For me, Right to Repair has always been the build quality of items that I use on a daily basis. Which given the right knowledge & access to the right parts. You can continue to use that product for a longer time. Thereby the product becomes cheaper to own in the long term basis despite they can be expensive to buy.
Heck, I can even have the option to don't do it myself. Which I can find skilled craftsman or company to do the repairs for me.
This spawned a cottage industry surrounding the product or a brand displaying their care for the customers. Bringing them tons of good will and brand loyalty like some of these great examples are Allen Edmonds Recrafting Services or Red Wings Repair.
This was precisely why I personally own 2 Allen Edmonds dress shoes for that specific reason. Because I could repair these shoes in my own country (Singapore) or ship them back to the US even when Allen Edmonds doesn't sell their shoes in my country.
So what does Right to Repair mean to you?
Top comments (4)
I'd deem this conversation to be complicated and I really don't have a cut-and-dry feeling here with great confidence, but I'd say one thing: Anything that makes reparation more difficult on purpose without legit reason is eggregious.
I recognize that certain types of technology are inherently difficult to repair: Certainly something like a damaged microchip could be inherently irreparable, and maybe sometimes a battery can only fit into the technology in a certain way in order to feasibly create the thing? But RAM which is soldered into place when it could have been removable without great tradeoff, seems pretty crappy.
Tbh cars is very expensive in my country. When I read the article on a Tesla car requiring $16,000 to repair it this destroyed my desire to get a Tesla if the repair is almost 1/2 the price of the car.
This is what it looks like to me:
fairphone.com/en/
frame.work/blog/the-framework-lapt...
Plus trying to buy things that I can sufficiently assess are good quality and can be repaired. For me, it is absolutely linked to sustainability, reducing e-waste, etc. It is also easy for me, tbh, because I do not care about iPhones and what's 'hot'.
Example: I am typing this on my 'old' MacBook Pro 17inch mid 2010. Why is this 'old'? I have furniture that dates back at least 50 years (second hand, refurbished) and still is comfortable and gorgeous. But Apple decided I cannot upgrade this Mac beyond High Sierra. And Slack decided they will not support High Sierra as of September. This way, big tech forces us to buy new stuff. We need to resist this. We have the right to use the products we buy, without our use being restricted or made impossible by the seller.
And my Fairphone? It's fantastic :-D
Yeah definitely, I heard about the Fairphone but have not gone to purchase that because shipping and online retail taxes is really expensive.
I had not seen frame before but it's quite a good direction I guess. I hope with the legislation by FTC that is good enough that it will be used as part of our law in my country for "Right to Repair"