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Re: The Fight for the "Right to Repair"

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On Sat, 6 Aug 2016, British Rocket Group wrote:

> Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/fight-right-repair-180959764/?no-ist
>>
>> Quoting from the URL above:
>>
>>    Fifty years ago, if your television broke you could bring it to the
>>    local electronics shop to be repaired. These days, a broken TV likely
>>    means a trip to Best Buy for a new one.
>>
>>    Electronics have become harder to fix. This is, in part, because they've
>>    become more complex. But some of the problem is by design. Manufacturers
>>    have increasingly restricted repair information to authorized repair
>>    centers, leaving consumers and independent repair people unable to deal
>>    with even simple problems. It's just easier (and sometimes cheaper) to
>>    buy something new.
>>
>>    A growing number of people, seeing this as an unreasonable state of
>>    affairs, are fighting back. In a so-called "right to repair" movement,
>>    this loose coalition of consumer advocates, repair professionals and
>>    ordinary individuals are working to create legislation that would make
>>    it harder for companies to keep repair information proprietary.
>>
>>    The idea of planned obsolescence is nothing new. But the use of "repair
>>    prevention" as a method of making products obsolete is growing, say
>>    right to repair proponents. Many companies that manufacture electronics
>>    - anything from laptops to refrigerators to your car's onboard computer
>>    - now have restrictions that prevent consumers from having them fixed
>>    anywhere besides a licensed repair shop. Some companies use digital
>>    locks or copyrighted software to prevent consumers or independent repair
>>    people from making changes. Others simply refuse to share their repair
>>    manuals. Some add fine print clauses to their user agreements so
>>    customers (often unwittingly) promise not to fix their own products.
>>
>>    ...
>>
>
> Once upon a time a TV was a standard unit, made with standardised
> components. These days each TV is quite different from another TV, hence
> the difficulty of repair.
>
> Add to that, what components there are are often built into the circuit
> board. It's not very easy to just slot out and replace a dead capacitor.
> You often need a whole new board, made specially by the manufacturer.
>
>
It's complicated.  You're right, there was a time when all components were 
pretty general purpose.  But that was also a time when the average home 
had a handful of electronics.  A tv set or two, some radios, maybe a 
stereo system.  It was the arrival of ICs, maybe specifically digital ICs, 
that caused a leap forward.  1971, virtually nothing, then by 1976 you 
could get pocket calculators, digital watches, digital clocks, computers, 
and it just got worse.  One minute scientific calculators were hundreds of 
dollars, a few years later I could get one for about thirty.  Early 
digital watches were expensive, but by 1976 or 77 TI had an inexpensive 
line, I got mine for around thirty at that time.

But all of that was expensive to begin with, and often large and bulky, 
and the cost went down as greater integration and cheaper manufacturing 
came along.  Look at early dot matrix printers, compare them with inkjet 
printers now.  I paid $500 for a really slow, really noisy dot matrix that 
couldn't do anything near letter quality (didn't even do descenders 
properly) in 1982, I can get a laser printer now for under a hundred 
dollars.  But current printers are flimsier, they got rid of as much metal 
as possible since that cost money, and that probably affects durability. 
Same thing happened with VCRs, and everything else.

Some will buy expensive and bulky, more will buy cheaper and more compact, 
but the real penetration happens as prices drop as low as they can go. 
And to get those prices, demanded by the consumer, the company has to make 
the unit as cheaply as possible, which means easy to manufacture, but not 
so easy to repair.  Each iteration may be cut costs even more, so why keep 
parts around for last year's model?

And repair is mostly labor, and that has gone up more and more at the same 
time.  So even if parts can be had, the cost of repair is now a 
significant percentage of the original price.  The parts may not cost 
much, but opening the case probably runs up the tab, even before figuring 
out what's wrong.

Most people want cheaper.  It's not some conspiracy by the manufacturers, 
they are just doing whatever they need to cut the cost to the consumer.

Some of it is that ficty years ago, tv sets cost a lot, but at least you 
didn't have to buy all kinds of other electronic junk.  But now, the money 
gets spread over so many more enticing devices, so the price has to give.

   Michael

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The Fight for the "Right to Repair" Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-07-14 00:59 +0000
  Re: The Fight for the "Right to Repair" Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2016-07-14 12:55 +1000
    Re: The Fight for the "Right to Repair" Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-07-14 10:36 -0400
  Re: The Fight for the "Right to Repair" British Rocket Group <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2016-08-06 21:18 +0000
    Re: The Fight for the "Right to Repair" Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-08-06 21:48 -0400
      Re: The Fight for the "Right to Repair" British Rocket Group <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2016-08-07 07:37 +0000

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