Right to repair executive order

Have fun buying $200.00 gallons of milk for your wifes boyfriends kids.
because of the chip shortages just wait till you see used cars hit stupid high prices similar to current GPU prices and availability. When my 2013 Scion xB (one of the most reliable standard cars currently on the road) hits $20k then I'll sell.
 
I think it's a great idea and a good direction.

However, the way they make electronics theses days, they are not really user-serviceable. I wouldn't even dream about trying to repair my phone (though I have looked online, it is way out of my wheelhouse).

But for mom and pop repair shops, I think that is great. Also reducing e-waste.
 
I think it's a great idea and a good direction.

However, the way they make electronics theses days, they are not really user-serviceable. I wouldn't even dream about trying to repair my phone (though I have looked online, it is way out of my wheelhouse).

But for mom and pop repair shops, I think that is great. Also reducing e-waste.
Not reall sure this will reduce e-waste, I think it's more of people can just buy replacement parts, even used, and just have them work with their farm equipment without having to go through your local Deere dealer or whoever your OEM is/was.
 
Not reall sure this will reduce e-waste, I think it's more of people can just buy replacement parts, even used, and just have them work with their farm equipment without having to go through your local Deere dealer or whoever your OEM is/was.

Apple makes repair costs so high it's dumb not to just buy a new phone. They charge hundreds for things some place else would do for $20. Continuing to use existing phones instead of throwing them away would reduce a lot of waste

Also other shops would replace batteries if they could. A lot of people would be perfectly fine using a 5 year old phone with a new battery.
 
I think it's a great idea and a good direction.

However, the way they make electronics theses days, they are not really user-serviceable. I wouldn't even dream about trying to repair my phone (though I have looked online, it is way out of my wheelhouse).

But for mom and pop repair shops, I think that is great. Also reducing e-waste.
Not being able to repair your own electronics is like not being able to fix your own car. Imagine if you only could take it to the dealer. I bet if user's were not expecting to be able to repair their own vehicles, they could easily make it very difficult. Look at Tesla. They make getting parts very difficult if not impossible (to just buy) and as far as I know do not yet make software/information available for 3rd party repair, which is illegal.
 
Apple makes repair costs so high it's dumb not to just buy a new phone. They charge hundreds for things some place else would do for $20. Continuing to use existing phones instead of throwing them away would reduce a lot of waste

Also other shops would replace batteries if they could. A lot of people would be perfectly fine using a 5 year old phone with a new battery.
Totally agree. I've seen so much reporting on this on the agricultural side, that I didn't actually read the article and assumed that this was solely the agricultural stuff.

Wow, I just admitted I was wrong on the internet. I get a prize for that, right?
 
John Deere should have made a basic code clearer. Them not doing that cost the farmers money and crops. Apparently, you don't mess with agriculture, because they are pretty much at the fore front of right to repair.
 
Also other shops would replace batteries if they could. A lot of people would be perfectly fine using a 5 year old phone with a new battery.

I just wish they would patch phones beyond the first few years.

It's great to save and use older hardware, but if doing so puts a ton of people at risk by using unpatched devices, that is a whole new problem.

I would like to see the OS and the hardware divorced from eachother, like it is on the PC platform. OEM has to provide drivers, and commit to doing so for a LONG time, but OS upgrades are pushed by the publisher of the OS.
 
A lot of right of repair stuff is related to companies like Apple basically strongarming their suppliers to only sell a particular part to approved parties. This is a big source of massive electronics landfills.
I recommend looking at what Louis Rossman is doing (see Youtube) to improve the situation. It's where I found out about the digital pairing of components to make camera replacement impossible in one of Apple's offerings. You could replace it, but you were out of some features (panoramic IIRC).
 
This is why I won't get all excited about it. An executive order is very easy to get rid of since it only takes another executive order to get rid of it. Legislation is the only way this can have any truly positive effect.
The issue is that there are so many special interest groups fighting it at the state level that it would be easy enough for them to corrupt any bill that Congress will write. I agree that a law would be better, but I'm a pessimist when it comes to effective legislation actually getting drafted.
 
