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On iFixit and the Right To Repair (vice.com)
Jason Koebler writes: Motherboard sent a reporter to the Electronics Reuse Convention in New Orleans to investigate the important but threatened world of smartphone and electronics repair. As manufacturers start using proprietary screws, offer phone lease programs and use copyright law to threaten repair professionals, the right-to-repair is under more threat than ever. "That Apple and other electronics manufacturers don't sell repair parts to consumers or write service manuals for them isn't just annoying, it's an environmental disaster, [iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens] says. Recent shifts to proprietary screws, the ever-present threat of legal action under a trainwreck of a copyright law, and an antagonistic relationship with third-party repair shops shows that the anti-repair culture at major manufacturers isn't based on negligence or naiveté, it's malicious."
But if you own something, you have all legal rights to not just repair but to modify as well. The most the manufacturers should be able to do is cancel the warranty on modification.
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If my Samsung falls out of my pocket and breaks and it cannot be fixed, the one thing I'm not going to do is buy another Samsung. Market forces will solve this problem if we let them.
Dumbass Americans only care about eating more food, getting more fat, going to doctors for their fatass lifestyle diseases, complaining about the cost of food, driving their SUVs while never driving off-road or hauling cargo or carrying lots of passengers and complaining about the price of gas, voting for one party that wants to fuck up the nation or the other party that wants to fuck up the nation when they could write-in sane candidates, drowing themselves in shallow moronic soul-less meaningless popular culture and pretending like it's deep and profound, buying shit they don't need with borrowed money they don't have (America has a NEGATIVE average savings index, not that most Americans know what a savings index is), and believing every lying word of propaganda and manipulation that comes from their bought-and-paid-for government and their bought-and-paid-for mass media and following stupid moronic trends while operating general-purpose machines they don't even try to understand or secure so they can post trivial minutia about their pathetic little lives to be read by fellow jackass Americans who don't care.
... these are not rational actors.
The "market forces" only work when you have rational actors acting in their own best interests. Maybe *you* wouldn't buy another (example) Samsung in that case, but I assure you, the 350-pound assholes driving their big-ass SUVs they bought with five or six year car loans so they owe more than it's worth so they can tailgate in the slow lane, so they can work a job they hate, and vote for lying sociopathic sacks of shit while complaining that nothing ever changes, while being careful never to know anything about other people in other nations or other cultures because they're provincial douchebags, let alone ever thinking of other people ever as their lard asses congregate around narrow doorways and other shares public spaces because no one else matters, well
They can't even manage their own waistline. You think they can understand a market? No way in hell. They've been fattened up and dumbed down and somehow they're proud of it. That's the amazing part.
Fair enough, but does not solve the problem. I should be able to have the device repaired, not disposed of.
Not quite as self-serving as a company that makes a product that's prone to breakage and cannot be repaired.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Doesn't it seem to be a bit self-serving for a repair company to complain that things need to be more repairable?
I care first and foremost about: are they telling the truth and do they have a point? As a distant second I might think about their motivation.
Usually, any concerns about a cynical motivation are used to explain a falsehood. It's not as common as it should be, but sometimes, people actually do build a profitable (and thus, self-serving) business around a good idea that really fulfills a legitimate need.
Please consider: if this company can repair your phone, there is also at least a slim chance that you can repair your phone yourself. This is a case where your interests could (should?) align with theirs. I mean really, proprietary screws? That's just plain asinine. There is no legitimate reason to do that. It deserves to be called out publically.
By self serving I presume you mean looking to make a living. This selfishness will benefit the world by keeping hardware from being smelted in Africa by 7 year old kids on open fires fueled by old CRT casings.
I'm fine with a craftsman eking out a living fixing things that are broken that the manufacturer has no interest in repairing.
Similar legislature was enacted in the auto repair industry. Would you prefer to be forced to go to the dealer for any sort of repair? Or would you prefer to save yourself a good amount of money.
Here is a repair scenario that you forgot:
You buy a phone, and like it. You use it. A lot. Over the course of using it, the usb charging port starts to become intermittent. It's a part whose value is $.50 or less, but if it can't be repaired, you have to throw the whole phone away. What a waste of money!
