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Comment by alexvoda | Hacker News Reader

Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the documentation.

As an example, this (1) is how the manual looks for a ~1970-1974 stereo record player I have. You have diagrams of the boards and lists of parts as in individual caps, etc.

We should strive to move in that direction, not away from it. Permanently locked bootloaders, DRM for componets, etc. are a move in the oposite direction.

To move the overton window even a little bit towards where it was before, the demands have to be disproportionate. I say those demands are still reasonable. We should demand that any device and any component in any device be second source-able (just like AMD was a second source for early x86 chips). And for that matter since I am from Europe, any component should be second source-able from Europe. If IP transfers worked for China, they should work elsewhere.

(1) https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1012672/Pioneer-C-5600dfv....

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> We should demand that any device and any component in any device be second source-able

Devices aren't built around discrete components anymore. That ship has sailed, we waved goodbye, partied on the dock, and took an Uber home. Now we're nursing the hangover. But hey, our phones are now marginally thinner than last year's phones, so that might be worth something.

I don't see how we get back, considering the market just isn't there: it'd rather treat devices as things that we lease for a low cost from a vertically-integrated company.

Your approach will always be a valid choice, for those who want it, and companies will be happy to provide that device-as-a-service model.

R2R is just seeking to preserve the practical access to repairability for those who want to service their own devices.

No it's not, it's looking to enshrine that standard by law for everyone. Nothing is stopping consumers from demanding phones that are self-serviceable, they just simply aren't willing to accept the tradeoffs involved (larger size, worse thermals, higher price, etc). If you disagree, there's an unserved market segment wide open for you!

Let's set aside software RTR, which at first glance I believe has no increased costs associated (besides a decreased profit margin from lack of shortened support windows and a locked-down ecosystem).

Could you expand on the specifics of what changes RTR would necessitate the hardware to have? Let's say beyond the fact that a non-reversible bond/connector would otherwise be the cheapest option (saving perhaps fractions of pennies on the BOM).

Mandated right repair would raise weight for battery containers and latches, higher failure as connections would not be soldered in place and hinges and latches may fail, less water resistance as seals may get bumped loose, easier access for hardware hacks for bad actors, more potential consumer injury device damage during repair attempts, and more likely fire scenarios in planes and public areas from incorrectly installed parts. It is attempting to deny consumers those benefits.

Sounds like exaggeration or either overblown concerns. It's also ignoring the fact that manufacturers going out of their way to make a device deliberately more difficult to repair rather than just implementing tradeoffs.

It's one thing to have a waterproof phone that you need specialty tools to fix it, it's another thing when manufacturers try to make repairing deliberately more difficult than it should be, such as limiting the sale of OEM components or using security screws.

Either way, your thought what Right to Repair is only one version/proposal of what RtR.

Important distinction here! Right to repair does not prescribe design considerations! You can glue/solder/integrate all you want! Just need to make sure replacement parts are available and documentation is clear!

The right to repair doesn't mandate any of that - you could have a product that has glued internal batteries and internal seals yet still release the schematics and allow your suppliers to sell the components to consumers.

Just look at motor vehicles - people have the right to change their own brake pads yet or even engines! This is arguably way more dangerous than a badly repaired small electronic device!

History is full of things that people did not want to mandate via their purchases, but we as a society decided was important... so we made it legally mandatory.

> No it's not, it's looking to enshrine that standard by law for everyone.

That's what's necessary IMO - since if it isn't required for all consumers than there is no motivation to make it available for any customers, we'll continue to be dragged down by the LCD as devices get less and less serviceable. Manufacturers don't like options - options cost money and each additional model you offer drives up how much you spend in storage and production line configuration, so they'll target the majority which probably does want to be able to repair devices but either doesn't realize it's still an option or doesn't have the financial freedom to invest in a higher quality device that has a higher upfront price tag but a lifespan that outlives that difference by leaps and bounds.

> Nothing is stopping consumers from demanding phones that are self-serviceable

It's not like anyone asked the consumers. Nor were the options put on the market, for the buyers to vote on them with their wallets. The conclusions are assumed in advance by the companies. Meanwhile, consumers choose from what's actually available on the market - not from the space of all possible products.

> they just simply aren't willing to accept the tradeoffs involved (larger size, worse thermals, higher price, etc).

No customer can truly evaluate the tradeoffs involved. For starters, necessary information isn't publicly available. Companies don't publish reports from their product teams that describe the trade-off space they're working on. Would a user-replaceable battery make the phone thicker? How much? Does the glue actually helps with thermals? What's the price difference? Nobody knows, outside the people involved in these decisions.

Secondly, marketers run interference. Maybe a Joe would pay $100 extra for a fully repairable phone, so that Jane could fix it for him when he unavoidably breaks it in six months. Maybe an environmentally conscious Carol would go for one with user-replaceable battery, because she can only afford a cheaper, mostly integrated device. But they won't, because those issues aren't even on a typical person's radar. Instead, the marketing focuses on vague appeal to emotions, misrepresented specs, outright lies, and bait-and-switch "value-add" services. Most people who know better than to fall for such nonsense will just look at the one clear indicator - price.

The point is: when you have a system connected to a bunch of input signals, you can't say that a particular signal doesn't affect the system, if half of the other inputs are flooded with noise that's 20dB higher than any legit signal would be. You first need to shut off the noise!

> If you disagree, there's an unserved market segment wide open for you!

Not for me. There are too many capital barriers to entry around designing and manufacturing high-end electronics. You can't just start a business in this space and hope to offer a comparable price to established magnitudes.