My guess? The FTC, which actually has to implement the order itself, isn't going to touch this issue. Nobody there wants to have the wrath of the industrial sector focused on him.
 
Well, that explains why the first comment post did not make any sense. :) Seriously, this is about right to repair, why would anyone interject politics into something that is important for all of us?

Edit: and to be clear and on the safe side, this not sarcasm nor a question that requires an answer, just a rhetorical type of question.
For example, the issue is slightly related to intellectual property, patents, laws on trade secrets, etc.

Like, is it legal to have and commercially use schematics obtained from "places" not really endorsed by Apple.

So, lots of lobbying to be done and hence it can get political really quick. It's however an incredibly important thing.
 
I just wish they would patch phones beyond the first few years.

For iPhone, they do. The newest iOS update will be compatible with phones that are about 6 years old (6S and up). Android is a crapshow where you're kind of at the mercy of manufacturers, though.


Also this article is the probably one of the few good things I've seen come out of the government in recent years, I'm happy.
 
This is good on the surface, but I'll wait to see how it plays out.
Will we be given tools & programs to repair things ourselves?

IF manufacturers were smart, they'd sell those tools and software packages to customers.
 
They'll just make things harder\almost impossible to repair. They'll make up the cost with the sale of specialty tools that you will only need to use once for 5mins but will cost $100+ to buy and it will just be a bent rod with a common used socket welded to it.
 
Another thing I'll add, to kind of make it less Apple-centric. I went with Apple right away mainly because of the Youtube channel I mentioned.

However. One popular argument against this is - "it's not like you know how to fix it anyway".
And it's partially true - I don't even consider repairing, say, motherboards. I don't have BGA gear, etc.

But, with right to repair, more businesses can sprout that specialize in various types of older but high-end products. Cars, phones, whatever. Noone will actively block selling some generic part.
 
Another thing I'll add, to kind of make it less Apple-centric. I went with Apple right away mainly because of the Youtube channel I mentioned.

However. One popular argument against this is - "it's not like you know how to fix it anyway".
And it's partially true - I don't even consider repairing, say, motherboards. I don't have BGA gear, etc.

But, with right to repair, more businesses can sprout that specialize in various types of older but high-end products. Cars, phones, whatever. Noone will actively block selling some generic part.


Sometimes I try the repair myself when it's broken. Since it's already broken I don't considered it a loss it's now an opportunity to learn something new. Sure it may have been repairable by a pro but they only became good at what they're doing with practice and learning from mistakes. If I fail at least I will know maybe that type of repair isn't for me maybe I just learned what not to do for next time or maybe it was a success and I saved myself money and learned something in the process. It all depends on how you look at it.
 
Sometimes I try the repair myself when it's broken. Since it's already broken I don't considered it a loss it's now an opportunity to learn something new. Sure it may have been repairable by a pro but they only became good at what they're doing with practice and learning from mistakes. If I fail at least I will know maybe that type of repair isn't for me maybe I just learned what not to do for next time or maybe it was a success and I saved myself money and learned something in the process. It all depends on how you look at it.

I'm the same way. A neighbor at my apartment complex moved out, left their TV by the dumpster. It had power but no picture, after watching a few youtube videos, I was able to fix it myself and now I have a free 4K tv.

If I couldn't fix it, I would have put it back in the trash.

I always try to fix something if it's broken or not working, sure I can break it more, but if I've already considered it a potential loss, there's no harm in trying!
 
The issue is that there are so many special interest groups fighting it at the state level that it would be easy enough for them to corrupt any bill that Congress will write. I agree that a law would be better, but I'm a pessimist when it comes to effective legislation actually getting drafted.
This is why Louis Rossmann has been backing a ballot initiative.
 
This is good on the surface, but I'll wait to see how it plays out.
Will we be given tools & programs to repair things ourselves?

IF manufacturers were smart, they'd sell those tools and software packages to customers.
Most of the auto industry already does this but it took the aftermarket supply industry nearly 20 years to get legislation through congress.
 
