Fight to Repair Daily: July 18, 2022
Microsoft (kind of) finds repair religion with Surface Laptop SE. Also: Kyle Wiens of iFixit talks car repair. And: Nader sees college students checked out as corporations exert control on campuses.
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Microsoft’s Surface Laptop SE is a turning point for right to repair
The current trend is that broken PCs and tablets are shoved in a cupboard because mainstream schools simply don’t have the budget to replace the unrepairable. The introduction of this device may be the point that history recalls as the moment big tech took the right to repair (R2R) seriously.
I threw my proverbial toys out of the pram largely because of the rhetoric crowbarred into Brandon’s script. At 3:41, he says: “There’s a lot of work that went into designing this device to be so repairable.” I believe what the scriptwriter possibly meant to say was: “We found a five-year-old HP Stream in a bin and ran it through the photocopier.” There is nothing about the Surface SE that hits a progressive definition of repairable. All the usual suspects that I bang on about, like soldered on RAM and eMMCs, are here. The best we can say is that the Surface SE has replaceable and available parts, which is an underwhelming statement for such a seismic shift in the correct direction. (ITPro.co.uk)
U.S. Moves Toward Self Repair
The message is clear: Americans want the right to repair.
Whether it’s their mobile phones, their printers, their computers or their vehicles, Americans have watched product manufacturers raise the prices of new products and close off avenues to consumers who want to repair what they already own.
Congress has begun to notice. Two bills aimed at ensuring vehicle owners’ right to repair have been introduced. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) introduced the bipartisan SMART Act in 2021, and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) sponsored the REPAIR Act earlier this year. Clearly, this is a bipartisan issue.
Why is congressional action necessary? Because consumers have been threatened with their product warranties being voided if they attempt to repair their products or use non-manufacturer parts to do so. On a parallel track, because so many of today’s products generate data about us, consumers have found they don’t have the ownership over their own data that they deserve.
Put these two factors together and Americans have been left feeling frustrated and limited on options -- and lighter in the wallet. Repairing your products rather than buying new ones is obviously less expensive. Further, if consumers can use repair parts not made by their product manufacturers – often called aftermarket parts – they can save money. (Real Clear Politics)
Ralph Nader: Students, Campuses and Dominant Corporate Power
When it comes to corporate power and control over their lives, now and into the future, today’s college students are perilously dormant. When it comes to putting pressure on Congress to counter the various dictates of corporatism, there is little activity other than some stalwarts contacting their lawmakers on climate violence.
Much of campus activity these days focuses on diversity, tuition, student loans, “politically correct” speech demands and conforming conduct.
This campus environment is strangely oblivious to the corporate abuses of our economy, culture and government. This indifference extends to the endless grip of corporate power over the educational institutions that the students attend. (Scheerpost.com)
Nearly half of Indian households find repair cost exorbitant for broken devices: Survey
''On an aggregate basis, 43 per cent of Indian households have three or more less than five-year-old devices such as laptops and smartphones at home that need service or repair,'' the report said.
Around 47 per cent of households stated that the repair cost of the old device with the brand was prohibitive and bad economics, and they went for buying a new device. (Devdiscourse.com)
Kyle Wiens fights for the right to repair cars (Episode 157)
The co-founder and CEO of online repair community iFixit describes the auto industry’s attempts to use copyright law to restrict who can repair cars. He further explores the meaning of ownership in a software-defined era. (Autonews.com)