Now if an established company like Samsung or Apple dared to try this, then we'd know. Maybe it would turn out there's no market for repairable smartphones. But I haven't seen anybody giving it a shot in a meaningful way.

> Your approach will always be a valid choice, for those who want it

This isn't "my approach" – it's the approach that the vast majority of purchasers prefer. And pining for the good ol' days of technical datasheets doesn't help everybody who can't start their cars without the successful interaction of nearly a hundred proprietary microcontrollers running proprietary code speaking over a high-speed data bus.

And here's the annoying thing: I want a car that doesn't have a hundred microcontrollers speaking over a high-speed data bus. I want a car like my old '88 Camry, that I could take apart with my dad and fix almost all of the problems I ran into with the help of a Haynes manual and a trip (or two!) to the junkyard. But the market clearly does not agree with my desires.

So how do you get there from here?

Do you have a source to cite for "the approach that the vast majority of purchasers prefer"?

That seems pretty speculative. The market can be manipulated or directed by more than simply consumer choice, e.g. by business incentives of product manufacturers.

> Do you have a source to cite for "the approach that the vast majority of purchasers prefer"?

I mean, gestures at every consumer-targeted product made since at least the early 'oughts.

People want things that are some combination of more capable, more convenient, more reliable, and less expensive. Different consumers obviously make different decisions, but there's a reason you can't go to a car lot and easily find a car with a stick shift. There's a reason you probably don't know anyone who has a Speed Queen top loader (pre-redesign model of course ;)) in their house, even though it is infinitely more reliable and repairable than the competition. Those offerings are less capable, less convenient, and more expensive than the alternatives, so customers don't want them.

Customers are incredibly short sighted when it comes to purchasing new things - shaving 10% off a price while cutting the expected lifetime of the product down from ten years to three is likely to capture most of the market.

I think this is a case where actors are acting in an irrational manner (i.e. not adhering to the perfectly rational actor assumption that's required for free-markets to function) and that necessitates government or other intervention to ensure that consumers are protected.

It's depressing because I absolutely agree with you that users aren't purchasing devices with an emphasis on being able to repair them. It is a pain point but not one that comes up at the register and so manufacturers are free to exploit the situation to provide marginally cheaper goods that require full replacement more frequently to ensure consistent sales.

Nobody wants to be like Hoover in the 90's that offered free plane tickets with vacuum purchases[1] and caused such an oversupply in the market that first party vacuum sales dwindled to nearly nothing over the next decade and that's fair. But we need to have a balance where we aren't rewarding manufacturers who build products that frequently break and for the consumer to make another purchase.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_free_flights_promotion

Given a choice customers would very likely prefer a toaster that costs ten dollars less and has a 1 in 10,000 chance of burning down their house instead of 1 in 1,00,000 even though saving 10 bucks and accepting a in in 10k chance of burning up your kids, cats, and stuff is an insane choice.

The free market is in short pretty garbage on its own.

> I mean, gestures at every consumer-targeted product made since at least the early 'oughts.

Exactly. Only that proves the opposite of what you think it proves.

All I'm saying is that R2R in no way changes the products that are available to you if you want product-as-a-service. You can still take your phone to the Genius Bar or lease it from a carrier. It just guarantees that there are also options for those who want to fix their own devices.

You can't buy a new car like an '88 Camry anymore, the government will not allow it to be sold due to safety and environmental regulation.

> This isn't "my approach" – it's the approach that the vast majority of purchasers prefer.

We don't know that. We might, if the other alternative was available for purchasers to choose from, but it isn't.

> it'd rather treat devices as things that we lease for a low cost from a vertically-integrated company.

This is a nightmare.

I built my PC, I repair my phone and laptops. I replace joysticks and mod old gaming consoles. I fix my own car.

I don't want the industry following Apple into the depths of hell.

We used to be allowed to record tv shows on VHS legally. Look how far we've slid down the path of non-ownership.

We've given up our privacy, we license media on subscription, and even our employers rent premium and expensive time sharing on "cloud".

Open source has been captured and turned into hidden away SaaS/PaaS.

We're all being gaslighted.

>We used to be allowed to record tv shows on VHS legally. Look how far we've slid down the path of non-ownership.

What's changed that prevents you from doing that today? I'm guessing the answer is: "But that's a crappy alternative to what people watching Netflix or even renting DVDs are doing." And I would agree with that. (Though in the case of music, owning versus renting is still very much a legitimate choice at least for me.)

> What's changed that prevents you from doing that today?

What's changed is that technologies involved in modern video streaming are designed up front to prevent end-users from recording the stream, and are backed by regulations making some of the workarounds illegal.

MAFIAA may not be able to close the "analog hole" completely, but it doesn't stop them from achieving the next best thing - making it so hard to exploit that almost nobody bothers. This is a positive feedback loop, because the market in general doesn't like to serve small niches unless it has nothing more interesting to do. Thus: no VCRs for Netflix.

You can choose to forgo owning stuff personally, sure. But that is not everybody's preference. And please don't pretend that "devices aren't built around discrete components anymore".

There are plenty of discrete components in a modern phone/laptop/roomba/whatever, that could be replaceable/upgradable by advanced user or entry-level technician, but are not:

- battery

- screen

- storage

- RAM

- list goes on and on...

I believe the GP was talking about discrete circuitry vs integrated circuits, not so much supporting peripherals.

But their parent wasn't (in fact, they mentioned x86 and AMD, which are integrated circuits).

