The state of Right to Repair: Progress made, but key barriers remain The US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) has released a report on the state of Right to Repair. The good news is that things seem to be going in the right direction for some gadgets. The bad news is that progress is not equal, and there has been no improvement for some gizmos. The report, published on January 23, …
I think you'll find they have those. Laws against theft have been there from the beginning; theft is one of those basic crimes that have been there since law version 1.0. If you're expecting a law to exist which makes it impossible to steal, then you need the Justice Field from Red Dwarf, and we'll need better tech for that. Of course, Apple could have voluntary parts pairing which could be used for this goal without making secondhand parts unusable, but that would mean fewer people buying new devices, so they've chosen not to.
"rebirthing" new one on me had to look it up. Rebirthing (apt name) motor vehicles seems to be an Australian national pastime
The Right to Repair problem has been fixed at least in Australia as they added laws laws to prevent "rebirthing" of stolen phones in 2004.
"The bill includes offences to prevent the rebirthing of stolen mobile phones" https://www.zdnet.com/article/australia-bans-mobile-rebirthing/
What happens when the cost of the parts (and potentially the labour) costs far more than a new one?
Recently encountered this with Black and Decker Workmate......the cost of the replacement wooden jaws was more than buying a new one.
Yes I did buy the new one but at least I managed to pass the old one onto someone else who was happy to use it as it was.
"What happens when the cost of the parts (and potentially the labour) costs far more than a new one?"
Not uncommon. The cost of establishing and maintaining a spare parts operation is very rarely recognised, but unless there's sizeable demand (eg large volume automotive parts, or anything standardised across many models) then spares need to have a HUGE markup over the bare part cost in manufacturing. Do some sums if you doubt this: Raw parts cost, plus risk of part obsolescence due to standards or safety changes, risk of unsold inventory when demand dries up, cost of capital on the money spent on parts plus everything else, cost of parts losses (you'd be amazed how routinely logistics parts go missing due to inaccurate location, but in addition you've got damage, destruction or theft during storage).
All this "right to repair" stuff is shit for that reason, and policy makers would be far better advised to work on ensuring that recycling and disposal are as good as they possibly can be.
How many Apple devices and flagship Androids of a given model are sold each month?
Next time you walk down a busy high street or take public transport, count the broken screens.
Most white goods were standardised long ago to save manufacturing cost, most of the moving parts are interchangeable between models - many even between brands.
Yes, for devices costing less than a few hours' skilled labour it's not viable, but for white goods, branded phones and laptops the only reason not to repair is that the manufacturer has created artificial barriers.
Nobody said spare parts have to be supplied at the bare cost of manufacturing. A reasonable markup to pay for keeping spare parts stocked even after production of the device ends and the logistic involved and even some profit margin is ok. In a lot of cases the margin baked into the suggested retail price should be good enough already.
Apple e.g. will most probably not loose any money if you order replacement wheels for your Mac Pro even if they offer it at the current sales price (currently 400£ extra for the 4 wheels instead of feet).
What do you think right to repair means? Do you think it means that every spare part must be offered at no more than factory cost? It doesn't. In many cases, they're not even required to make spare parts available themselves. They can leave that to secondhand devices, original parts manufacturers, or even third-party manufacturers copying them when patents allow. Proposals differ, so some do require the companies to make the parts available, but even those are limited to parts those manufacturers already keep around for their own use.
None of this will eliminate the problem of a device that could be fixed but the effort required makes it too difficult to do economically. It was also not intended to. What it was intended to eliminate, and it would, is the situation where the device would be relatively easy to repair economically but the manufacturer has intentionally prevented you from being able to do it by forbidding the sale of a component that they've designed to be incompatible by making tiny changes from an existing standard part, using software to block the installation of a new part, or trying to create terms for anyone permitted to repair the device.
"What happens when the cost of the parts (and potentially the labour) costs far more than a new one?"
You repair anyway and bask in the warm glow of not having consigned more disposable crap to landfill.
The problem isn't so much the cost of repair as the cost of the original manufactured product having fallen so dramatically in real terms over the last couple of generations. They used to be called "durable" goods for a reason but globalisation and automation has slashed the cost of production to the point that many won't think twice about replacing something when it no longer works perfectly.
And there are too many proprietary components now - phones are pretty much all proprietary, and computers are most of the way there too. Gone are the days when most computers were desktops, assembled with standard interchangeable components.
Look at a modern laptop. Apart from the SSD (which is a standard M2 NVMe component in most but not all cases), and possibly the RAM (but this is increasingly likely to be soldered) most of it is going to be proprietary. Apart from flagship brands (particularly Apple), third parties aren't likely to produce anything apart from batteries, and I would avoid no-name cheap Chinese batteries as the manufacturing quality is unknown and they could be a fire risk. Buying new components from the manufacturer can often be well more than the device is worth.
Even modern desktops, from the major manufacturers, are largely proprietary apart from storage and RAM.
@AC "Even modern desktops, from the major manufacturers, are largely proprietary apart from storage and RAM", CPU, graphics* and PSU. So no modern desktops are not largely proprietary.
Even the motherboard is unlikely to be proprietary. Dell, HP etc, use motherboards sourced from an external motherboard manufacturer, and the PC manufacturers that make the motherboards in their PC also sell motherboards like ASUS.
* That is the same list non proprietary parts for laptops.
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