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Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

Right-to-Repair is such a wonderful idea stained by people such as Rossmann IMO. Contrast this with EFF and iFixit's approach and contribution to this movement.

> Sometimes abuse and badness are necessary

Sure, but we tend to only support this argument as far as it echoes in our echo chambers. We've silenced right-wing social media and a bunch of other "abuse and badness" and HN gives a green ticket to it. Some of it is truly horrifying, but there was a lot of collateral damage to freedom of expression and speech.

I don't support badness and abuse. Protesting for a cause is more about gaining support for the cause and convincing people that are against it. It is a "pull" model, not "push". By pushing harder, you're creating more echo chambers of vile, contemptful vigilente justice damaging the original cause and making no progress at it. Self defeating.

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You're using an awful lot of adjectives but so far, no concrete examples. What specific statements has Rossmann made that could be genuinely construed as "vile, contemptful vigilante justice"?

I also completely disagree that we should ever sugercoat our language when addressing practices that have clear malice and greed behind them. Prioritising the feelings of some millionaire/billionaire shareholder over the thousands to millions of customers being exploited and short-changed smells of messed up priorities frankly.

The only people this approach genuinely "pushes" away are a group that you cannot expect to act in good faith in the first place - the companies deliberately obstructing the right to repair. You don't ask them nicely to do something they have zero profit motivation towards. You force them by enacting legislation or creating enough of a backlash that they calculate that supporting Right to Repair is better for their bottom line.

> The only people this approach genuinely "pushes" away are a group that you cannot expect to act in good faith in the first place - the companies deliberately obstructing the right to repair.

This is true, fair enough. The incentives aren't aligned here for big corporations. My points about protesting were more generic and beyond R2R initiative. You make good points that being nice to large corporations isn't going to achieve anything. But, would getting angry do anything? I am not quite convinced because regular Joe is going to buy that shiny piece of unrepairable equipment. We're just so used to throw-away culture, problem is much deeper. Both - businesses as well as consumers are to blame. Unfortunately, the slice of consumers that care about R2R is vanishingly small.

Lobbying and putting political pressure on local representatives is definitely a few steps above merely "getting angry". The angle that is going to make the average consumer care about R2R inevitably involves fostering righteous outrage. The enemy of enacting effective change is not anger, it's apathy.

I also don't buy that consumers are really to blame for this anymore than somebody born in a society that believes in the divine rights of kings is to blame for being a monarchist. Corporations and their friends in media and government influence or outright manufacture the overwhelming majority of the culture that is projected onto people. Is it really a surprise then that most people have internalised the precise world view and expectations of their purchases that is convenient to companies?

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