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Comment by viktorcode | Hacker News Reader

I don't think that repairability is better for sustainability in general, if we are speaking about electronics. Making an electronic device more repairable would make it more complex (again, not in every case, but in general). Where before a manufacturer could just solder numerous components to a single board, now will be arrays of sockets each of which is a new point of possible failure. Glue will be replaced by magnets, clips, etc. which is great for repair, but again, makes device more complex. And still most people will get rid of them after a few years of use. Consumerism is the top enemy of sustainability.

Right to repair is a complex endeavour. There will be no simple solutions.

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> Making an electronic device more repairable would make it more complex (again, not in every case, but in general).

Right to repair isn't about forcing manufacturers to make devices more repairable. It's about giving you the right to repair it in the first place. Right now we have paired components that can't even be replaced by genuine parts from a donor device, board components that aren't purchasable by anyone other than the OEM and a complete lack of access to repair documentation from OEMs.

Even the most skilled repair technicians in the world with the best equipment money can buy aren't able to repair your device because they can't debug it without documentation, or they've reverse engineered it but can't buy the parts because they're not for sale, or they've taken the parts from another device but they won't function because the OEM software locked them to the device they came from.

Linus from Linus Tech Tips said it best: "The vast majority of the opposition to right to repair comes from people who either haven't had it explained to them properly or from folks that are on board with right to repair even though they don't realize it yet"

https://youtu.be/nvVafMi0l68?t=91

I get where you're coming from on this, but from a design and manufacturing perspective, it isn't correct. Fairphone has published a pretty extensive lifecycle analysis of their latest device that details the environmental impact of designing for repairability vs the extended life that comes from that change: https://www.fairphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Fairpho...

There's a similar study focused on notebooks that goes into the environmental benefits of extending longevity: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X1...

Finally, we've spent the last year and a half building a highly repairable notebook at Framework, and it is as robust as any other premium thin and light notebook.

I agree with you though that there is a behavioral change required to maximize the benefit. There are many audiences (like a lot of the folks on HN) who are ready to make their devices last longer, but others may need more time to get comfortable with it.

> I don't think that repairability is better for sustainability in general

Sorry, but what? Being able to repair a device means that you can (and usually will) be able to prevent demand spiking for a brand new device that uses as many or more materials than the last.

For starters, imagine a world where vehicles were not repairable. I'd argue that any mass-produced thing benefits from repairability.

I suspect that a minority of people would choose to repair their old phones even if they were more repairable. When your phone dies, it's a good opportunity to buy something new and more fun. I don't know for sure but I don't think this would stop that much consumption.

> When your phone dies, it's a good opportunity to buy something new

If you have infinite money, yes. Most people in the world do not have it. (And if you do not care about the environment, too.)

> I suspect that a minority of people would choose to repair their old phones even if they were more repairable.

Repair shops exist for this purpose. I’m not saying every individual will repair their device themself if it breaks. That would be as out of touch as saying most people will just buy a brand new phone anytime theirs has an issue.

Making things less repairable means that whether you’re willing to pay someone else or not to fix something, you will be unable to.

The vast majority of people on the planet cannot afford to "buy something new and more fun" every time something of theirs breaks.

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