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."

Comments

They protest too much...

[MikeMo]

Doesn't it seem to be a bit self-serving for a repair company to complain that things need to be more repairable?

iFixit is NOT unbiased

[phayes]

The declarations of someone who is complaining that others are making it harder for him to make a buck need to be taken with a large grain of salt. iFixit for all their merits sells spare parts & repair kits. It is thus clearly in their own interest for everyone else to make it profitable for them to sell their products. iFixit would be very profitable if all phone manufacturers did everything they could to make it easier for them to sell their repair kits & repair/upgrade instead of replacing.

Their contention that do-it yourself repairmen are better for the environment it is completely unsupported. iFixit does not recover the broken parts that their clients are replacing and old parts are typically tossed in the trash. Manufacturer repair shops like Apple's have recycling policies that do recycle broken parts as well as old devices that people turn in when upgrading.

When iFixit starts systematically recovering the old parts when they sell replacement kits AND shows in some meaningful way that they are responsibly recycling them as well as Apple has shown to do, then they can talk about how environmentally virtuous they are - not before.