Consumers aren't the issue. Consumer support for right to repair is broad. The issue is the government doesn't give a shit what consumers think the vast majority of the time, they're bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists.
Btw, having a garden with growing vegetables and fruits is perfect for reduce resource consumption.
In the modern world, with no animals and insects, but full of invasive species, you will find this endevour quiet difficult.
Problem is, when stupid design and bad quality of making product steps in. I would like to buy a pair of shoes or smartphone that last ages and are repairable. Usually those products are thrown away because of one faulty piece that is impossible to change for new one that would fix whole product.
This just isn't true, as long as there's repair shops out with a sizable customer base. The issue is companies do everything in their power to make it impossible for that service to exist. It also largely depends on the economy; If the economy is great, people throw their old stuff away and buy new stuff. If money is tight, they repair it, and if there's an economic collapse they let it stay broken. I wonder where we are?
Unfortunately, it depends on the mentality. My well off friends often pay good money up front to buy the latest and hold onto a device(smartphone, laptop, sometimes tablets etc.) for 5-7 years.
My less well off or broke friends show the opposite, they often go out of their way to take debt(contracts, installments, pay later etc.) and continue upgrading to latest phone/watch/tablet/fitness tracker every year. It feels like that there is some kind of overcompensation combined with FOMO involved.
I don’t want to generalise this, but I had known probably a sub three figure people from my childhood and have seen this same behavior repeated always.
One of my friend in marketing told me that, people buy dreams, and hope that a new dream will help them forget the nightmares/problems, hence all adverts often include happy smiling beautiful people or conveys some form of freedom, prestige, social status …
Just a thought.
I don't see a problem with making rules for companies to follow. We have a rules that say companies can't advertise nicotine to children or put lead in gasoline. If the rule is good, it should be around.
That being said, I get an even bigger endorphin hit from knowing that people can (mostly) buy whatever they want, even if stupid, unnecessary and wasteful by my criteria.
Sure, but when companies can all collectively decide that they're only going do one thing, you either stop consuming entirely or put up with the abuse.
> Why should government need to step in
Because companies won't do it on their own.
> what is government going to do?
Write right to repair legislature. None of these are difficult problems, you just seem to have a libertarian mindset which inevitably means you just play defense for corporations doing whatever they want.