Why Right to Repair Matters

@Danny Martial tires (or wheels) have tire pressure sensors. If it wasn’t for vehicular right to repair it could very well be possible that car manufacturers could use software to restrict the function of the tire pressure sensor, or we could also see the same things we see with apple devices where they use proprietary screws. So the each car manufacturer could have a proprietary way of mounting and dismounting tires.

I like to think this instead. You buy a Ford (any model) and get a flat tyer and Ford disabled your car from starting because you replaced the flat OEM tyer with a third party Bridgestone.

Because everyone and their grandmother has a tire machine in their garage.

Or more specifically, imagine this happened right outside a small mechanic shop that could replace the flat tire for $50. But instead, you have to call a tow truck and get the tire replaced at the dealership for $300 plus the cost of the tow.

​@Frédéric Hardy an 8 cent microcontroller, a 6 cent capacitor and maybe 20 cent coil. More expensive to integrate than it would cost, a serial number sensor is.

@_Sukuratchi add revenue is indeed a significant part of their income, but you're getting that this company will constantly cramp on companies even if they sponsor them. Companies are constantly telling them not to open stuff up, but they do anyway. Look at Gamers Nexus, they still get sponsors and literally all they do is analyze hardware and see what's good and what's bad, regardless of consequences.

@_Sukuratchi Well they've not exactly gone out of business since they last did a video with Louis, and they talk about R2R regularly, and they talk about companies that have privacy issues and other things very regularly, and yet still they don't seem to be going bankrupt, so I suspect it's not as much of an issue as you think.

@thenayancat at the end of the day, still a company. Who knows though, maybe you’re right

@_Sukuratchi LMG is big enough to still get plenty sponsorship offers from companies that don't mind them talking about stuff like this

@thenayancat thing is that at the end of the day, ltt is a company/business. You don’t want to cover something that will loose you possible sponsorships, etc. Meanwhile louis doesn’t care because he already has a different business and youtube is a second thing for him

@David Sh. So here in America, we have these things called lobbyists. What does a lobbyist do? They lobby. But what does that mean? Lobbying just means trying to influence politicians, this is something that technically speaking anyone has the right to do. The issue I am going to refer to right now is corporate lobbyists, basically trying to influence politicians on behalf of a corporation. Usually it's to make them make decisions that would lead to them being able to make more money. The form of lobbying can take many forms, from giving them gifts if they look the other way, to outright lying to their faces. So for instance, let's say that a state is trying to pass a law that would enforce right to repair legislation. Suddenly, the governor of the state will have people from corporations left and right telling them that the reason why they shouldn't pass that is because it could lead to safety issues, or any other number of outright lies. Now here is an example of that leading to something horrific: New York was about to pass a landmark right to repair bill. But then, after getting voted on and passing both the house and the Senate, The law had been modified to say "unless there is there is a perceived safety issue that would arise from allowing the maxes to that part." Boom: the law is completely toothless now. Makes sense?
And in case you're wondering why that's legal, good question. The government is really hesitant to do anything that would inhibit a corporations ability to make obscene wealth. We even have an entire political party that preaches anything that could actually properly punish corporations would be essentially punishing rich people for being successful, causing them to not even try and therefore ruining the economy. And this party has been reading the same script for the past 50 years. Of course, America also had this thing called the Red scare, which many people who don't live in America might be completely unaware of because, well, it literally had no impact outside of America. But basically it amplified fear of socialism and anything that would help better people's lives at the expense of corporations, and Brett scare talking points have been repeated by that party ever since.

You mean Apple users?

All brands is trying to train you into thinking you don't own anything you buy. You buy games full price in steam but you only own the right to play the game. You don't own your copy of it and can't just pass your game to your friend.
Digital books is the same, Movies is the same. What used to be ownership is now just rights that the brands can take away.
Cars has right to repair cause of older generations and their mentality of ownership. Our current and younger generation don't have that mentality, and thus don't demand ownership. We don't hate the name right to repair, its just that we don't think its our stuff to repair.

Imagine if you have to take your used car to an official dealership every time you want to replace the air filter or change the oil.