Look at a random PC (or, until recently, a random laptop): it's made from a lot of individual components that can be swapped out or upgraded independently. Storage, RAM, CPU, GPU, cooling, motherboard, WiFi chip, Bluetooth chip, speakers, microphone, screen, all the peripherals - they're all designed to work together as a category, and to be easily replaceable. I can source each one from a different vendor, and they'll still work. Hell, in many cases, you can even fix individual components, with a hot air station and a steady hand. And if I upgrade a component, my old one can often get a second life inside another computer, possibly someone else's.

It's a good thing to have, and there's nothing stopping modern laptops, tablets and phones to have the same level of upgradeability and swapability. Nothing - except that the vendors don't want to[0]. These things run on the same set of hardware standards as larger computers, and on literally the same software stacks. I[1] should be entirely able to open up my phone, desolder its battery and memory, swap them out for newer and better ones, apply sealant, close the case and have the whole thing work. There's no technical obstacle here - the only problem are the business strategies of the vendors.

[0] - I have another long rant for the usual "it's customers who chose integrated over repairable" argument, and I'll post it elsewhere in this thread. For now, I'll just say: it's not like anybody is asking customers to choose. These options are not being made available in the first place.

[1] - Or my friend who spent half his life tinkering with electronics. Or the repair shop down the street. A point commonly missed in discussions about Right to Repair (and Free Software) is that it isn't about expecting consumers to do hardware/software work themselves - it's about making it possible for local markets for software and hardware maintenance and repair to exist.

>These options are not being made available in the first place.

Could it be because it's not financially feasible? If you present the idea of a repairable alternative to an iPad, are any investors going to take you up on it?

I think a big aspect of this whole debate is that manufacturing efficiencies have gone up so much, that it's simply not economically worth it to sacrifice the resiliency and cost effectiveness of making it completely integrated. The cost to launch a new product and manufacturing line is also very high, so that you have to be really sure a sufficient number of consumers will want it.

On top of that, as a seller, you get to keep costs low when you have to spend less on dealing with people tinkering with it and then sending it in for warranty.

Unfortunately, I don't think a "tinkerable" option can compete on price to value ratio such that sufficient people would buy it to make it a feasible investment.

>it's about making it possible for local markets for software and hardware maintenance and repair to exist.

Efficiency is frequently a trade off for a word that I can't think of, but maybe can be described as "security" or "local security". It's similar to not needing a butcher, produce market, shoe store once a Walmart Supercenter rolls into town. I struggle to come up with a legal requirement that would restrict efficiency such that it does not give others (globally) a competitive advantage, but still retains "local security".

These devices can still be fixed, if only using specialized tools. However, it's another issue when manufacturers deliberately make these devices more difficult to fix such as using security screws.

Many of the modern smartphones can still be fixed as are laptops.

However, these repair shops only exist if they have the schematic and parts available.

it's not an efficiency issue. It's planned obsolescence.

We don't need a tinkerers option we just need unobstructed access to the docs and access to purchase proprietary parts to replace failures and those parts should be available at a fair price.

I vote yes for right to repair, both with my dollar and my desire to favor the rights of the citizens of this country.

> Could it be because it's not financially feasible? If you present the idea of a repairable alternative to an iPad, are any investors going to take you up on it? (...) it's simply not economically worth it to sacrifice the resiliency and cost effectiveness of making it completely integrated (...) The cost to launch a new product and manufacturing line is also very high (...)

I believe all of that is true.

Which is why this needs to be corrected by regulation. If making a more user-respecting and environmentally-friendly products isn't economical enough for the market to do it on its own, the economical landscape needs to be altered so that it is.

> as a seller, you get to keep costs low when you have to spend less on dealing with people tinkering with it and then sending it in for warranty

This must be solvable, because somehow it isn't a problem on the PC market, or on the car market.

> Efficiency is frequently a trade off for a word that I can't think of, but maybe can be described as "security" or "local security".

"Distribution" and "decentralization" are the words you're thinking of. Despite the common propaganda to the contrary, centralization is usually increasing efficiency. That's why the market loves it so much (and why every country ends up with laws to limit it). The cost to that efficiency is usually resilience (failure of any single actor becomes a large-scale issue) and slower innovation (bigger actors take less risks, smaller actors tend to cover more of the possibility space, by virtue of numbers).

> It's similar to not needing a butcher, produce market, shoe store once a Walmart Supercenter rolls into town.

And it is a contentious issue. On the one hand, the food gets cheaper. On the other, the jobs get worse, the local community suffers, and money gets siphoned off the local economy. On an international scale, the same thing is called "globalization", which is both widely praised and criticized. In particular, the current pandemic has revealed the resilience problem of our globalized economy, which is why so many countries are now making moves towards reversing it a bit.

I find this type of rant rather unhelpful in this debate. It is not the case that there is no reason for soldered parts. This decision was not made out of spite or laziness. It was done because there was a belief that the product would be better. In particular, it seems that leaving sockets off enables you to make a thinner laptop, and that some of the products use a type of RAM that is not sold to be put into a socket [0]. I would guess that market research also showed that very very few consumers were replacing the Bluetooth chips in their Macbooks. I have a great PC next to me, but it also weighs 20-30 lbs, occupies a huge amount of space, and took me several days of work to make sure all the components would actually optimally work together.

I would find it a lot more compelling to talk about trade-offs than to just throw out uninformed ranting. We used to have laptops like what you're describing, and they no longer sell very well, or are no longer available because they are thicker and heavier than the models that replaced them.

