I agree, right to repair is a difficult thing. Technically I can repair my own car, but realistically I will take it to a shop because owning or renting all the tools required to even replace a tire from a rim is way too high.
The question is if you can take your car to an independent repair shop and do they have access to tools, repair manuals and original parts? Today, independent shops often don't have access to genuine parts and the manufacturers don't make them available on purpose so that only they can do the repair at much higher prices.
Right to repair isn't necessarily about doing the work yourself.
There're plenty of perfectly serviceable cars. You might be too rich to care about it, but I live in a third-world country and there're lots of people who do self-service for some repairs and procedures. It's not hard and it doesn't require costly tools. Especially with modern resources when you can download service manuals and watch youtube videos its easier than ever. You only need a will (or necessity).
Note that many new cars these days don't come with any tools at all. And spare tires are an expensive optional extra that don't always come with the tools anymore.
I’ve tried it. It’s a lot of work, but it can be done without expensive tools.
This is also what is probably at the core of all this right to repair stuff: there are definitely some anti-consumer practises but in reality people might be too busy with other things to fiddle around with their products when someone else could be doing it instead (or they might simply prefer it and shift any blame and quality control to a third party while they are at it).
Even for really simplistic things like changing a light bulb in a car people just can't seem to be bothered.
I also know that "a lot of work" doesn't even begin to describe it if I'm doing it on my garage floor with tire irons. If you're low on money and without other options, by all means, give it a go. But if $100 isn't the difference between your kids eating or not, save yourself a fuck-ton of grief (as well as half a Saturday) and just go get those new skins put on at a shop where they have big air-driven machines that will spoon those things on in mere seconds. Back in my pro days, myself and a helper timed ourselves from the time the car pulled into the bay until it hit the ground with four new tires: nine minutes. I probably can't get a single wheel off my car from a cold start in nine minutes.
So, yeah, it can be done. But you don't want to do it.
Those days are probably behind me though.
OTOH, it's a handy skill to have when you're in the Yukon by the side of the road with an unpluggable tire, and 100 miles from civilization.
A lot of car tools are specialty tools than can only be used on other cars. And they are big because cars are big. It is hard for a library to stock some of these tools, too. People often have a few car tools, though: A jack, wrenches, and things like that. You know, the ones that are easier to store in an apartment closet and can be used for other things. Some libraries rent these.
Phone tools are closer to the car tools that people have. Even small libraries can rent them and you can store them in your desk. You'll probably be able to use some on other electronics or at least other phones. You'll probably let family borrow them. Some of the tools are already affordable, too. The things you can't do, you can pay someone for. And they can probably work out of a kiosk.
I'd actually argue that right to repair is hard, though - just not for the reasons stated. It is easier to unscrew something than to unglue it. We don't design for ease repairs. Ease of manufacturing has been winning out.
They've demonstrably gone to insane lengths to figure out how to manufacture things better for use but impossible to make at scale before they figured it out. Then they teach suppliers those methods.
Eventually others benefit too.
Apple said it was the exact same tools their repair technicians use, and offered all the tools for a $49 rental (which, honestly, probably doesn't even cover shipping for 77 lbs. of equipment). The Verge, iFixit, Ars Technica, and others claimed Apple deliberately designed and priced their repair program to make self-service repair not worth it, even if there wasn't the part serialization.
Which... what malarkey. Of course repairs are cheaper when you don't need to rent the toolkit every time and can reuse tools. According to Apple, the parts are the same cost the Apple Stores and their repair partners get, and according to congressional testimony this is not a profitable program, so what do you expect? Apple to sell parts publicly for cheaper than they get themselves? Do you want Apple to send you the repair tools for free and have cheaper parts? That's what they were saying - the parts should be cheaper and the tools should be less complicated even though that is what Apple literally uses. You think Apple repairs screens with guitar picks and are upset Apple doesn't ship those instead? It was really disappointing.
Imagine if Apple was a car company. They wanted the ability to repair their cars, so Apple agreed to loan them for $249 hundreds of pounds of equipment for repairing just about anything on their cars. Then imagine if people cried this made car repair too complicated by design. Right to Repair does not encompass right to simple, idiot-proof, no-tools repair.
Fairphone for example does a great job showing us what what would look like.
But this is the criticism I have with Apple's program. Technically they comply here but not in spirit. It's clear to me they don't actually want this to happen. They didn't invent pentalobe because it looks cool like a little flower. But to keep people out.
Of course existing products can't be improved but upcoming products should take be easier to repair.
Pay attention carefully and watch different videos about what R2R means. There's a significant schism in the R2R movement over whether R2R means repairable design or not. The most successful branch legislatively (New York, Rossmann, EU proposals) says that it does not include repairable design; and that Right to Repair only encompasses the right to have manuals and parts, not that the manufacturer has to make specific design choices (other than, like, USB-C but that's not repair-related).
Edit: Another issue that comes up is how granular is a "part". Louis Rossmann sees a part as being on the level of a specific microchip and is upset he can't order parts at that level of granularity. Apple, and other R2R activists, view a part as a much larger finished item, such as a PCB or a Battery (rather than, say, the specific resistor on the inside of a Battery). Legislators for R2R in EU currently are trying to define R2R as being "if the manufacturer sells a part, they must sell it to everyone," not "the manufacturer must individually sell all pieces of a product until they are no longer divisible" - but the Louis Rossmann crowd views as being insufficient R2R. So... another loose R2R schism.
