Where to begin… I think it’s no surprise how increasingly chaotic life has been. There are so many issues happening in this country, it’s impossible to focus on one. I hate to do this, but I like to introduce one more. This one seems to go unnoticed to many. Though for many it might not be the most essential problem to solve, I assure you that this will affect everyone one way or another. I would like to talk about the right to repair.
What is it?
The right to repair essentially gives us people the ability to decide how we would like to repair our devices. This means you have the ability to go to the manufacturer. If you find it too expensive and want to go to a local shop down the street, you can do that. If you’re up for buying the legitimate part and fix the problem yourself, you can do that. The freedom is to have options was more common years ago. It also is great as the consumer has options that drove competition amongst companies in this field That in turn kept them in check for quality service and pricing. However, we live in a time where that is shifting.
Complying with Corporations
This shift appears to lean towards the manufacturers trying to absorb the business of not only providing the electronics but be the only provider of repairing said electronics. Do we really want these corporations to have much control over our devices? They say you own the device upon purchase, but after the tactics I’ve heard I’m starting to feel we are just leasing them. These tactics could be, but not limited to, the following:
- electronic architecture: the increasing difficulty of how the parts connect such as soldering them or making them small. Another design would be to have it so it requires disassembling a large portion of components to just get to what you want to fix. This can go as far as eliminating features to consumers despite them still be valid options. Must I bring up the audio jack port for iPhones 😒?
- Part Availability: Manufacturers would limit or deny providing parts to sources unless authorized to “be able to work on devices”
- Blocking third-party parts: enforce the device to acknowledge, warn, and in some cases refuse to work if a part is not serialized. Serialized meaning the part needs to be verified by the manufacturer. Even if the part is from some valid third-party, if this isn’t in place, the device could deny working or could void the warranty.
- Refusal to provide schematics: repair shops can’t get the schematics to see how the device operates under the hood. This limits the shops the ability to offer support which limits the competition.
- Requiring proprietary tools: manufacturers creating new components and tools mandatory to be able to modify the components which in turn costs more money.
My Perspective
I’d like to provide a recent example from a business/corporate perspective. An employee reported a laptop no longer working. My investigation did show the damage to the hard drive and the motherboard (accidental). Since we paid for the manufacturer’s support, I decided to call to schedule a repair. The unfortunate events start at this point. To begin, we pay for higher tier support where a technician can come on-site with a new part and fix it. With the COVID procedures, the only option we are given was depot repair. This entails shipping the computer to a facility to be repaired and then shipped back. I agree with this and start this process.
After a month of calling them a few times a week, I finally was able to have them fix the device and it’s on-route back to me. Approximately 30 days of a laptop not useable for an employee. In my opinion, I don’t find this acceptable for the reason that I was barely informed on the process. I had to constantly call and was told someone would call me for an update. Asking simple questions regarding this repair somehow took a whole day for a response as that required
Bringing it Full Circle
Now, this issue isn’t critical compared to others deal with, but this situation made me ponder. Throughout this experience, I knew we would have an answer. The company is able to afford any expensive damages or a brand new machine in the worst case. We also worked with the employee so they were able to be productive in the meantime. So why get so mad over it? I see a few problems. If the process was frustrating while working under an enterprise, I’m curious about the experience for the normal consumer. I would assume it isn’t going to be better. Even in my position, my hands were tied to a degree. To elaborate, with the design of devices being very small and fragile, there was a possibility of further damage. I also do not have appropriate training to undergo soldering pieces back together. If I attempted the procedure, I could void the warranty which the company paid money for (along with more money out of pocket to fix the damages I created).
I can list more but I want to make my point. Imagine all of these annoyances of this but being just an entrepreneur or a college student. In today’s world, a person can run the majority of their business from a computer. Add in the fact of this pandemic restricting access to supplies, stores, or even delayed times on big manufacturers finishing repairs, the situation gets serious fast. Without enterprise-level resources, people have limited options to resolve this. During this pandemic, I have been contacted by several people I know for advice or request for help simply because of a lack of knowledge or option. I can see the impact this can cause.
Takeaway
So with all of these other issues going on in the world, why bring this one up? Over and over again, I say technology is more integral in our lives. Our inanimate objects that were once simple now have some sort of sophistication. Truth be told, I’m not saying this takes precedence over others. To simply ignore this one as well will cost us though in the future. The fact is, we bought these devices to own.. not for rent. How I choose to use the device is my choice. How I choose to fix the device should also be my choice. Putting our faith in one company that makes a product to solely fix it can be problematic if said product is in high demand. Promoting others to maybe fix this product or have shops be authorized to fix them could help in issues like today where people need money, a job, or are desperate to fix a device quickly.
The best advice is to stay informed and maybe take the incentive on learning to fix things (if possible) and to support the Right to Repair. It spans many industries because of technological advancements. We all will have to deal with this one way or another and I for one want to have the option on how I fix my belongings.
References
I’m adding some resources that I recommend to look at this topic. I hope they provide a perspective on this issue. These links are a good start that intrigued me to investigate more. Stay positive and safe!
- What is Right to Repair? An introduction for curious people.
- iFixit – Right to Repair
- The right to repair movement
- Tesla DETECTS unauthorized modifications after software update.
- Serializing parts will destroy independent repair – Samsung leads the trend.
- Tractor Hacking: The Farmers Breaking Big Tech’s Repair Monopoly
- Part 1: Apple REFUSED to Fix our iMac Pro
- Part 2: Is Apple’s behavior ILLEGAL?? – iMac Pro Repair