
| It's not feasible to reliably and effectively enforce
| consequences for manufacturers years down the road, when it's
| plausible that the original overseas manufacturer and the
| importer/wholesale distributor both have shuttered their
| operations.
|
| We can't wait and see how much waste will be generated from
| this device, we if we want to charge device makers a percentage
| based on how long before it enters the waste stream, this needs
| to be based on an up-front guesstimate - which IMHO is a
| subjective metric _can 't_ be reliable and just invites
| corruption and abuse.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > It's feasible to enforce repairability conditions and
| documentation requirements before a device is sold, at the
| point of manufacture or import - if you're not compliant, you
| get excluded from the market.
|
| Yes.
|
| Someone else pointed out just charging for waste at the time
| of manufacture/ import and that is an excellent way to
| resolve this.
|
| Though companies which reclaim/ recycle old products should
| get credit for that effort as well.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Or go even a step further and directly address the fundamental
| problem, which is externalities. "Time to entering waste
| stream" still isn't the fundamental "end result" to optimize.
| Just require that the cost of plastic and other materials
| includes the cost of safe disposal or recycling, just like the
| cost of gasoline ought to include the cost of the externalities
| of burning it.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Sure. I'd be all for a more generic waste tax. Include the
| cost of packaging and as you suggest, the carbon cost of
| shipping it too.
|
| I do think any reduction due to a manufacturer recycling/
| remanufacturing goods should be reflected in whatever fees
| are charged.
| oauea wrote:
| It's difficult to predict how much something will cost in the
| future. If your example was followed then a device that lasts
| a year and a device that lasts 10 years would have the same
| added cost. This is not ideal, since it may not be obvious to
| consumers how long the device will last.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| I suppose there would be some regulatory agency that takes
| samples and estimates the number of items disposed, and then
| levies the costs?
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Much trash is already processed before it's buried to remove
| recyclables regardless.
|
| I would suggest requiring some kind of RFID chip or other
| scannable code which can be checked in the refuse stream.
| bigfudge wrote:
| Incentivise consumers by giving them a cut of the charge to
| manufacturers when they report trashing an item. That is, if
| you recycle a phone within 5 years you get PS5 (or some
| percentage or sale price) which is charged back to the
| manufacturer.
| aembleton wrote:
| Making the producers responsible for the disposal might be the
| best way. I don't exactly know how it would be implemented but
| I'd like to see it for packaging too.
|
| Local authorities should be able to collect up all Mcdonalds
| packaging and hand it back to them. Make them responsible for
| its disposal. Then they will be incentivised to reduce the
| amount of packaging that they produce.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Local authorities should be able to collect up all
| Mcdonalds packaging and hand it back to them.
|
| Yes, with a bill for the cost of collection and at some point
| (after repeated failures?), a fine to motivate a course
| correction.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > after repeated failures?
|
| Failure to do what?
| lostlogin wrote:
| Failure to address the problems they are causing.
|
| Eg near me is a nice park. Every single evening the car
| park gets a dump of McDonalds and Wendy's rubbish.
|
| Yes, it's their customers and not them, but if those
| companies addressed their waste by creating less, making
| more efficient packaging or finding other ways to improve
| the situation, they would make way more difference than
| any customer could.
| anoncake wrote:
| More realistically, make them pay for the disposal of as much
| garbage as they spread.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Local authorities should be able to collect up all
| Mcdonalds packaging and hand it back to them.
|
| Absolutely!
|
| It is far too easy to create disposable crap that ends up
| dumped all over the planet. I get so frustrated seeing
| garbage all over the place in natural places.
|
| I do think its a lot easier to focus on the higher ticket
| items first.
| hippich wrote:
| You guys are forgetting another part of the chain, which
| can make decisions - consumers. If cost of throwing
| something away increases - may be that will make consumers
| choose something more reliable and serviceable. As if right
| now residential trash pickup service probably covers just
| the labor and machinery to get trash to the landfill
| ogre_codes wrote:
| They tried that with televisions in California.
|
| The result? Televisions are one of the most common forms
| of road trash now. Often on the way to/ from the dump. As
| soon as you charge someone to get rid of something, the
| temptation to just dump it on the side of the road
| increases.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Roads, or rivers. In rural areas of Poland, it's still
| common to find illegal trash dumps in the woods or by the
| streams; any ditch will do. And there goes everything,
| from biowaste to furniture and television sets.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Yeah. One of the places I ride has a few very conspicuous
| dumps of obvious construction trash and it is extremely
| irritating. In this case, it's a bunch of asphalt
| roofing... very heavy and likely expensive at the dump.