In fact, I would propose this kind of ambiguous slogan has, as a memetic advantage over more well -defined ideas, precisely because of this "broad appeal" which is actually the broad appeal of a slogan, not a policy.
When I don't have schematics and boardviews, I have to spend time generating them in my head.
I don't do videos. If someone actually takes the time to write it down I'll read it :)
But for me right to repair simply doesn't work when the design itself is repair-hostile like Apple's.
Rossman appears to want the same as you say the EU want, the actual manufacturer to sell parts freely rather than being locked up by that manufacturer's downstream buyers (eg Apple) preventing repairers like Rossman from going to the chip factory to get the supplies to do repairs, in the same way that Apple go to the factory to get supplies when manufacturing boards, etc.
Which is to say that it makes a trade off of improved repairability by sacrificing water resistance and battery life compared to Apple’s phones. TANSTAAFL
For example Samsung's XCover series can be opened, have removable batteries and are waterproof. It's a matter of priorities, waterproofing just wasn't one for Fairphone.
I know XCover isn't meant to be repairable as such but it's obviously a lot more repairable than a glued up phone.
I prefer indestructible and long lasting devices-as-tools. I want more appliances, fewer janky assemblies of parts more likely to fall apart or fail me when I need them most.
Put another way, the goal is not "easier to repair", the goal is net fewer devices requiring repair, net fewer repairs.
One of those is actually better for the environment than the other, and it's not the one that churns through parts for people who want to repair or tosses more devices in the trash for people who prefer to just buy a new one.
The thing that's good for the planet is devices that last. That's the goal.
TL;DR:
If you want to legislate something, legislate lifetime warranties.
But rugged devices are generally much more easily disassembled and often even have replaceable batteries. Like Xcovers. We use them in work and they can be easily taken apart with torx screws, battery replaced etc, all while being much more rugged than normal phones and waterproof.
The only reason I don't really use them is that Samsung keeps putting midrange CPUs and mediocre LCD screens in them. I really wish the S-active range was still around. The last one was the S8 active sadly.
But these things don't have to be mutually exclusive at all.
> The thing that's good for the planet is devices that last. That's the goal.
That's your goal. Not mine. Upgradability for example makes devices last longer. Having the user decide what is repairable instead of a company also.
> If you want to legislate something, legislate lifetime warranties.
Lifetime limited warranties is what this will turn out to be.
There's no point in a lifetime warranty if a supplier can simply refuse it because there's an unrelated scratch on the side so they can claim it to be user damage.
I don't think trusting corporations is ever the answer.
Users do not know better.
As soon as you have aftermarket repairs, next thing you know, users are suing makers because some aftermarket nonsense burned a hole in their leg, or more recently, because their entire multi-family dwelling burned down.
It's been interesting how fast the same places passing laws giving right to repair pass jump to pass laws that you can't use repaired things so people don't die.
Those poor companies. Give them a few wrongful lawsuits and they fall over. /s
If only it were so simple to bring companies down. I think the odds are heavily against something like this being a big issue. Companies have more money to prove you wrong and also pay better lawyers to present proof. Sure, there could be a few of such cases. But they probably happen anyways.
That said, you sure can "fix" your John Deere easier to increase the horsepower while also unlawfully increasing exhaust fumes. But this is an individual issue then, not the problem of the company (John Deere). Right to repair does make some things more tricky. But the payoff is worth it imho.
Tell me how Apple not doing that shit would make the slightest iota of difference to their ability to make devices that last?
How would them not attacking 3rd party repairers make a difference.
Why not mandated warranties and repairability?
Would FairPhone would even remotely be so robust?
Many iPhone owners will not have a credit card (especially in Europe), let alone a credit card with a credit limit capable of holding thousands of dollars even if it's temporary. It's also a risk some people on lower incomes simply will not want to take. The tools Apple send are so over-engineered for the task at hand, the replacement value is enormous relative to the task.
> https://www.selfservicerepair.com/tool-kit-rental
When NYT tried, 49 dollar rental fee, 1210 dollar hold. 1210 dollar CC hold just to replace a battery is crazy when independent stores across the USA do it with third party tools costing a fraction of this just fine every day. Apple's right to repair efforts arguably verges on a parody of a right to repair at times - cellphones should not need a holding deposit significantly larger than renting a car for the same period of time to replace a $79 battery. If Apple's motivations are genuine, the full replacement hold could arguably become a lower insurance hold fee just like a car rental often does.
If you want to look to a company renting for 7 days expensive, heavy, complex technical equipment - I think lensrentals.com does a great job renting equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars and Apple's repair program could learn a lot.
> https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/technology/personaltech/a....
I would certainly replace the battery on my own, though. Well, maybe: getting a new battery home without the use of my car might be so annoying that it would probably be easier to just get a tow to a mechanic (or get someone to jump it and then drive to the mechanic). And again I'd have to deal with disposing of the old battery on my own: again, annoying and costly.