The European Commission has announced plans for new “right to repair” rules that it hopes will cover phones, tablets, and laptops by 2021. If successful, these rules will mean these devices should remain useful for longer before needing to be recycled or ending up in landfills. The plans were introduced as part of a wide-ranging set of product initiatives that also cover textiles, plastics, packaging, and food with the aim of helping the trading bloc become climate neutral by 2050.
As well as introducing new “right to repair” rules, the EU also wants products to be more sustainably designed in the first place. Under the new plan, products should be more durable, reusable, upgradeable, and constructed out of more recycled materials. The EU’s hope is to reward manufacturers that achieve these goals. Finally, the EU is also considering introducing a new scheme to let consumers more easily sell or return old phones, tablets, and chargers.
Good. One of the most important aspects of these rules is that the EU wants to force companies to provide spare parts to third party repair shops, which is something that’s entirely normal in, for instance, the car industry, but so far hasn’t been implemented in the technology sector yet because tech companies are special because reasons.
EU-wide right-to-repair legislation will force companies like Apple and Samsung to take device longevity and repairability seriously, and these benefits will spill over to other parts of the world, such as the US, Canada, and maybe even the UK.
“Right to repair” don’t help much, if the price isn’t mentioned or decided.
That ends, that manufacturer says, that they can repair it, but it will cost more, then buying a new one.
At least in the context of earlier discussions in the USA, “right to repair” does not mean the right to have the device manufacturer provide some sort of a repairs service, it means that the consumer on their own has the right to repair the device as they see fit. Basically this means that the manufacturers are obliged to make spare parts available (e.g. Apples does not sell spare parts at all and Samsung charges rip-off prices for many basic things). It also will naturally allow independent repair shops to take on fixing these devices and prohibits manufacturers from monopolizing / terrorizing the repairs industry.
theuserbl,
This doesn’t need to slip into communistic territory with government making price decisions. IMHO the only role the government needs to play is encourage free market competition and ban practices with companies like apple blocking competitors/parts. Keep in mind one of he reason apple repair prices are high in the first place is because apple has succeeded in impeding free market competition. And to an extent the US government even goes along with apple’s abuses by aiding them in attacking supply lines.
Is this satire or do you really believe this ‘slip into communistic territory’ libertarian nonsense? It’s a market economy of sorts but it’s never been what a Libertarian would think as a Free Market; but, don’t let reality get in the way. Its weird why so many tech’s believe in Libertarianism which is just ideological cover for socialism for the rich.
quackalist,
Well, you can be for or against it, but the government deciding prices IS communism, ergo the government would be factually bypassing one of the core tenets of capitalism and slipping into communistic territory.
I find it hard to speak about “libertarianism” in concise terms because historically it’s been all over the map in terms of left-wing and right-wing politics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
I strongly believe in individual freedoms, and that means keeping the government out of our personal affairs, which could be called “libertarianism” even for people like me who don’t classify ourselves this way. My personal philosophy rejects egoism and aligns with utilitarianism, so in this way it’s kind of the opposite of libertarianism,
https://www.britannica.com/topic/utilitarianism-philosophy
https://www.britannica.com/topic/egoism
If there’s any theme that unites my posts the most here, it’s that unrestricted corporate power and the takeover of governments to serve wealthy interests rather than the public at large is the biggest threat to our way of living as meaningfully free people. I can plainly see that the economy keeps getting worse for the lower and middle classes in large part because as the GDP grows from all of our combined efforts, virtually all the gains of the past few decades have gone to the top. We’re the first generation for whom the standard of living is going down and children on the whole can expect to be economically worse off than their parents. Millionaires and billionaires don’t need to advance through merit because our economic and governmental policies are increasingly rigged in their favor.
Will never work in the way Thom works like it to work. I suspect you will find Apple won’t mind much. They probably don’t make that much money off repairs. Besides, many people repair the iDevices all without Apple’s involvement.
mkone,
Actually apple has been one of the major villains in the right to repair movement. It has been fighting against the right to repair since day one. And make no mistake, the market is worth billions.
https://time.com/4828099/farmers-and-apple-fight-over-the-toolbox/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/apple-right-to-repair_n_5755a6b4e4b0ed593f14fdea
https://www.idropnews.com/rumors/apple-still-fighting-right-to-repair-laws-says-it-doesnt-want-users-hurting-themselves/104678/
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamzashaban/apple-is-fighting-laws-that-make-it-easier-to-repair-your-ip
This doesn’t get as much coverage as it deserves, but many ewaste recyclers have complained about apple specifically has prohibited them from selling used components and instead mandate their destruction in order to reduce the number of authentic used apple parts on the market.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-02-16/where-your-iphone-goes-to-die
I can’t blame anyone for not being aware of just how regressive apple is behind the scenes of the repair industry, but if you do some research it quickly becomes clear why apple is such a prime example of what’s wrong with the industry. I think the more people who learn about what’s going on, the more they’ll agree that something should be done. Many people are reluctant to embrace regulation, I get that. But allowing a dominant corporation to restrict new parts while simultaneously destroying authentic & functioning used parts is a perverse outcome when you allow a corporation to turn a profit however it sees fit. Apple is profitable, but it’s policies are causing harm to end users as well as our environment.