Another one:
The battery in your phone is no longer holding a useful amount of energy to power the phone all day. You could replace the battery and bring the whole phone back to "like-new" condition, but the manufacturer has glued the case together. This is the malicious intent: The manufacturer *KNEW* that the battery would not last forever, and still welded the case shut. You would not stand for this if it were your car.
The battery in your phone is no longer holding a useful amount of energy to power the phone all day. You could replace the battery and bring the whole phone back to "like-new" condition, but the manufacturer has glued the case together. This is the malicious intent: The manufacturer *KNEW* that the battery would not last forever, and still welded the case shut. You would not stand for this if it were your car.
I really don't like defending cell phone companies, but I have to play devil's advocate on this one. Gluing all the components together may be the only, or most cost effective, way of giving the phone enough structural integrity to not bend when put in your pocket. These things are /always/ malicious, sometimes it is a really engineering problem that needs to be solved in a way that balances the different things the consumer wants.
Did you intend to write "these things are NOT /always/ malicious"?
Anyways, with the wide variety of fasteners, case designs and manufacturing techniques, all of which are a small fraction of the total cost of a smartphone, to suggest that this really is the one and only viable and cost-effective way to make a study phone requires a burden of proof.
thats veeery generous of them.
oh wait, 99% of countries they offer it in already have consumer laws that dictate that the shops that sell the stuff have to accept used electronics and dispose of them properly(and as apple is doing direct sales, this puts them on the hook). who wants the hassle of going to the place to dispose of them though... not surprised of apple branding legal requirements as 'bonus' though!
the problem is more along the lines of apple not providing parts for fixing(3rd party pretty much) and their move to non-fixable at all on purpose devices. now this wouldn't suck so much if for example your ipod classic 160gb broke it's headphone jack(like all of them do, eventually).. since uh, what are you going to replace it with? a 16gb ipod touch?
thats the real problem, you find a device you like and you can't keep it running and you can't buy a replacement.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
So you are saying that repair companies do not like difficult to repair products because they make more money repairing them. Difficult to repair just means consumers can not readily repair it themselves and must take it to a repair company and pay them in order to carry out the repair.
So it just happens that iFixit https://www.ifixit.com/ is "iFixit is a wiki-based site that teaches people how to fix almost anything. Anyone can create a repair manual for a device, and anyone can also edit the existing set of manuals to improve them. Our site empowers individuals to share their technical knowledge with the rest of the world.", you claim in that light is really quite nasty and smells of corporate propaganda.
To make it clear, yes it is self serving to complain bitterly about being ripped off with unrepairable products which result in shitty resale values. What, I am meant to live my life to serve corporate profits instead, seriously WTF?
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
You're right, I *DON'T* believe that actually works. That custom Bic screwdriver of yours will break its tip the first time you try to turn it. It may be fine for screws that have already been loosened, but you need to apply enough torque to break the screws free, and that would just strip your pen.
But now we're not just talking about oddly shaped screws where it's hard to get a screwdriver for. We're talking about patented screws where it's pretty much impossible to get a screwdriver for, at least legally.
THAT is the difference in those screws.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I disagree. iFixit would be out of business if all phones and laptops were easy to take apart to repair. I don't have to visit iFixit to repair most Windows laptops because their disassembly is (reasonably) straightforward. I do have to visit iFixit to repair most Macbooks because Apple tries to make it as difficult as possible. Most of the spare parts and repair kit tools iFixit sells are only necessary because of the proprietary and weird things Apple has done to make their products difficult to open up and take apart.
So iFixit is actually advocating something which would effectively put them out of business. A true sign of people who value the craft more than the money they earn from it.
We're not unique in this regard. Most people are dumb like this. The only cure is a good education, something we don't have in this country. What makes us unique is that, unlike nations like Zimbabwe and Somalia, we have lots of money.
Basically, we're like a backwards, third-world country that won the lottery. Think about things through that lens and the actions of Americans make a lot more sense.