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The Only, Lonely Protester at CES (Video)
CES is not a political show, so it only drew one visible protester: Kelly Chong, who is mad at camera manufacturers for (he says) destroying his camera repair business. He managed to get mentioned in Forbes, in an article headlined CES: One Man's Protest Against The World's Camera Makers. And now he's getting three minutes and five seconds of fame on Slashdot. Is his protest justified? According to a 2012 article headlined How Nikon Is Killing Camera Repair, at least one major camera manufacturer now refuses to sell parts to independent repair shops. So Kelly Chong seems to have a legitimate beef. Will anyone listen to him? Will major, multinational camera manufacturers start selling parts to independent repair people again? And what about those of us who do (at least some of) our own repairs? Labor charges aside, it's often lots faster and easier to do a simple repair yourself than to box your camera up and send it somewhere, not to mention the waiting time for it to get back to you.
Back in your place, consumers. You barely even own what you own, much less have any right to fix it or pay someone else to fix it.
The economy of America will collapse unless you keep buying brand new stuff constantly. You don't want that, do you? Are you some kind of terrorist?
As a member of a large professional camera repair society (SPT), I can firmly say: f*** Nikon. Chong's point is entirely valid. Sadly enough, as a photographer, I love Nikon's DSLRs but I can't support them due to their policy towards independent shops.
CES is not a political show
Wow. Set off my bullshit detector in the first sentence.
Former President Bill Clinton pushes for stricter gun control during Consumer Electronics Show speech
I suspect we witness here a case of a political view, and even a politician, that is considered so mainstream that they no longer suffer the "political" qualification.
Just for the record, any "show" that has Bill Clinton as a featured speaker is political.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
No: this is a completely different issue, it is not about new tech make old tech obsolete. It is as if you could only have your horses shod at a few ''approved'' farriers. Supply & demand would mean that these farriers could charge a lot of money ... but to become approved they need to pay bribes\h\h\h\h\h\h 'approval & training fees' to a central body.
Here is the link for the petition, if anyone feels inclined in wasting some time.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
To not do so is called abuse of monopoly, it is anti competitive. It pushed up maintainance prices, these prices are, generally, not considered when buying a new camera. Hopefully: in a few years NiKon cameras will have aquired a bad reputation for high maintainace and no one will buy them.
Before anyone says: Nikon do not have a monopoly in selling cameras, they just are trying to get one when it comes to maintaining them - by tying repair shops to them & presumably charging large approval fees.
Remember, a manufacturer, unless obligated by law, does not have to provide anything post-sale unless they've stated that they will.
Would like to watch when car manufacturers (all at the same time, sure) will start to follow NIKON'S policy.
CC.
They already kind of are. You can get more details here, at the Right to Repair coalition:
http://www.righttorepair.org/
Basically, various companies have realized that they can charge dealers exorbitant fees for diagnostic equipment if they make said diagnostics proprietary trade secrets, and then the dealers will have to funnel the costs to the consumer -- which is fine, because the dealers are the only place in town to get the cars repaired at. It's gotten so bad that I've even seen proprietary light bulbs for some vehicles.
Who really needs a TV that will never be moved to be less than an inch thick?
Well, to show that I paid my "taxes" this year and replaced my 3cm thick TV with a 2.4cm one (same screen size).
Since actual innovation is expensive and in some cases slow (TVs are currently limited to HD, because the signal is limited to HD) the manufacturer resorts o changing the appearance of the device so the consumers can throw away the old one and buy new.
We really need to impose a tax on manufacturers to encourage them to design repairability into their products. I suppose availability of service parts would be another input to the formula for this.
Make the manufacturer responsible for recycling the thrown away device and charge an additional tax for that so that it becomes more economical to design the device to last (or be repaired). And extend the mandatory warranty to 5 years for devices that are more expensive than, say, 100EUR...
And then someone else will then be boycotting you for wearing animal skins.
And what if car companies also took up the same idea. No independent repair shops, and higher prices for all repairs.
Actually, with cars the manufacturers do engage in this sort of kill-off-competing-repair-shops behavior, but not by limiting availability of parts; instead, they make the highly-specialized tools necessary to install the parts available only through the dealerships, who refuse to sell the tools to anyone.
Source: I am, among other things, an auto mechanic.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
on a Nikon d200. For starters, he did top notch service and was in constant contact with me the entire time. He apologized for the delay as he had to source parts from Canada.
Camera works great now (bad CF slot) and I can't tell it was ever taken apart.
I understand his POV, and shame on Nikon for making him protest.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Sounds like Nikon is in violation of the law, at least if they are selling products in California.
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