0: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2dyuxa/can_any_engin...

A big reason that stuff isn't replaceable anymore is because consumers wants some of the benefits that come w/ non-replaceable parts.

For example, it's nice that I can drop my iPhone in water w/o worrying (too much) about destroying it. I spent ~$1500 on an iPhone 12 Pro in November & dropped it in a lake in December. Part of the reason it's (more) waterproof if because it's not covered w/ ports/hatches/openings that would allow me swap out the battery/RAM/SSD/something. If I had to choose between having a fully customizable phone & one that doesn't die when it gets wet, I think I'd rather have one that resists water.

Just one person's opinion.

> A big reason that stuff isn't replaceable anymore is because consumers wants some of the benefits that come w/ non-replaceable parts.

This may be true, but we shouldn't confuse 'a decision made by a product manager' with 'the customers want this'.

Some design decisions succeed because of the other strengths of a product (and the competition cargo-cult copies them), not because they are good design decisions. Some design decisions are made because they are more convenient for the vendor, not better for the customer. Some design decisions are made because of inertia. Pointing to any particular design trade-off in a successful product, and saying that 'Well, this is obviously what the market wants' is not always a correct conclusion to draw.

USB is unarguably the most successful mechanism for two hardware devices to communicate with each-other in history, and yet you need to flip the cable over three times before you can plug it in. Should we conclude that customers want to play the cable fandango every time they plug one device into another?

>yet you need to flip the cable over three times before you can plug it in

I used to know one of the folks involved with the USB standard pretty well professionally. At one point, he told me that this aspect of USB is one thing he wished they could have dealt with differently.

(That said, the fact that the mini and micro versions are more explicitly keyed doesn't make that much of a different and I assume that a USB-C or Lightning-type design just wasn't possible at the time without undesirable tradeoffs.)

> I assume that a USB-C or Lightning-type design just wasn't possible at the time without undesirable tradeoffs

Interestingly, reversible USB-A cables are readily available (at least here in Japan). They just have a too-thin "lip" in the middle which is prone to breaking. https://www.sanwa.co.jp/product/syohin.asp?code=KU-RMCB2W

I think it's just that nobody thought of it when the plug was designed, because this wasn't a problem that serial cables etc before USB-A had (and even USB-B is keyed!)

I'm not sure consumers per se want it, but that companies think it's what consumers want, and only make things like that.

It's a self fulfilling prophecy that customers will buy it. I dont have another choice

Manufacturers want planned obsolesce more than anyone. The problem in my view is that we take limited resources and combine it with slave labor to create landfill. Those few years of usage are not even that relevant. Recycling should be the first goal then repair ability. I think we can do this without the manufacturers drawing the proverbial short straw. Maybe we should get a partial refund when returning expired devices. Maybe we should rent them rather than buy them.

> The problem in my view is that we take limited resources and combine it with slave labor to create landfill. Those few years of usage are not even that relevant.

That's an important insight.

I only recently realized this too, and conceptualized it as a pipeline:

     RAW    >   PRODUCT  > FINISHED >  A BIT > WASTE
  MATERIALS > COMPONENTS >  GOODS   > OF USE > MATTER

Now when we say that our economy grows exponentially, it means that the amount of matter traveling through this pipeline is growing exponentially too! The economy, as it is today, is essentially a rapidly growing system for turning usable resources into useless waste.

Here's the bad part though: adding recycling to any stage of this pipeline doesn't alter the overall behavior. It only recirculates some of the matter - recycling is never perfect. But as we know, if you recycle less than 100%, and then re-recycle that, and then re-recycle again, it still converges to zero. With an exponentially growing pipeline, recycling is only delaying the crisis a little bit.

Ultimately, we need to remove the exponent (or at least couple it to population growth, in the scenario where humanity expands into space). For now, we need to reduce it. And one of the best ways of doing that is... reducing use. Buying less. The less matter flows through the pipeline, the longer we have before it runs out.

While I agree that minimizing waste is important, I do have an objection to part of your description of economic growth.

>Now when we say that our economy grows exponentially, it means that the amount of matter traveling through this pipeline is growing exponentially too!

The relationship between economic growth and environmental damage is more complicated than this. Something like transitioning from fossil fuels to cheap renewables is both a case of economic growth, and a reduction waste matter. Similar principles might apply to everyone having an iPod instead of buying new CDs, miniaturization in computing, productive uses of what used to be considered waste, building mass transit infrastructure over cars, etc.

If you want to slow damage to the natural environment, I'm all for it, but if you aim to do that by slowing economic growth, rather than accepting slowed economic growth as a potential side-effect, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Economic growth often means more people can have better lives using fewer resources.

Bear in mind matter isn't the only component. Energy is another huge input to the system. E.g. blockchain and its derivatives use tiny amounts of matter to use enormous amounts of energy.

We can and must develop more environmentally responsible sources of matter and energy. Trying to change human behavior with our current regulatory controls have been demonstrably inadequate. There are sources of matter and energy that do not run out, I believe them to be in space.

>Now when we say that our economy grows exponentially, it means that the amount of matter traveling through this pipeline is growing exponentially too!

If there are people out there who buy phones by weight it is to buy phones that are thin and light, and therefore contains fewer materials.

I remember the phones of the early aughts. They were bigger and could only do phone things (and snake), which meant that you needed a computer, maybe a calculator, a form of MP3 player, a camera, maybe some DVDs to watch in the back of the car along with a DVD player to watch them on.

Today you have all of that in a phone.

> Today you have all of that in a phone.