|
| Its bad enough I almost think we should just eliminate
| all dump fees and charge everything upstream. If you
| charge for disposal at the time of sale, then you don't
| need to charge at the time of disposal. Then you remove
| the incentive to dump elsewhere.
| Spivak wrote:
| At scale this ends up being a public health issue because
| if you disincentivize getting rid of rotting food people
| get sick.
| Spivak wrote:
| Laws like this are basically doomed at the start because
| consumers have very little choice in the amount of
| garbage they produce. It just ends up being an extra cost
| on consumers while the companies actually producing the
| trash go unpunished. There are some discretionary
| purchases like cards, wrapping paper, gift bags, single-
| use plastic bags that might move the needle a little but
| the bulk of my trash is packaging for stuff I have no
| choice but to take on. I can't give it back, I can't
| bring reusable containers, recycling won't take it.
| dtech wrote:
| Charging to dispose of waste is a bad idea. In my country
| they tried charging for non-separated waste. It just
| increased the number of illegal dumps and garbage
| disposed in the wrong container by a massive amount.
| mab122 wrote:
| Sure but first there have to be products to choose from.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The amount of plastic and paper packaging/marketing that
| you are forced to accept and dispose of when you buy
| products is getting extreme. I recently bought a micro-sd
| card, and had to dispose of: 1. the large shipping package,
| 2. the enormous (in volume and mass) product plastic shell
| package, 3. the glossy paper marketing insert inside the
| package, 4. the user's manual (!), 5. the unwanted microsd-
| to-sd adapter. Probably 99.5% of the mass shipped to me was
| trash. Ridiculous that the manufacturer and shipper can
| just externalize that cost onto me and inevitably the
| environment.
|
| I'd expect they could ship me the bare sd card in a tiny
| envelope without all that waste if they were incentivized
| to.
| tjoff wrote:
| As a consumer though you could also have bought it in a
| store or waited until you needed something else as well.
|
| I never understood the mindset of buying only a usb-stick
| or similar online.
|
| Yes, the waste is obnoxious, but the consumer isn't
| always innocent either.
| cyberbanjo wrote:
| I wonder how far you have to drive to offset the benefit
| in waste from shipping
| tjoff wrote:
| Well I hope you wouldn't be making a long trip for the
| sole purpose of buying an sd-card either.
|
| Some sort of emergency? Sure, but that is hardly the
| norm.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I figure it is a wash. The shipping package can and does
| get reused, so I'm really complaining about waste items
| 2-5. Totally useless.
| r00fus wrote:
| Buying in-store or via delivery service (as opposed to
| Amazon) is almost guaranteed to increase the amount of
| plastic packaging. Many stores have those stupid anti-
| consumer clamshell packages (mostly to reduce
| shoplifting, but at high environmental cost).
|
| Let's not forget all the packaging in shipping the item
| to the destination as well (that you don't see because
| it's discarded in the shipping room floor).
|
| It's gotten to the point where I simply don't buy unless
| I absolutely need it anymore.
| konha wrote:
| Ordering 2 items from Amazon will almost certainly result
| in two separate packages being shipped to you. (At least
| that's my experience here in Germany - YMMV.)
| tjoff wrote:
| Then don't order from amazon.
| mikx007 wrote:
| All we need is something like sci-hub for repair manuals...
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Gonna say thanks to the European Union for that one. Much
| maligned, very bureaucratic, somewhat slow but honestly compared
| to how much tech regulation in the world is solely focused on
| surveillance and stripping privacy from people the EU still seems
| to at least have the roughly the right idea most of the time.
| amelius wrote:
| Does this also cover the repair of software bugs?
| maxekman wrote:
| I have been helping friends and family replace their smartphone
| batteries to give them new life. I recommend all of you who are
| comfortable with tinkering to do the same, it can go a long way!
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| First reaction is that this is good news, but I think two things
| needs to be looked at:
|
| One, what drives people to replace devices? I feel (not
| scientific at all!) that wanting a new shiny device and, if
| broken, cost of repair, are higher on the list than not being
| able to repair.
|
| Two, the law of unintended consequences: Making devices more
| repairable may increase their footprint in terms of material and
| thus waste. If people do not have their devices repaired more
| (e.g. because of (1) above ) then the net result might be worse
| than the current situation.
| dvdkon wrote:
| At least for me, I wouldn't have bought as many devices over
| the last few years if they were more repairable, and I do enjoy
| having a large collection of hardware.
|
| I had to abandon my last few phones due to cracked screens,
| water damage and other hardware faults. Even if I could find
| replacements for the damaged parts (and I tried), they wouldn't
| be official and would likely be of a lower quality.
| Furthermore, most modern phones are really hard to put together
| to the original quality standards, requiring for example new
| pre-cut adhesive and whole new backplates, since the original
| ones will get scratched during disassembly.
