Big Tech Squashes New York's 'Right To Repair' Bill (huffingtonpost.com)

Damon Beres, writing for The Huffington Post: Major tech companies like Apple have trampled legislation that would have helped consumers and small businesses fix broken gadgets. New York state legislation that would have required manufacturers to provide information about how to repair devices like the iPhone failed to get a vote, ending any chance of passage this legislative session. Similar measures have met the same fate in Minnesota, Nebraska, Massachusetts and, yes, even previously in New York. Essentially, politicians never get to vote on so-called right to repair legislation because groups petitioning on behalf of the electronics industry gum up the proceedings. "We were disappointed that it wasn't brought to the floor, but we were successful in bringing more attention to the issue," New York state Sen. Phil Boyle (R), a sponsor of the bill, told The Huffington Post.

Comments

Gum up the proceedings?

[_Sharp'r_]

. Essentially, politicians never get to vote on so-called right to repair legislation because groups petitioning on behalf of the electronics industry gum up the proceedings.

Leave it to the Huffington Post to somehow blame lobbyists without blaming the people they lobby. The only way they "gum up the proceedings" is by their influence with the leaders in the legislature, who are the ones who actually control the proceedings.

A bill doesn't get a vote in the legislature because not enough of the right members wanted to vote on it (for a variety of reasons, I'm sure). You can't blame that strictly on the lobbyists without removing the responsibility of the members of the NY State Assembly and Senate for what they decide to vote and pass.

Re:Gum up the proceedings?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Huffington Post doesn't want to blame the Politicians because the politicians responsible are DEMOCRATS. Huffington is a propaganda machine for the Democrat party. Nothing more.

Re:Gum up the proceedings?

[fustakrakich]

Leave it to the Huffington Post to somehow blame lobbyists without blaming the people they lobby.

Yeah well, don't blame them either. Unless you plan on voting them out, it makes you look fat. With a 95% reelection rate, the blame obviously lies elsewhere. The voters are rewarding bad behavior. Nothing can possibly change until that issue is acknowledged and dealt with.

SubjectsInCommentsAreStupidCauseTheSubjectIsTFA

[lesincompetent]

The rest of the world calls it corruption.
The US calls it 'lobbying'.

Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupidCauseTheSubjectIsTFA

[ScentCone]

The rest of the world calls it corruption.
The US calls it 'lobbying'.

No, the US calls it "freedom of assembly and speech," and it's protected under the very first amendment of the constitution. Let me guess, you'd like to reserve the right to get a few of your like-minded friends together and perhaps send one of them to talk to a committee chair about some piece of pending tech- or science-related legislation so they can avoid screwing it up ... but you'd like to silence other people that you don't like from doing exactly the same thing.

Or would you prefer that nobody gets to talk to legislators? Or that you only get to talk to them if millions of people also get to, simultaneously? There's a reason that it makes sense to form groups (like, say, The Association Of Concerned Scientists or the League Of Open Source Protector Justice Warriors or the Sierra Club, or the NAACP or the NRA or whatever) to allow lots of people to pool their resources and speak with one voice when it suits them to do so. You want corruption? Ban the free speech and free association that allows such groups to exist and lobby for what's important to them - watch what happens then.

Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupidCauseTheSubjectIsTFA

[exomondo]

A lobbyist just opens the discussion by saying "I represent this many people associated with this organization, and they have this concern".

...and also here is a buttload of "campaign donations" to make you see it our way.

It is clear. Just look.

[Anonymous Coward]

Our "democratic" process is just an elaborate dog-and-pony show designed to make us feel like we have a voice in governance, when really the only voices that matter are those of the super-rich.

People get really defensive when I point this out, because they like believing that we live in a democracy (ahem, constitutional republic), and that our representatives represent us, and that our votes matter.

Wanting something to be true does not make it true.

The real vote has already been cast long ago

[SuperKendall]

If people wanted more repairable devices, they would have bought them.

Instead consumers have, in droves, chosen to buy MORE RELIABLE sealed devices that they do not have to screw with.

I'm not just talking about the iPhone, or the other Android phones that all followed suit. I'm talking about cars, about appliances, almost everything is more more contained, much better sealed, and much harder to repair.

If the world wants more "repairable" things then by all means make them and ell them. But do not demand that companies ruin products in the pursuit of a goal few are interested in.

1960s Warranty Laws

[retroworks]

I'm a huge fan of EFF, iFixit, and other groups that supported and pushed this legislation. I hope my Monday morning quarterbacking isn't misconstrued. But I studied the USA's warranty and repair laws passed in the 1960s (Ralph Nader's origins), which were in response to Vance Packard's 1960 book "The Waste Makers". The allegations of "planned obsolescence" really alarmed people and led to the strongest car and electronics warranty laws in the world. Those laws are all completely out of date (predating software), but trying to start from scratch may be a tactical error.

Today's repair advocates, are in the right place... but perhaps missing out by by not recruiting some Consumer Rights veterans. Maybe they could market this to the retired people who remember the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 etc. Seniors who, replaced their own auto spark plugs, they tend to vote in high numbers and could have been sending a signal to legislators. The advocacy I saw for this Right to Repair law was promoted by a younger, cooler, Makerspace set, I didn't see many allies from Ralph Nader's generation. It would be hard to win funding of VA hospitals without marketing it to/through the war Veterans. Just my 2 cents.

and it goes how far?

