You shouldn't have to deal with an extra mm and all the inconvenience that comes along with it just to support my right to replace the battery.
So, you can still make it mandatory where you don't need to make things bigger?
I'd love more things to be fixable but this kind of micro-management sounds terrifying.
You propose some new design which is more compact / easier to manufacture / more reliable because it has fewer connectors, and then you take it to the ministry for approval. How do they know whether your changes are justified? Maybe they sketch an easier-to-disassemble variant which is no bigger than yours, and reject your design, but they don't understand the why it will cost you twice as much to assemble that design (in your factory, with your workforce) or why you rejected that kind of connector (your experience with the supplier, or your vibration tests). Can you prove why you made these decisions? Call expert witnesses? This just seems like an impossible minefield to me.
I think better to tilt the balance in other ways, like pushing longer guarantees (regardless of whether the best solution is an unbreakable one-piece object, or a repairable one) and forcing recycling (so that the sticker price includes more of the total lifecycle cost).
Well, I dunno, but that's a question with every law, and thus not exactly an argument by itself?
> I'd love more things to be fixable but this kind of micro-management sounds terrifying.
But why would there need to be micro-management?
We're not talking about the need to have cops decide whether 71MPH was too fast or not. We're talking about whether your customers would hypothetically have been as satisfied with an iphone that was 1mm thicker, because if they would, there's a law which says you have to make it repairable. Bring your expert witnesses and panel surveys to convince the jury.