|
| My purchases are (at least partially) driven by wanting a
| shiny, new-looking device that doesn't have any flaws. But,
| perhaps counter-intuitively, _proper_ repairability would allow
| me to maintain my devices in this state for a much longer time,
| which would lead to me purchasing fewer new devices.
|
| Repairability this good would also be great for the used
| market. Right now you never know what faults a
| phone/notebook/other miniaturised device might have and if
| they're there, getting rid of them might cost as much as the
| device. This means that people who want 100% working devices
| are more likely to buy new. For other products (for example
| desktop PCs), the chance that an irreparable fault exists is
| much lower, so buying used is safer.
| mrweasel wrote:
| If people don't adopt a mindset of repair/upgrade and just
| continue to replace devices at the same rate, then sure more
| material is going to be used. Those devices will be easier to
| take apart and recycle though.
|
| This isn't just about phones and laptops, but also appliances,
| and people aren't really upgrading fridges or stowes because a
| new model is available. Many only get new cars because the
| repair bill now exceed the monthly cost of a new car.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _Those devices will be easier to take apart and recycle
| though._
|
| That's not a given. For things like smartphones I would much
| rather they enact laws to make them more recyclable than more
| repairable. And, let's be honest, smartphones don't require
| repairs often, if at all. Most common issue is probably
| shattered screen and that is already replaceable everywhere.
|
| > _and people aren't really upgrading fridges or stowes
| because a new model is available._
|
| Indeed, but they may replace an appliance (which already tend
| to be quite repairable) that is 5-10 years old and that has
| broken down because the cost of repairing it (parts plus
| labour) is in the same ball-park as the cost of a new one.
| Making appliances even more repairable won't change that.
| dvdkon wrote:
| > smartphones don't require repairs often
|
| I've had people come to me with broken screens, old
| batteries, non-functional/muffled earpieces, wonky USB
| connectors, cracked lenses and other problems. Smartphones
| do require repairs and people, at least the ones I know, do
| want to repair them. But when I tell them the part will
| take a month to arrive and might not have the same quality
| as the original, not to mention the non-zero risk of
| cosmetic damage during disassembly, I can't blame them for
| rather buying a new phone.
|
| My parents have a washing machine that's now over 15 years
| old. It still gets repairs regularly. The parts cost is
| going up though, because they haven't been made in a long
| time now. Imagine how long we could keep this washing
| machine if the parts were standardised or their CAD files
| available online, maybe some manufacturer would be making
| clones of them right now.
| stvndvs wrote:
| I'm the Digital Content Manager for Reasons to be Cheerful, the
| site reporting this story. If you liked what you read, please
| feel free to give us a follow for more stories of smart, proven,
| replicable solutions to the world's most pressing problems.
|
| https://www.twitter.com/rtb_cheerful
| https://www.instagram.com/rtbcheerful/
| https://www.facebook.com/RTBCheerful
| TLightful wrote:
| Great. Doesn't this impact Tesla too!?
|
| Good ... those fricking drivable iPhones need to be opened up.
| franczesko wrote:
| As a person who is living in EU, I didn't know that there's even
| a discussion about whether you can or can't repair the things you
| own. Sounds pretty weird. Repairing things is a common practice
| since I can't remember when.
|
| Did I miss anything?
| mrweasel wrote:
| There really isn't much debate about "right to repair",
| compared to the US. I think most just assume it's not worth the
| hassel and cost. I would guess that the cost of repairing the
| average TV be at least 25 to 50% of the cost of a new TV.
| Highend stuff have always been repairable.
|
| The focus needs to be on making things repairable by the
| consumer, and easy to recycle. Both mean that you need to be
| able to take the item apart, and that will require redesigning
| almost electronics.
| modo_mario wrote:
| >Highend stuff have always been repairable.
|
| As some have found out if you try to offer repairs of
| something as a service because it requires a bunch of
| technical knowledge in a way that the company doesn't like
| you can get sued into bankruptcy.
|
| Things aren't repairable by consumers however easy it is to
| take em apart if you can't get official parts (at a
| reasonable price) and aren't technically allowed to use
| alternative ones.
| mrweasel wrote:
| You're right, they are only repairable by manufacturer or a
| "certified" technicians, so it's still a problem. It is
| however going to be easier for a company like B&O who
| already have a field servicable TV to comply with new
| regulations
| tomjen3 wrote:
| This sucks, since it will probably mean that I can't buy the new
| all in one apple laptops. Yeah they can't be upgraded (a bit of a
| bummer), but when was the last time you upgraded any laptop that
| you owned other than with more RAM, adding an SSD or a new
| battery? When was the last time you wanted to?
