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Right To Repair Advocates Are Hosting YouTube Town Halls To Show You How To Get Involved In the Movement (vice.com)
iFixit, a company that advocates for the right for users to repair their own devices, is hosting live town halls on YouTube to help get new people involved in the movement. "We're going to do them every two weeks while the legislative season is in full swing," Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, told Motherboard in an email. Motherboard reports: The first town hall aired on Thursday, and featured prominent right to repair leaders like Repair.org's Gay Gordon-Byrne and US PIRG's Nathan Proctor. The broadcast covered topics such as the benefits of right to repair to consumers and the environment, and gave out information on how to talk to legislators about right to repair laws. Thanks to the right to repair movement's efforts, 15 states have introduced right to repair legislation in 2019 so far. Repair.org and iFixit's livestream gives people in those states information to help push their legislators to vote for bills protecting the people's right to repair. People living in states where legislation isn't yet being considered can learn all about how to kickstart their own local movements.
Getting involved in the push for right to repair legislation is as simple as watching a recording of the first town hall broadcast. From there, you can then head over to Repair.org's advocacy page, where, you can navigate to a direct link for each state that will tell you where right to repair legislation stands in your community, who your legislators are, and how to get in contact with them. If folks across America agitate for change, we can enjoy a future where people can freely repair their own devices.
Getting involved in the push for right to repair legislation is as simple as watching a recording of the first town hall broadcast. From there, you can then head over to Repair.org's advocacy page, where, you can navigate to a direct link for each state that will tell you where right to repair legislation stands in your community, who your legislators are, and how to get in contact with them. If folks across America agitate for change, we can enjoy a future where people can freely repair their own devices.
Last month the battery started to crap out, now takes 5-8 hours to charge, but 90 minutes to drain. Took it to a repair shop yesterday, for the price they quoted I can buy a new one for another $20.
Last 2 cellphones I bought were because the existing batteries died.
I'd love to see a law that requires electronics to have an easily replaced battery. Spending $160 for a new device, as opposed to $30 for a battery, is stuck on stupid.
Those things are a lot more complicated than you're making them out to be. Repair codes can be read by anyone with a $100 device. The devices that the dealerships have just provide a lot more live data. Like all data (including the diagnostic codes), they need to be interpreted properly to be useful. Also, individual repair shops usually can buy equipment to provide them with the same information as the dealerships, it's just really expensive if each official product individually (such as VACOM for VW). But they can buy devices from companies like Autel and SnapOn that will work on pretty much any make.
As for John Deere, it's a similar situation just with a much larger piece of equipment. If you own a John Deere then there's an authorized dealership nearby, and they will come to you assuming you're under warranty.
I think the problem is that you're conflating diagnostics with repairs. Nowadays, repairing automobiles and farm equipment isn't much more difficult than it was in the past. But due to the amount of sensors that allow the PCM/ECM to maximize efficiency, diagnostics have become much more difficult. For instance, your idiot light might say "camshaft position sensor" but that doesn't necessarily mean that you have a bad camshaft position sensor. It could be a problem with your variable valve timing system, it could be a timing issue, it could be a short in the wiring for the sensor. As vehicles have become more complex, diagnostics have become more and more difficult. Despite their fancy equipment, the type of service you'll get at a dealership is only as good as the techs who use that equipment.
"Right to repair" should mean that you can't be forced to sign a user agreement saying that you can't tinker with something you own. It shouldn't mean that manufacturers have to make things simple to tinker with. As a user, I should have the right to buy something that's horribly difficult to work on as long as I'm not legally prohibited from trying. I prefer the style of my MacBook to laptops that have batteries that pop out. An easily replaceable battery is a design constraint that isn't worth it to me. I'd rather take it to the Apple store and have them do it.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
In John Deere's case it is a bit different. You can install the part yourself. You can't"authorize" the new part to be recognized without JD coming out and initiating the system to accept the part. And that isn't covered under warranty. Your $300k machine (ok the low end) is Brooke until a JD tech says it isn't.
All the law needs to do is to require that if a manufacturer of a product (whether that be a combine harvester, a chest freezer, a cellphone or a commercial airliner) provides parts, tools, diagnostic equipment, service manuals, service updates, repair guides, software or anything else to manufacturer repair shops or authorized service centres they have to provide those same items to anyone else who wants to run a repair shop or repair items.
No exemptions, no restrictions, no "sorry you can't buy that unless you have a license to act as a motor vehicle repair shop" or other crap and no charging huge prices for things (with an appropriate government agency given powers to act if a manufacturer is charging prices above what is reasonable)
I'm old enough to remember how good it felt to do the same with my car. Nothing dramatic, I only changed my oil, did my tuneups, rotated my tires, and did simple troubleshooting. But it was fulfilling and fun to spend time regularly under the hood. Now Mr. Musk, who I generally admire, tells me that the EV will make all that unnecessary, and if it's true I suppose it's a gain for the car owner and the environment. Yet I have to wonder if we really bother to think about what we lose with such a level of convenience, in which we use the technology without being able to develop a relationship with it.
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
Car makers and other hardware producers are already forced by law in many countries to provide replacements parts to anybody, sometimes for 1 or 2 decades and they have to allow 3rd party companies to fabricate them as well.
That should be a general law.
PS. I'm looking at you, Apple.
A town hall implies elected government officials with the power to institute change are present to hear citizen arguments. From what I can tell, only advocates for the right to repair were present (nothing against them, I'm one of them), no elected officials. That makes this a seminar or presentation, not a town hall.
Even if elected officials had been present, there's a saying about feedback to Congresscritters. That one hand-written letter is worth a hundred printed form letters. A printed form letter is worth a hundred voicemails. A voicemail is worth a hundred emails. And an email is worth a hundred clicks on a website poll. That is, the amount of effort put into relaying the message matters. Elected officials use the effort needed to gauge how important the issue is to you. If you can't be bothered to do more than clink on an online poll, it must not be very important to you. If it bugs you enough to compose (or copy/paste) an email, it must be somewhat important to you. If you're concerned enough to make a phone call, it must be important to you. If you're worried enough to print out a letter, put it in an envelope, stamp it, and drop it off in a mailbox, it must be very important to you. And if you're so concerned you'll hand-write that letter (to prove it wasn't a form letter), put it in an envelope, stamp it, and drop it off in a mailbox, it must be extremely important to you.
So even if this had really been an online town hall, attending via video conferencing will never have as much impact as physically attending a real town hall meeting. The ease and convenience so important to younger generations today end up watering down the impact of your statement to government officials. Hundreds of people attending a video conference will only convince a politician that a bunch of people spammed a bunch of forums telling people to attend and play it in the background while they played their XBox. Hundreds of people trying to squeeze into a town hall will convince a politician that this issue is really important to voters.