However. One popular argument against this is - "it's not like you know how to fix it anyway"
This is, in many cases, a bogus argument. To go back to Louis Rossmann, a lot of what he does is replacing damaged components. That's not actually all that hard if you have good eyes, a steady hand, and some admittedly fairly specialized tools. For that matter, if replacing a cracked phone screen was so hard you wouldn't see stores in strip malls all over the place charging $30-50 + material costs.
 
I think it's a great idea and a good direction.

However, the way they make electronics theses days, they are not really user-serviceable. I wouldn't even dream about trying to repair my phone (though I have looked online, it is way out of my wheelhouse).

But for mom and pop repair shops, I think that is great. Also reducing e-waste.
For most things, I think less electronics is a good thing.
It would be better if a standardized approach was taken to more things, like how cell phones now all use the same charger instead of the every model had a different charger of the early 2000's.
 
This is why I won't get all excited about it. An executive order is very easy to get rid of since it only takes another executive order to get rid of it. Legislation is the only way this can have any truly positive effect.

The ftc has the power to enforce right to repair. If the executive order jump starts that repealing the executive order won't do much.
 
The ftc has the power to enforce right to repair. If the executive order jump starts that repealing the executive order won't do much.

Please explain.

I don't recall any national legislation allowing the FTC to regulate Right to Repair. There are some state laws that have passed, but nothing national.

The only avenue I could see the FTC taking on this is a rather liberal interpretation of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty act, but that seems like a bit of a stretch to me.
 
Please explain.

I don't recall any national legislation allowing the FTC to regulate Right to Repair. There are some state laws that have passed, but nothing national.

The only avenue I could see the FTC taking on this is a rather liberal interpretation of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty act, but that seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

Biden's administration seem to believe the FTC have the power. The EO will be directing them to create rules regarding right-to-repair. The people that write EOs ideally will have talked to a bunch of lawyers familiar with FTC limitations before writing it.

Either way, I suspect anything the FTC drafts will end up in court pretty quickly and the Supreme Court will say what their limits are.
 
Doesn't matter who the next president is. I can't imagine them trying to get rid of it unless there is some hardcore and shady business deals that would get exposed easily. Too much risk IMHO.

Btw, YouTube makes car repair easy. Just search your car make, model, year, and problem and there's likely a video for your problem. Sometimes the video covers multiple years (implicitly or explicitly sometimes). Don't have to know much. From taking to farmers, they do know how to repair and the John Deere locks are absurd. Crazy stories.
 
Right to repair also implies parts you can obtain, maybe even code. Anyways went to buy an AC/Heater Blower Resistor (allows different fan speeds) for my Wife's car, Autozone had several sku's but none available throughout the US or anywhere else. Went to Discount Auto, the same, different ones that would work, varying prices but also none available. Ended up ordering it from Nissan directly. How many other parts are now getting in short supply or not available as time goes on? Will this become a bigger issue as shortages of electronics in general continues?
 
Btw, YouTube makes car repair easy. Just search your car make, model, year, and problem and there's likely a video for your problem. Sometimes the video covers multiple years (implicitly or explicitly sometimes). Don't have to know much. From taking to farmers, they do know how to repair and the John Deere locks are absurd. Crazy stories.
Yup, but the issue was never with something being tricky, i.e. not knowing how to remove a panel inside a car etc., it's having said machinery effectively brick itself if it detects "unlicensed repair"
 
Biden's administration seem to believe the FTC have the power. The EO will be directing them to create rules regarding right-to-repair. The people that write EOs ideally will have talked to a bunch of lawyers familiar with FTC limitations before writing it.

Either way, I suspect anything the FTC drafts will end up in court pretty quickly and the Supreme Court will say what their limits are.
All it takes is a single sentence with a signature by anyone who is president to remove an executive order including the very same president who signed it in the first place. It can be part of another executive order. The moment the executive order is rescinded the FTC would no longer have the power to do anything about it because the authority to enforce anything is gone assuming the FTC can even be given the power in the first place.

Executive orders are nothing but a short term, temporary measure because they are so easy to get rid of.
 
Please explain.

I don't recall any national legislation allowing the FTC to regulate Right to Repair. There are some state laws that have passed, but nothing national.

The only avenue I could see the FTC taking on this is a rather liberal interpretation of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty act, but that seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

Uh, it's called the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.
 
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