I now have an urge to walk into a church on a Sunday and yell 'SATAN' then calmly walk out again...

@steelGear It gets better: John Deere insists that the right to repair movement has been demanding access to the source code, which, well, we haven't. However, apparently the code they are using is actually licensed under the GPL license. What does that mean? It means by law, they have to give us access to the source code. Now as far as I know, there's nothing saying that they can't charger prohibitively expensive amount to the source code, but it also says that you can't just hide it. In other words, their software violates the law.

A complete 180 from deere of the 50's

the tractors are getting complexer, but according to Louis Rossmann, there can now even be situations, where the farmer has repaired their machine, but a technician has to "allow" you to use the machine again after the repair because of the software in the machine

@Cole Hintermeister in fairness, the question was a little confusing. I think there were basically asking if they didn't have the right this whole time, and also were asking what exactly is it that the movement wants to do, which is a fair question. Basically, Apple is under no obligation to allow him to be able to repair his stuff, and the right to repair movement wants that to change legally. Essentially, for anyone reading, this means that the company has to let you buy parts that the certified repair shops are able to buy. And preferably the individual parts too, not whole assemblies. That way if your screen breaks, you don't have to replace the screen, backlight, webcam, the plastic shell around the screen, etc.

What I got was that they were basically asking "so, have I like not had the right to repair this whole time that I was repairing stuff?" The answer is no, Apple had no obligation to allow that person to be able to repair their own stuff. There is currently is no obligation, and that's what the movement wants to change.

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It very well could have been a genuine question of legality on second thought. Unfortunately the way Linus inflected, it made it feel way more sarcastic and snotty than they may have intended

Exactly

I don't know why you guys are still arguing here, but yes it's like Frank says. Prepared, Linus' response would've been impressive already, off the cuff, like he did here, even more impressive. Not sure why you're calling it backhanded. Maybe you're confused by the type 2 conditional clause?

@Futil3Fun He said, had Linus written down and prepared this statement, it would've been better than anything he could produce, but it was this good even though he improvised the response. That's praise and nothing else

To be fair, that's probably because we have to keep answering the same questions, so we keep refining the way we answer every time. Linus' response was "improvised" but it's not like he invented those thoughts or arguments on the spot.

@Futil3Fun Did you even read the comment? You should work on your reading comprehension.

@Danny Martial bro I've seen you advocate against R2R in every single reply section.
You sound like a corporate lobbyist that's trying his hardest to defend the atrocities he participated it.

@ky56 and to add, they are probably preventing their manufacturers from selling any parts. So it IS a rights issue.

@Danny Martial No. That's a "we gave zero fucks about serviceability when designing this product" issue.

That's not a rights issue. That's a "we don't have the ability to repair it, but you can have a crack at it if you want" issue.

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Not comparable lol

That's not how discourse works. Telling someone to sit down and shut your mouth is NOT the way to move a movement forward. I feel that Linus could have more calmly explained that just because someone able to repair an old device, doesn't mean they could still do that on newer devices.

Doesn't BMW do that?

That is a small fringe benefit. Private property is the real concrete issue being discussed.
Do you or do you not own the device you paid for.

The problem is when right-to-repair-advocates campaign for companies to make devices uglier by having exposed screwed, less water resistance by using less glue, thicker chassis to hold removable parts rather than soldered in parts, less security by allowing third-party bio-authentication sensors, etc...
Saying that people who disagree are wrong is just narrow-minded. Right-to-repair doesn't come without a cost. And that cost is impeding on people who prefer to use locked down devices.

@Doppler Effect Absolutely. That's what i meant in the first part

Every company ALREADY has the right to reject a repair request. Right to repair isn't about "forcing companies to repair your devices if you ask." It's about making it illegal for companies to blockade ANYBODY from repairing the device.

R2R also includes the ability of a local shop to make a simple/cheap repair on your behalf instead of having to do a much larger expensive and largely unnecessary repair like replacing an entire assembly.

