His livelihood does depend on it (although he has acknowledged that, as electronics get more disposable, he will inevitably end up having to shift into something like software or hardware design), but he has made a really admirable effort of actually going boots-on-the-ground and lobbying at political hearings.
Even though I'm a programmer and not really a hardware guy, I find watching him repairing stuff very interesting and oddly satisfying. He often even does all this on a live stream.
PS. For some reason most of his videos get a "do you want a website" preroll ad, which is already a running joke on his streams.
Just got that ad... in Polish. Seriously, what's going on with that? Why always this ad?
Personally, I don't see how gerber files with board layouts and selling replacement components violates any trade secrets, considering the former is readily reverse-engineered (even if you can't easily determine exact routing for things in layers not on the board surface) and the latter poses them no risk either.
As for what boils down to the "people are stupid" argument, that's just BS and they know it.
Not sure where you saw that (link?), but no, they don't. Watch the video I just linked above on what their lobbyists say.
One has to ask what's really more likely to destroy my life - the glass of the iPhone I clumsily tried to repair, or the shit I wrote on that iPhone...
Listen from that timestamp till 13:10.
I find it rather tiresome and not very thoughtful.
I feel like we're at the very bottom of a parabolic curve right now where everyone is getting fucked due to fake money being injected into these systems. I think above all, what everyone can agree on, is that the individual should come first, and policy should follow. The amount of large businesses with their hands in politics is really the struggle he's crusading against.
I can definitely see where he comes from as a small business owner -- it seems like the same injustice that individuals feel towards certain sections of the upper class is magnified. I think it's helpful to hear small-business owners' side of the argument, because they really are the ones who stand to be hurt most by moving further left, unless done with careful tact.
"Left-wing politics are anti-business" is a huge fallacy.
He seems to love what he does, but we need people like him in politics.
It's too bad just being honest is so rare these days.