|
| My grandparents old laptop finally died, and they offered me it
| for parts but I had to straight out tell them that there was
| nothing on it that was worth anything.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Just yesterday my SO told me the subwoofer was broken. It's a
| wireless unit, which pairs with the soundbar, which I got with my
| TV about 5 years ago.
|
| I quickly come to the conclusion the power supply is broken. And
| _of course_ the power supply is internal.
|
| I tried to open up the thing, being fairly competent with
| electronics. But try as I might, I just couldn't figure out how
| this thing comes apart. I don't want to brute force it, thing is
| stylish and my SO likes that about it, but also a lot of plastic
| so easy to break.
|
| Ok, I searched the web for a service manual. Nothing. Not even
| close.
|
| In contrast, the DVD player my mom uses (mostly as a glorified CD
| player) died before xmas. It's an old Sony unit, bought in 2000
| or 2001, and been on ever since (standby or active). I searched
| and I found a beautiful service manual, with detailed schematics
| and instructions for disassembly and reassembly. Even the PCB
| itself has lovely markings making it very clear what is going on
| where.
|
| Quickly discovered the issue in the power supply and ordered some
| replacement parts (still waiting).
|
| Sure I could probably have found a second-hand DVD player for
| cheap. But yeah it just seemed so senseless to toss away a
| perfectly good unit when by all accounts it just needs $3 worth
| of parts.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Bad caps?
| magicalhippo wrote:
| PSU is a flyback design.
|
| I think the main freewheeling diode went (it's open now), and
| the resulting switching spikes from the transformer caused
| the switching converter[1] to fail.
|
| So far those are the only two parts that appear broken.
|
| As for the sub, I'd love to know!
|
| [1]: integrated switch, I misspoke earlier
| yoran wrote:
| Regulations like this are great and I applaud them. But they do
| harm innovation, because often the cost to become compliant with
| such new regulations is fixed. So the cost for a large
| corporation to be compliant is roughly similar to the cost of a
| startup to be compliant. This makes it comparatively harder for
| startups to get going and thereby gives large companies an unfair
| advantage. This stifles competition and innovation.
|
| We are seeing this first-hand with our startup in the EU
| investment space. The costs to be compliant with the various
| regulations (MiFID, AML, etc...) are mostly fixed, so they're a
| lot harder for small firms to implement such as ourselves than
| for large firms. That's also why a lot of smaller firms are
| merging into larger firms.
|
| As a solution, there should be relaxed regulations for startups.
| They would have to be fully compliant only once they reach a
| certain scale.
| tyingq wrote:
| I wonder how far this goes. If the built-in Netflix app on my
| really old smart TV isn't working because it hasn't been updated,
| for example.
| khawkins wrote:
| Louis Rossman owns a repair shop in NYC and has been touring the
| nation lobbying for Right to Repair. He's rarely sees success
| though because the lobbyists for places like Apple have deep
| pockets and there isn't a lot of public outrage.
|
| The article is wrong to give any credit to Apple for being on the
| side of Right to Repair, as Louis explains in numerous videos.
|
| https://youtu.be/zFA3szW9nWk
| chalst wrote:
| I switched from iPhone to Fairphone mainly because of the fact
| that my last two iPhones became irreparable for what I regarded
| as stupid reasons.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The problem here isn't just lobbying but that the people in the
| government that we entrust to make these decisions are complete
| idiots. The lobbyists' arguments are so flawed that anyone with
| half a brain or a bit of common sense should be able to say
| "hold on, this is bullshit!" and yet these people are
| swallowing it whole.
|
| I'd have more respect for them if they outright turned around
| and said "yeah we know we're screwing you over but the
| lobbyists' money is too good to pass up" but in this case they
| appear to be getting played without even realizing it
| themselves.
| ckocagil wrote:
| Are they idiots, or do they get something out of it?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Some of the arguments made by the lobbyists deserve
| pushback even if you're secretly in their camp just because
| of how absurd they are.
|
| Given this isn't happening, I'm not 100% convinced the
| senators are doing this on purpose or if they're
| legitimately too stupid to understand the argument at play.
| Furthermore I remember Louis Rossmann saying in one of his
| videos that one senator turned out to not even be checking
| his official government e-mail account... that's not
| someone I would entrust with understanding anything even
| remotely related to technology.
| bmn__ wrote:
| > do they get something out of it?
|
| "robust conversations"
| khawkins wrote:
| Well they know corporations are going to be a colossal pain
| in their ass if they pass something, but that the citizens
| won't do anything. Might make the local news, but nothing
| more. If only there was a little enthusiasm in this arena,
| substantial progress could be made. But there are far too
| many flashy "causes" out there that eat up the public
| interest. As a people, we really deserve what we're getting
| here.
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