Let's Get Right to Repair Passed – Louis Rossmann | Hacker News Reader

Let's Get Right to Repair Passed – Louis Rossmann

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110 pointsOrwellianChild25 comments

To the wealthy guys out there whom like nice watches.

Look down at that Rolex. It’s a mechanical work of art? You felt so good walking out the boutique. “I work hard, and now a treat?”

The minute that warranty ends, if the watch stops working, or needs a Service (clean, and oil usually), you don’t have many options other than sending that watch back to the factory for repair—-at factory prices.

Rolex, and The Swatch Group cut off parts/information to 99.99% of Independent Watchmakers in the last decade.

Rolex, and The Swatch Group, politely call it Vertical Integration with quality assurance as the reason. It’s a money grab after the sale.

The government looked into it under Obama, but decided it was a wealthy man’s problem, and they had bigger issues—which they did.

It seems to violate The Sherman Anti-trust Act?

My point is Right to Repair will help many of us bring some choice back to our lives. We can have stuff repaired reasonably, instead of tossing the item, storing it away in the dedicated closet of “I loved this item, and one day I’ll have it repaired”, or buying a new one.

"Many people have asked for a simple, concise, non-profanity laden video that summarizes the issue that is shareable to politicians and family members. Here you go. No profanity, no technobabble, just a basic explanation. Go forth and share. Thank you!" -- Louis Rossmann

What is Right to repair? An intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npd_xDuNi9k

Are there any short videos (under 2 minutes) that would be better to pass to non-tech friends? Most people, myself included, would tune out of such a long video.

That would be an excellent suggestion to make (though I would suspect the firm they hired are likely planning this already).

I watched a few of Louis' videos when I was trying to repair my old Mac and some just because it was fun to hear him talking about the repairs by Cettified Apple Technicians.

This man deserves to win and humanity deserves the right to repair thier stuff.

My favourite is how he says what the Apple store said the problem vs what is actually the problem is. One laptop “had water damage” but when Louis opened it he noticed the battery connector wasn’t properly inserted in to the socket. Plugged that in and the problem.

Yup, a 5 mins fix, that I believe he did for free (at least from what I remember seeing in a CBC report).

The best story was when some kids called up to his center, asked him why his Macbook are not booting. Louise was very amazed by the fact that this kid gave him a full step-by-step of what diagnosis he has done so far, showing technical adept and the will to put in the work himself. In context: Lots of the time people just call Louise saying they have a problem and expect him to guide them for free over the phone.

He then invited the kid to his workshop and personally guide the kid through the reparation of his Macbook ( under parent’s supervision of course ).

My favorite part of his videos was him campaigning for Trump. \s

For those who are younger here, many electronic products used to come with the circuit diagram included with the product.

At the very least service manuals were available for repair professionals which included detailed operation explanations, disassembly diagrams, service procedures, diagnostic and calibration instructions.

For context, in case folks aren't familiar with how this works, a single state passing right-to-repair forces companies to change the way they operate nationally/internationally... If Massachusetts (where Rossmann hopes to get on the ballot) requires Apple to provide parts, documentation, etc. the rest of the world gets it too.

> Right to Repair is the concept that you should be able to choose who repairs the device you own. We believe you should not be stuck going back to the manufacturer or dealer because parts, chips, manuals or tools are restricted by the manufacturer. Right now, manufacturers collude with a number of companies on a regular basis to keep repair shops & end users from being able to buy parts to fix their devices, going so far as to restrict access to a battery charging IC - one of the most common chips to fail in modern consumer electronics!

Do Right to Repair laws include software? Most commercial software is covered by a license making it illegal to even disassemble or reverse engineer the software.

Do Right to Repair laws make it so items have to be reparable by people of average ability and using commonly-available tools?

If Right to Repair laws aren’t providing for these things then who’s interests are actually being served?

RtR is mostly about hardware repair. I think what you want is, to some degree, covered by open source options.

Someone sent in $100K directly for the funds - WOW! And my personal thanks, from a supporter of this cause.

Good luck. I'd support it if it were not a US thing.

From the comments on the link:

> Doesn't really matter where you live be it US, Europe, South America (like me) and others, this movement will affect all of us and will shoot down the predatory prices these companies charge us, so I'm doing my part!

i.e give me money and promotion.

The money has to go somewhere. I’d prefer for him to have a lot more based on what I’ve seen from him and where my beliefs are at.

If he does the same in the EU I will believe it has a chance and I'll support it. In Apple's homeland? Not a chance.

I'd normally be cynical too, but MA just passed right to repair for automotive, despite 8-figure lobbying by the automakers... The auto one passed 75% in favor. If the citizens want it, even Apple can't stop it.

Were this legislation to pass in the US, this would likely affect the rest of the world as well In various ways: firstly, it would allow you to actually get these components regardless of where you live. More over, it would possibly help drive similar legislation in other countries. There are probably other things that it would help that I haven't listed as well.

In the same vein, if the EU passes a right to repair - which I assume they don’t currently have - then those parts should be made available to US consumers as well.

If this interests you, it would make sense to support political efforts worldwide, regardless of your own citizenship.

Yes but the place to do this is the place that has the biggest chance to succeed, so in the EU.

Getting those parts into public supply chain benefits you no matter where you live.

The current state of affairs is that manufacturers in China strike deals with Apple, etc, to only sell ICs to them.

This is an end-run around that practice.

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