Without the ability to load other operating systems we can’t really extend the life of those devices. We can’t expect companies to maintain security patches forever.
@Sodki
I dont think the context here is right to MOD, although I’d like to do so. It’s the right we had since the first cellphones… spare parts like batteries, etc. I believe they should also reverse that headphone thing where manufacturers, starting with apple, force users to purchase a sound card(dongle) just to listen to your music on your device, when previously, they had standard headphone jacks, which were universal. Those dongles offer no benefit at all to the customer who wants to listen to their music on their own headphones, since Apple earbuds are crap from a sound standpoint… Bluetooth is nothing but a battery drain from both the headphone and the device itself. I believe the giveback would be a slightly thicker device, to accommodate the access to the battery, memory, or parts such as that, but I’d take that over the always on(Privacy advocate’s nightmare), inaccessible by design device.
The right to mod is part of it. The essential idea is to extend the life of the device or fix a a device, and since everything is software these days, that means being able to update or replace the software on the device as needed is necessary.
The problem with portable electronic devices today is not only availability of spare parts from the manufacturer but lack of documentation and tooling on how to open them and take them apart.
PS: Waiting for Apple to respond with how this initiative will hurt customers somehow…
In the article there was mentioned that EU would also seek to ban “destruction of unsold goods”. I hope they are able to define this in a way that is neither absurdly strict nor voided by loopholes. For example if there is a time limit after which old devices can be “destroyed”, say a few years, I can very well see Apple stockpiling their oldphones in warehouses just to avoid selling them at a lower price. I’m also worried that this could easily lead to scenarios where manufacturers simply “sell” old devices en masse to their own subsidiaries to be destroyed.
Right to repair must also be joined by right to upgrade OS version.
Caraibes,
This gets into the debate over where to draw the line. Even someone who supports right to repair and long term updates can’t expect a manufacturer to provide support indefinitely, this isn’t realistic. But I do think it would be fair to put the onus on manufacturers to provide the tools and documentation that the community needs to support themselves indefinitely. I think this distinction is important because it doesn’t place an undue burden on the manufacturers to allocate resources to long term support. Rather it means that the owners will have 3rd party options even after the manufacturer has ended official support.
This is where the mobile market could learn a lot from the PC market, which by and large already works this way.
I find Caraibes’ position entirely reasonable, and the best option to reduce waste. No one reasonable expects OEMs to infinitely support a product, but products should be supported for a reasonable amount of time. Especially a reasonable amount of time after the OEM has ceased production. (ex: Every Android phone vendor. >:( ) Some OEMs do a better job of supporting their products then others.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Having a mechanism to unlock the device and load an alternative OS is a reasonable request. This a particular problem with my new to me car. As far as I know, there isn’t a way to update the infotainment system to something that isn’t provided by the manufacturer. This is a particular problem because the navigation portion needs to be updated, and the manufacturer has stopped offering updates.
I do make an effort to buy things which can have the OS replaced. It’s my #1 rule for buying things which have microchips in them.
Flatland_Spider,
Clearly it would help. This is sort of what I meant with “where do you draw the line”, what is reasonable? 2 years, 3? 5? 10? Certainly I’d like to see longer support, but I honestly think the 3rd party modding community could do a better job, assuming we had the necessary tools and documentation.
+1
I completely agree, yet as much as I am an advocate for openness, I’ll fail due to the fact that sometimes there are no manufacturers providing open alternatives. Voting with one’s feet obviously can’t work when no there’s no competition to provide these open alternatives in the first place 🙁 Even though I hate sending money on proprietary products, the reality is I still need the thing I’m buying.
Guys, I get the nuances and agree vendors can’t financially handle the whole nine yards.
What could be done is something comparable to laptops/desktops OS situation: Windows can run on mostly anything. Older PC that are really so old & can’t handle Win10 can still run Lubuntu or lighter Linuxes.
Hence relating to today’s post about Linux on phone. Something like Debian (who can run on anything), but on which one could install APKs.
Problem with LineageOS is that they keep on dropping support for devices. This is the main difference with PCs.
Caraibes,
I agree. The one factor that’s most responsible for this difference on x86 PCs is that most everything can be supported by mainline linux. It’s rather unfortunate, but often ARM and mobile platforms require a custom kernel & proprietary blobs. We are extremely fortunate with PCs to have some degree of separation between hardware manufacturers and software vendors. Alas the mobile industry evolved much differently and manufacturers are treating the software and hardware as a bundled product. This is directly responsible for our upgrade difficulties.
It’s not the fault of LineageOS, they are impeded by the very same factors that stop linux distros from working on phones. This is all technically solvable, but shifting the industry’s momentum is a big obstacle. Manufacturers may not see it in their interests to give up their tight bundling.