But you replace them every two years. And the market for them is still growing. And there's now a resurgence of a market for single-purpose appliances that happens on top of the smartphone market - not replacing it.

(It's also possible more matter goes into making a modern smartphone than a bunch of devices it replaced, because of the demand for more exotic and more pure materials in the processes along the way. But maybe it doesn't, maybe an individual smartphone is a net matter and energy saver. I can totally buy that, we've made a lot of efficiency improvements in manufacturing in the past decades. But there are limits to such improvements, and in the meantime, manufacturing as a whole keeps growing.)

Perhaps I've simplified my diagram too much - I should've drawn an additional "bypass" into "WASTE MATTER" from every other node, because every step in the pipeline loses some of its input as waste.

I was merely making the observation that the growth of the value of something is not necessary a linear function of the amount of materials used. I am not convinced, as an example, that the first iPhone caused drastically more waste to produce (or drastically less) than the last one. Yet the last one is clearly much better.

I'm not saying it's a linear function either. I think it varies. But I also don't think the value added per unit of resources used is growing exponentially. So the problem still remains, because anything short of exponential function isn't going to impact the overall trend long-term.

>value added per unit of resources used is growing exponentially

I would love to see the amount of resources that are used to produced each iPhone, because I don't have a big issue assuming that each phone brings, say 3 or 4 percent more utility to its user than the previous model would have.

So, assuming the battery is the most dirty part of the phone, I found the battery size for all the iphone models[0] and even if we exclude the the large ones, the iPhone 11 has a 54 percent larger battery.

The phones were released in 2007 and 2019, 12 years and 3 months apart[1]. That works out to a growth of approximately 3.3%.

So my original assumption was wrong, there has been an exponential growth in materials that nearly matches GDP growth.

[0]: https://itigic.com/how-much-battery-does-an-iphone-have-capa...

[1]: https://www.knowyourmobile.com/phones/every-single-iphone-re...

> That's an important insight.

Say the world (after some unfortunate incident) turns into [say] something like Cuba? In just a few years no one will have a phone.

Apple maintains devices for more than five years, the devices themselves keep on working for far longer than that.

It’s got nothing to do with planned obsolescence, new devices get new features because technology makes those features possible.

You get non-serviceable devices because users want smaller, faster, better hardware. Any latches, connectors, or sockets are purely subtracting from battery life as that’s the only part of a phone that can be resized, and even that is subject to constraints.

Repairable/serviceable means by definition more expensive and worse feature set.

I understand this thread is about "repairability" of different product designs, and there are definitely arguments on both sides of that issue that are valid...

I just want to make sure you're not confusing "repairability" with Right to Repair... R2R is not asking for changes to product design - only that replacement parts and documentation are made available in a compulsory way.

How long should a company like apple that designs its own SoCs have to continue manufacturing replacement ones? That's not cheap - remember phones are only at the prices they are because they're manufactured in millions - how big do you think the market would be?

How long should production lines be kept producing out of date products?

Lots of open ended questions here that I'm not sure how to interpret the motivation for...

How long should a company like GM that designs its own engines have to continue manufacturing replacement ones? That's not cheap... (etc.)

Thinking about a mature market where we do have right to repair is a good test of these questions and helps reveal the hidden complexities. GM makes replacement parts for a while. A thriving non-OEM market persists long after the manufacturer ceases making more.

This is distinctly different from the status quo in Apple-land, where they prohibit partners like Texas Instruments from manufacturing or selling units to anyone but Apple.

Note also that there is no legislation in front of us with explicit terms set in stone here, so while your questions are good ones to consider when drafting such legislation, they should preclude a right to repair bill passing into law.

Automobile service uses non-OEM parts and recycled (junkyard) parts.

I have a 1965 and 1966 Mustangs. Original body panels are difficult to find, but I’ve not found any mechanical part that was the least bit difficult (aided by high-volume production and a lot of parts crossover up through the early 90s Fox body Mustangs).

If Apple would publish schematic, diagnostic software and allow refurbishing and selling of parts to third party - it will keep your iPhone water proof still.

The reality is this, when your device gets old or your screen cracks , Apple will offer to fix it for 70% of a new device price, so you are pushed to buy a new device. I hope this is not controversial and has nothing to do with the water proof preference you have.

You can already buy some replacement parts, like screens and backs. It doesn't seem like you can replace the motherboard, so that would be a fair point. I wouldn't objecting to coding this into law, but I'm not sure why your comment is implying this is not currently possible.

>some parts

Maybe things changed a bit but you could not buy screens or use refurbished ones. But all parts should be available for phones and laptops, including screens,batteries, chips, ports. Also there should be a way where parts from broken phones could be reused (I know the argument about stolen phones but competent Apple people can find a way to make it possible so we can reuse components from borken devices and not send them some far away to be "recycled" instead of reuse.

Apple has explicitly made replacement parts non-user-servicable at this point. It's called "serialization" and prevents even OEM parts (like a screen from a different iPhone) from being recognized by the phone. [1] This is the type of consumer un-friendly behavior that R2R seeks to defend against.

[1] https://www.ifixit.com/News/45921/is-this-the-end-of-the-rep...

Except for the battery I don’t think those things have ever really been user swappable though. The issue with water protection on phones I have worked on is that its hard to maintain when removing the screen because it tends to stick. I guess you could always buy a new gasket which is probably what the Apple store does.

You can have a replacable battery and be waterproof.

