Big Tech’s superficial support is undermining the right-to-repair movement - Digital Trends

Luckily, the right to repair movement is here to fight this growing e-waste problem.

Apple kicked off the recent spat of manufacturer repair initiatives in the last year.

It was a pleasant surprise from a company that has historically been downright adversarial to the right to repair.

He argues that even with these new programs, the repair world is still worse off than it was thirty or forty years ago.

John Deere continues to obstruct the right of farmers to fix their own equipment, and insists on funneling service into monopolistic repair shops.

Apple routinely asks customs authorities to block reimportation of actual Apple parts made in Apple factories.”.

Valve, a major force in PC games but a relative neophyte in hardware, offers a repair kit for their Steam Deck.

Then you have Fairphone, which not only offers devices with a plethora of user-replaceable parts, but also ensures their materials are equitably sourced?

Thea Kleinmagd, Circular Material Chains Innovator at Fairphone, tells us, “When a small company like Fairphone can offer spare parts, free repair information, and long-term software updates for their phones while being profitable, why should a lawmaker refrain from demanding this from every company?”.

Fairphone agrees that repair service is something that manufacturers need to factor into their business model.

Many repair technicians want to buy official manufacturer parts?

Manufacturers could capture some of that repair parts revenue.

Despite the existence of promising alternatives, Rossmann’s overall assessment of the world of repair remains bleak.

“I think there’s progress in terms of people understanding right to repair as an issue.

I think there’s zero progress in terms of there being any sort of real change.” Having manufacturers co-opt right to repair in visible but superficial ways can be their way of getting end users to back off from pressuring political representatives for meaningful legislation.

I tell people that New York’s Fair Repair Act fixes about 80% of the practical problems with repairing equipment covered by the law.

Obviously the Fair Repair Act also carves out some categories that we want to expand, particularly agricultural equipment and home appliances.”.

There remain so many hurdles to right to repair that it can be easy to get pessimistic

If you’re interested in pushing right to repair forward, you can lend your support to the following legislative measures across the US