New EU-wide product repair rules come into force

You'd probably also get things like TVs with very basic software at import, with much better software available for people willing to obtain it outside the EU.

What I know off the top of my head, from reading the legislation a while ago. Is that technical reasons, such as waterproof devices, will still be able to retain non user replaceable batteries if it is needed to keep the device waterproof.

Eh, what are you proposing? That these new regulations should cover +10 year old devices too?

Similarly I still have an iPhone with a lightning port instead of the legally mandated USB-C port, but at no point was I expecting Apple to somehow change the ports of existing devices.

Might help you get some more use out of it, thanks to the DMA :-)

Like just a few years ago it became impossible to run 32bit windows which effectively killed all OS software updates for hardware older than ~2005. Most application software followed.

On the Linux they just dropped support for the 486 and older versions of the kernel will likely still get security updates for a while.

The 10 year old iPad is still a perfectly capable device, but it suffers from the lack of an updated operating system and enough storage to apply a would be update. There are millions of people for whom an iPad is all the computing they'd ever need (many just use their phone as well), but the larger screen makes it a good option of online shopping, banking, emails, government documents, calendar and appointment booking. The price is reasonable, but it doesn't need to replace every three to five years to serve that purpose. Arguably I don't know how Apple would make money on it long term, but the lack of update should count against them in terms of their environmental image.

Apple is far from the worst, their phones updates for a long time, longer than most. Their laptops equally so. The iPad is very disappointing, because even if they issue an OS update, not all the devices can apply it, because of the lack of storage. Still better than my wife's old Samsung phone that was unable to apply any operating system update ever, because the storage was to limited.

However, any Kindle books they have already downloaded to that Kindle will continue to work, and can be backed up and restored to a desktop computer over USB.

Also any Kindle books they bought for that Kindle when Amazon allowed downloading to desktop for later USB loading can still be loaded that way.

Finally, it still works for non-DRM books from other sources. It is essentially now like a non-Kindle ebook reader that also happens to be able to read the set of Kindle books you already have.

Oh, and you also have to avoid doing a factory reset or deregistering the Kindle. It will then lose the ability to read Kindle books, making it even more like a non-Kindle ebook reader.

You might not be totally screwed out of your Kindle books even then. We are talking about devices that were introduced in 2012 or earlier and last sold new in September 2014.

Amazon only succeeded in hardening their DRM to the point that DRM removal tools don't work for most people in the last couple of years or so. That means there is a good chance that the Kindle books of most of the affected users have reasonably breakable DRM.

There are some things that might have happened since they bought the books that updated the DRM on their copies, but if you just downloaded the books, and only later moved them off and on via USB (manually or with something like Calibre) to manage space on the device, and did not also read them in the Amazon desktop Kindle app then they are almost certainly still using the original DRM and that can easily be stripped.

Helsinki (for one) needs some real repair cafés.

> Manufacturers must also provide [...] access to spare parts at a reasonable price.

This is the important part. Stupid shit like 0.3€ soldering buttons to 200€ motherboards so the repair is expensive has got to go.

Nevertheless, the point is not the electronic toothbrush, but rather the "BIG" stuff that costs much and it's creating a lot of garbage.

A 1200 euro TV that breaks after 5 years - are you willing to buy a new one just because?

Once you have that infrastructure in place, eventually also the "smaller" things will be cheaper to replace.

Down the road, if we make it, we will have access to funds for a few roles that maintain spare parts and a repair (more likely replace/refurb) department, that will coordinate with our manufacturing houses.

None of this blocks innovation or velocity for early stage startups. Unless you have more concrete examples I'm somehow missing?

If your hardware start-up was going to tell me to buy a new product if it broke after a year, then I've no problem if it doesn't get going in the EU.

We don't need more cheap tat, we need things that can have a reasonable shelf life. We used to expect that from products as standard. Then when more things became electronic, it started to drift into obsolence after X years.

But there's so many products that don't need to be replaced. I don't need a state-of-the-art pedometer or weighing scales, I just need one that does the job it did when I bought it.