Ram isn’t separate, storage is soldered on, screens have security sensitive components built in (the Touch ID in modern android devices), etc

RAM and storage is usually integrated on phones. The battery is usually not something you can pull out anymore because people like me prefer phones that I can use to find my way in the rain without risk damaging the phone, but even so they are pretty easy to replace, the same with the screen.

On laptops you have a choice: buy a Thinkpad that is not an ultrabook, but even then you see people prefer thinner and lighter models than ones that are servicable.

How do you use your phone in the rain? Whenever I try, I find it's pretty much impossible, because the screen gets all wet and slippery, I can hardly see anything on it because of distortion through individual drops of rain, and I get spurious clicks from raindrops falling onto it. So I have to shield it under an umbrella or something...

And if I have to do that anyway, the phone being less than 100% watertight because the battery is swappable won't be a problem in the first place.

I only use it in the rain to look up maps and see directions or to quickly see a message and you are right that the distortions from the rain can make it hard to see, though I haven't had the issue of a slippery phone.

Maybe I am just paranoid, but I would like to know my phone doesn't die on me when it is exposed to rain.

> it'd rather treat devices as things that we lease for a low cost from a vertically-integrated company.

It's weird how you defend Corporations' private property while apparently disliking the idea of personal property.

It's weird how you read me describing the decisions of the market and attribute them to my opinion/preferences.

He probably missed the first t

This.

Sorry.

But if you had designed the English language better, not making "It" and "I" so similar, this wouldn't have happened.

I’m not sure he did design the English language.

Doesn't have to. It's not that much to ask to release documentation or code.

This article is a great example of how the market niche exists and there are plenty of other markets (motor vehicles, industrial equipment, the maker scene) where right to repair is the norm. I'd argue the maker scene is bigger than it's even been and still growing, hence the increased increase in right to repair.

Exact discrete components aren't important becuase your usb IC isn't any more special than another usb IC that follows the specification. Your laptop display isn't special versus the others that use the same internal displayport ribbon cable.

Market aside this is effectively corporations attempting to take a right/freedom away from the people. The market can treat devices however it likes but if it crosses a threshold then applying rules and regulations that restrict it's freedom isn't a new magical concept.

"Devices aren't built around discrete components anymore."

Your right about most electrical products. That is not the point though. (I know you were just commenting on this article, but I feel strongly over right to repair laws.)

I just want access to parts if they are available. I want access to repair information. I don't care how complicated a devise is--I want to see the factory repair diagrams. There is someone out there who can fab together a computer board if there's a demand for it.

If the company doesn't want to sell parts to consumers so be it, but release the information. Yes--trade secrets make it more difficult, but not impossible.

I would be content (now) with a huge sticker on every product that didn't want to give out information, or sell parts.

Something like, "If you buy this product, the minute the warrany ends, you are on your own. We don't provide any repair information (because you're too stupid to repair, or we are greedy), and never supply parts to anyone. We will never release repair information. So the minute the warranty ends, you will 99.99% of the time gave to buy a New product from us!".

I have a feeling after a few years, companies might put screws back in, and use a bit less epoxy? And poof--repair parts will be shipped overnight, and free?

O.K. right to repair movement is covering more than just electronics.

Like your watch you have on your wrist?

Rolex, and The Swatch Company (own mist watch brands)have pulled all third party parts accounts. Watch companies realized they could use Vertical integration, and "Quality assurance" to bring that watches back to the factory for repair, at factory prices.

I don't want to be in a perpetual lease when I buy a product.

Hardware is one thing. My sister has an iPhone 6 which will soon lose support from Apple and apps running on it. Why can't we install Linux on it and save us the e-waste as a bonus?

So, devices are built less around discrete components than they used to be, but there are still tons of discrete components in any given product, and these discrete components fail more often than you might realize. One common failure is failure of jacks/connectors--sometimes the solder joints get ripped out due to stress.

However, I think that you're basically right anyway... because when you pay Apple for a laptop repair, I think there's a good chance that they do a logic board replacement or something similar. The logic board itself is made of components and can be repaired, but it often isn't repaired, just replaced.

> Devices aren't built around discrete components anymore.

Huh. Thats news to me. A 0603 resistor is pretty much a discrete component to me. And if it is some other part of the assembly that breaks, the assembly it self is a discrete part (e.g. the microphone of your smartphone might be on a seperate flexboard that costs like 15 euros, which is a lot cheaper than buying a new one).

Yeah things got small. But that doesn't make things unfixable. Missing documentation, proprietary parts you cannot get, gluing in things in without reason, etc. are problems. The size is for the most part managable — and if it isn't, right to repair is also about you being able to go to some repair guy and having your stuff fixed instead of having some Apple employee tell you how you can only buy a new device, and loose all data because they won't even look at it properly. So in short this is about repairability in general.

And if you like to do it yourself, this is totally possible. Even my father managed to swap out that home button for his completely glued Samsung Galaxy S7 edge.

I teach (among other things) soldering at University. Most people can actually SMD solder if you show them how. A student who never soldered before swapped a usb port for an E-reader within an hour of me showing her.

They make a worthwhile distinction for ICT devices, which definitely have all those characteristics for miniaturisation. But that’s not the end of the right-to-repair story - glib example, but plenty of toasters end up in landfill, and there’s nothing complex or miniaturised about them. The market that delivers a new replacement for these things for a cost that is the same order of magnitude as a repair would be basically ensures that this will happen.

Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the documentation

For a short time in college I worked fixing stereos at a big-name electronics company's east coast repair facility. You could always tell the gear that people had tried to fix themselves before sending it back to us as a last resort. We didn't begrudge them trying on their own. In fact, it was encouraged because home repairs kept the cost of maintaining the repair facility down.