[supernova87a]

So -- anything that goes wrong with your iPhone, computer, etc. is required to be covered by a manufacturer issued repair guide that's available to the customer? Since when has that been required for anything you buy, even remotely? Not even your dumb refrigerator manufacturer is required to tell you how to fix it.

And in what level of detail / remedy would it have to explain how to repair the item? My laptop's GPU has a few transistors that got fried. Are they saying Apple has to tell me how to disassemble the chip, do nanosurgery on it and refabricate a few layers of silicon? Or that "get a new laptop" is sufficient to fix the issue?

Nice sentiment, but full of holes in how it would be implemented.

Requirement should be 3 year warranty

[Sebby]

Given that these tech firms pushed to destroy this, the alternative should have been to mandate a minimum 3-year warranty (I'm looking at you, Apple!)

Check your facts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are some facts about "the last say [coming] from the ballot box".

That is why I said "it is clear, just look." The facts are as plain as day and in the public view. The super-rich get their measures passed, regardless of how the majority feel about them.

There are actually quite a few layers of separation between votes and federal law. And they are all (or at least, most) a matter of public knowledge. You just haven't done your homework.

Re:Check your facts.

[ScentCone]

There are actually quite a few layers of separation between votes and federal law.

Yes, by design. That's the whole point. Otherwise it's mob rule. Look at what direct democracy (by way of ballot initiatives) has done to California. The people who wrote the constitution were very smart to put in the checks and balances we have, and to structure the legislative branch as the bicameral institution that it is. If you don't like that a large organization is able to sit across the table from a legislator and persuade them that a bill is a bad idea, do what everyone else does: gather your like-minded friends and send someone of your OWN to meet with the same legislator and persuade her that she's misunderstanding the pros and cons of some piece of pending legislation. Or are you against the constitution's protections for your right (and everyone else's) to assemble as they see fit and express themselves as they see fit (say, through the offices of a lobbyist who know which people to talk to about which topic)? You can't have it both ways.

Re:Check your facts.

[schwit1]

How is this any different than the major news networks and newspapers except Fox are sock puppets for the DNC?

Re:Check your facts.

[ScentCone]

How do you propose that they gather sufficient funding to be persuasive without corporate backing?

Do you think that the NAACP or the AARP or the Sierra Club or PETA etc are all funded by corporate backing? If you can't persuade enough people to agree with you (if a loopy aging hippy socialist from New England can raise millions and millions of dollars from starry-eyed individual donors, why is it you think this isn't possible?), you could always simply persuade a wealthy person (say, an Al Gore, or a George Soros) to throw - as they already do - millions of dollars into things they think should be more visible. This is happening right in front of your eyes every day - why does it seem unlikely to you?

Re:just wait for cars to be this way! dealer only

[Anonymous Coward]

Even normal, non-autonomous cars are becoming this way. It used to be it was easy to replace the vendor's radio system with your own using a standard form factor and connections. Now, it's "infotainment" tied closely into the rest of the car, and will throw codes if you try to remove it. Aftermarket alternatives are less and less available as this stuff becomes more and more proprietary.

DRM'ed internal buses in the car are also becoming a thing.

Self-driving or not, this is coming.

Re:Right to repair?

[SuricouRaven]

Some electronics are now designed to be unfixable.

For example, I own an xbox 360. The DVD drive on it is a bit dodgy - it works, barely, unreliably. I'd like to replace it, but I can't. Firstly because it uses a non-standard power connector, but more seriously because the 360 DVD drive is paired with the security chip on the mainboard. The board stores a serial number for the drive, and queries the drive serial on boot - if they don't match, the console disables itsself. It's a measure to prevent piracy (somehow), but it also makes replacing the drive impossible.

The iPhone now does a similar thing with the fingerprint sensor. It's a very common form of failure, as the sensor is delicate and exposed to the outside world. But the phone stores the sensor serial in secure memory - if the sensor is replaced, the phone disables itsself.

Your role in politics

[SeattleLawGuy]

Our "democratic" process is just an elaborate dog-and-pony show designed to make us feel like we have a voice in governance, when really the only voices that matter are those of the super-rich.

People get really defensive when I point this out, because they like believing that we live in a democracy (ahem, constitutional republic), and that our representatives represent us, and that our votes matter.

Wanting something to be true does not make it true.

Close, but not quite.

The super-rich voices matter a lot, but (1) there are some issues where even an individual letter or call can tip the scale--not many, but they exist. (2) Congresspeople need so much money every day that most of the time, your money doesn't buy you a voice on an issue. Also, (3) there are LOTS of ways to be listened to--but they involve using leverage. You don't approach your person individually most of the time--you do it by supporting an organization that lobbies or otherwise works on issues you care about, whether they do that through legislators or through direct service or through the courts.

The ACLU does an amazing amount of work fighting for individual liberties, for example, filing briefs in lots of important cases throughout the country defending your rights. But whether you do it through the ACLU or the EFF or the AFL-CIO or even the NRA, unless you are amazing at influencing public discourse then you get YOUR influence by supporting the specific groups you mostly agree with. What the super-rich buy with money, you buy with a voting block and a block of voices.

(Also, by acting to influence your local and state reps.)