These days, since everything gets chucked in the garbage when it breaks, I guess that logic doesn't work anymore.

As an aside, the Commodore 64 didn't come with the schematics, but they were part of the Programmer's Reference Guide, which many people had, and could be bought in most bookstores.

Shameless plug: We're doing this with the MNT Reform laptop: https://mntre.com/reform2/handbook/schematics.html

There's also a print version of this book that is included with the assembled version of the device: https://shop.mntmn.com/products/mnt-reform-operator-handbook

This was in a very different era, when manufacturing was difficult and expensive. Having the schematic didn't necessarily get you anywhere. That's no longer the case - now the design is expensive but the manufacturing is cheap.

Can you articulate what that has to do with repairability?

For one thing, I think it's an important point to make when someone else makes the, "look how repairability has regressed since the golden era of getting the Apple II schematics in the box with the computer!". At the time, design was cheap. Why not give it to your customers? It's not like they're going to go out and make one themselves.

The fact that manufacturing is cheap now and schematics are not only the key to repairability but also counterfeit Chinese knock-offs is a problem worth understanding.

I think Americans are still largely clueless about how extensively the PRC has infiltrated the governments and companies of the world, and how much IP they have stolen. If they want it; they have it. Heck, my company is doing everything they can to prevent users from messing with our firmware, but we have to give all the keys to China to sell our products there. All they had to do was ask. There’s no need to make it hard for owners to get to.

I don't think this argument is related whether or not people should be able to source and repair the devices they own. R2R doesn't require redesign of products - only that parts and documentation should be made available so indie shops and DIYers can have the option.

This is as opposed to the status quo, where manufacturers like Apple and Samsung currently cause their phones to malfunction when replacing parts without proprietary software switches - even when those parts are OEM. [1]

[1] https://www.ifixit.com/News/45921/is-this-the-end-of-the-rep...

>The fact that manufacturing is cheap now and schematics are not only the key to repairability but also counterfeit Chinese knock-offs is a problem worth understanding.

I think you have a BIG misunderstanding here. The schematics do not include any Apple secrets, it is the repair schematic that is only high level stuff AND this schematics are already on the internet so China has it already (so honestly stop bringing the China argument here).

Is the same with diagnostic software, many companies only show you a error LED and you have to send the device to a repair person for that person to use the software and tell your the error message. Making the software(or the Google doc) available that translates and error code numbers into error messages will not make iPhones insecure or allow China to copy them (btw isn't iPhone already made in China> wtf is this About China FUD?, China's Apple factory must have much more info then only repair schematics )

Component level schematics should be freely available for all products. It's not like there are no schematics available for e.g. Macbooks. Third party repair shops use them all the time. It's just that they are not legally available.

I might entertain the argument that you don't want to show all internal details of your 6 layer PCB but those are also not necessary for repair. Just hand out the component level schematics.

a lot of consumer electronics are a bunch of strung together reference implementations. the schematic isn't really the secret sauce, especially since with a soldering iron, a multimeter (and maybe an lcr meter) and time, you could completely recreate it without difficulty. not practical for a repair shop's level of income/device, but if you wanted to steal a design, you could easily do this

While going through my father’s things after he passed away, I found there instructions for an old television that included the full schematic for the device. If something was malfunctioning, and you were willing, you could fix it.

For a 15 year old e-reader I found the repair manual online, which contained a full schematic. For a more recently released e-reader from the same company, the repair manual simply has a disassembly step-by-step. I can only imagine the company found it not worth the effort for technicians to actually repair anything.

That would amount to saying that we in Europe can't use any technology that is less than what 20 years old?

You can't even replace an Intel CPU with an AMD one unless your motherboard supports both. Good luck finding a modern laptop with a socketed CPU.

I get where you are coming from, and it would be nice not to be locked down to one vendor, but the cost to enable that is so high as to be not worth it.

I would rather the manufactures have to state their support up front and then you know what you buy when you buy it.

I see a good intention behind it, but it only works only if only honest people and companies exist. It’s not the case in real world.

What would prevent a competitor simply copying the whole product and offering a cheaper price because they didn’t have to invest in R&D, and those engineers who spent many years working on a finished schematics will be out of job because the company won’t be able to make a living selling more expensive products?

Patents and reputation aka trade marks. Speakers for example are extremely well understood technology yet premium speakers are still a thing.

Speakers and computer components are great examples of where companies provide less tangible benifits in quality control and customer support.

What would prevent a competitor simply copying the whole product and offering a cheaper price

Whatever it was that kept this from happening from the advent of electronics up to the invention of the smartphone.

This isn't a totally unreasonable position to take, but in some cases "whatever it was that kept this from happening before" really is nothing more than "nobody had thought of it yet".

there is a big big difference between a schematic that will aid people in repairs and ones that are used to manufacture the boards...and no one fighting for right to repair is asking for that anyways

system76 talks about this in this interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGle6z9KfZQ

Nor is anybody asking for mask files for ICs, just that they be available for purchase at a reasonable price. Stuff like Apple getting proprietary charging ICs from Intersil that nobody else can buy to replace a defective one is unethical at best.

You're basically arguing for IP protection via obscurity/complexity, but I assure you that anyone who wants to clone tech products at industrial scale can already do so today. This just gives repair documentation and parts availability to independent repair shops and DIYers...

I wonder how big the manual would have to be for a smartphone with the equivalent of those old stereo diagrams.

Maybe not that big, unfortunately a lot of the connections will end up going to that SoC that does most of the work and is probably obsolete by the time you want to repair it.

Look up board view files. Those are the kinds of schematics people are talking about. Louis Rossman uses them on his Youtube channel to do board level repairs of Macs and iOS devices.

They are not all you need copy a device outright, contrary to what some people in the comments think. But they are sufficient for you to track down faulty components and de-solder them.

Can't you do that without imposing it on everyone else?

I care about consumption (I'm on my 2nd laptop since ~2003), but I don't particularly want to pay $15,000 to replace this one with one that is worse.

One electronic device from the 70s doesn’t support the statement “Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the documentation.”

Be careful.

My dad replaced a defective memory chip on his IBM PC XT.. but the computer cost the equivalent of $12k.

I’d rather throw away a dozen modern laptops than fix one that costs 10x.

You can replace the memory and storage on just about every desktop computer today that isn't made by Apple, and a decent fraction of laptops.

They do not cost 10x as much as devices with soldered RAM and SSDs.

Your comparison does not work. Replaceable parts didn't make that IBM cost what it did.

Yes it did. Computers became cheaper because more and more functionality can simply be combined on single chips. You can not replace parts of broken chips at home.

Look into Apple's M1.

Average spend on a computer hasn't gone down recently. In the era when it actually did go down it was because volume and reliability went up, and cost of manufacturing went down as process improved.

Phones have been system on a chip since the dawn of the era of the smartphone and few computers are. The difference between repairable and not is the difference between glue and screws and sockets vs solder. You have basically misunderstood everything.

Average spend has of course gone down - you can get the same computer you would have gotten 10 years ago for a lot cheaper now.

Computers have gotten a lot faster, that is why "spend" has kept up.

And you seem to suggest that early smartphones were already as fast as an M1, because they were "systems on a chip". That is not the case. Not all SoCs are the same, more and more things have been integrated over time.

And sockets take up space, making for thicker smartphones. People don't actually want that.

You said computers not phones. More power for less money is massively overwhelmingly driven by being able to fit more transistors in the same size wafer due to modern processes not integration as you suggest.

>And you seem to suggest that early smartphones were already as fast as an M1, because they were "systems on a chip"

I never suggested anything of the sort. My point is that smartphones have always been integrated and computers have usually been more discrete. You said the drop in price or increase in value for money has to do with integration. This doesn't appear to be correct because computers have been party to this without largely being integrated in the fashion you suggest.

You brought up smartphones for comparison.

The M1 is so fast and efficient because it combines even more stuff on a single chip.

I'm not talking about replacing a memory module. I'm talking about replacing a defective 4Kb memory chip on a $1000+, 384Kb ISA card.

When I built PCs in the late 90s, the BOM included motherboard, cpu, graphics card, sound card, nic, sometimes a parallel port board, memory, hard disk, etc. At this point, it was only really feasible to repair modules that failed, few humans with the skill to replace a component would do so due to the economies of scale and cheap price.

Now, it's motherboard, cpu, memory, disk. The cost is much less, but most repairs are replacements of the mainboard or disk.

For most laptops, there's a tiny motherboard with most of the functionality integrated into a few modules. The only things that get repaired are memory and battery.

For the M1 Macbook, you have one of the highest performance devices on the market selling for $899 at 40-50% margin. I just bought similar Dell and HP units in quantities over 50,000 last fall for $100-150 less (probably 6-8% margin to the OEM), with inferior battery life, disk and cpu.

You seem to believe this specific example where you are literally making up the non public profit margin proves that for the entire class of consumer laptops making non serviceable parts greatly decreases the cost. First it was an hyperbolic 10x and now it decreases costs by half. All examples are not only fictional misuse of both real and hypothetical numbers they say nothing much about the entire class of things.

The M1 is a fresh design on a new iteration of an arch by very smart people and its likely that there are far more factors at play than presence or absence of sockets in terms of determining profitability.

What we are trying to do is determine all things being equal how much cheaper can the same machine be with and without replaceable parts. I don't have any numbers either but I strong doubt its 2-10x cheaper.

I'd rather repair it myself, or be able to take it to someone local with particular expertise. What's important is that we have a choice!

>Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the documentation.

Nearly every electronic device I bought in the 1970s did not have included schematics. TI-55, Pong console, digital watches, Speak'n'Spell, transistor radios, Mattell football and baseball handhelds, Simon... and on and on.

Nearly everything then was also not easily repairable, and certainly not by an average consumer.

Open up that old transistor radio and you will usually find a tiny printed schematic diagram affixed to the inside of the removable cover.

Nope :) As a kid taking everything apart, and as an adult collecting some old gadgets I had as kid, there is generally no such thing. I just listed quite a few gadgets that definitely do not have schematics glued inside.

> Nearly everything then was also not easily repairable, and certainly not by an average consumer.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone's saying that "an average consumer" in the terms of "I can't tell the difference between a hammer and a soldering iron" should be able to repair their devices.

But I think that if the consumer can demonstrate some minimum level of interest (education, certification, or at least competence) then they absolutely should be able to repair devices they own.

And, further, that owning devices and software should be the default and normal thing. The trend today of renting/leasing things is clearly anti-consumer.

> Nearly everything then was also not easily repairable, and certainly not by an average consumer.

Sure, but repair shops could exist that would specialize in doing all sorts of repairs.

As they do now. I know a few people that repair most all modern phones and iPads and other gadgets for a living.

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