@SomeGuy Okay while I personally disagree with that stance on right to repair, there are some technical aspects that I can slightly empathise with if they are the case.
1. Linus, LMG or Creator Warehouse do not own the patent for the ratcheting design. It may be that they simply cannot provide documentation or spare parts in that regard. You can maybe make the argument that that is something they should have considered when looking for a prefabbed design, however since we don’t know what their contract is I find it hard to argue over that.
2. This was a claim made by customer support, not Linus. It is clear that Linus’ views are far opposed to that. Again, the argument could be made that Linus could be more “tuned in” to the customer support team, and in fact, in the WAN show from yesterday he did mention that he is working on familiarising himself a lot more with different employees and processes. I’m not sure if that would change their stance on RTR as a company, however.
3. From a consumer friendliness perspective, which is 50% of the goals of RTR, Creator Warehouse checks all of the boxes. Their return policy and surprisingly their “Trust Me Bro” Warranty has been quite praised. There is a definite point to be made on the environmental costs of shipping out a whole new screwdriver for every defect, and a simple replacement policy is nowhere near what it needs to be for right to repair friendliness.
Each of my 3 points have benefits and downsides. Me personally, I am not going to cast stones at Creator Warehouse or Linus because for how small of a company they are compared to the behemoths of the tech and farming industry, they are doing quite well for the consumer.

@Rara Cool "Our screwdrivers aren't intended to be user serviceable."
And
"Our right to repair isn't technical meant to portray that our items can be repaired easily, but rather that if something that shouldn't happen occurs that we will have it repaired/replaced for you."
From an email with support

What do you mean?

@RunMeerkat legislation vs Actual Object

​​@Dog ridiculous. Now Elon Musk can't say how great EVs are because he has a conflict of interest in them too.

This whole topic is a conflict of interest for him. Idk why he’s still commenting on it

Yes

​@Israel Lai - Composer no, linus understood it perfectly. The guy asking the question didn't understand the issue because his specific device has mostly been taken care of.

​@primadonna2312he did say he didn't understand the question, but he proceeded to give a generic response to any RTR questions 😂

You didn't, Linus misunderstood the question.

Not everyone understands everything. Its why we ask question and gather data to gain knowledge and understanding, just like the person who asked the question did.

His Framework investment is talking

Seemed more out of touch for me, he was able to get parts for a really old phone. Must have not seen anything new recently..!

It was worded similarly to how someone might sarcastically heckle him, so I can understand both the presumed intent and the way Linus received it

Question was structured poorly, I think

This!!!

Sounds to me like a Onewheel battery pack except in phone form.

@Scaven666 it's ONLY going to be for sale in places where it would be illegal. and everywhere else too. and we'll make deals with the gov'ts to MANDATE that the citizens have to buy only this phone each time a new version comes out. which will be every three months.

@Hann Plays: Life wrong game... can it run Crysis?

so would this phone only be sold in the US? cause it would never get approved to sell on the EU market thats for sure

but can it run skyrim?

@Doppler Effect when I asked for replacement they gave new phone and I kept my broken one so I had 2 theoretically even though it was broken so really had 1 working one

They have always repaired or replaced the device for me even out of warranty and still helped which was awesome so I’ve never had that problem yet

@Doppler Effect never had that problem happen to me ever

And companies still have the right to reject a repair request if your attempt caused it to fail. That's literally NOT what right to repair is trying to stop. It's trying to stop companies from intentionally making it difficult or impossible for people to either repair their devices themselves or getting them repaired by a third party.

@Wooksley going by what you say why do you get to say what government should and should not do? Your view might look unbiased but its very biased in nature. Its governments responsibility to help their people not make it worst for them. These big companies do not care about costumers. Governement have the right to impose regulations and laws as long as it benefits the people. Going by what you said you shouldnt have a problem with my opinion nor the R2R law because it doesnt affect you Lol.

@Keiyano well, don’t buy Apple’s products then, what’s your problem? Just don’t buy hard to repair electronics. What you don’t get to do is to use the force of government, so basically violence, to enforce your preferences onto onto others. Maybe some people don’t care if their electronics is easy to repair, maybe they would in fact prefer hard-to-repair stuff for some other reason like idk, it looks prettier or costs less or something else entirely. Why do you get to dictate what other people buy?

@Wooksley You can make products repairable without decreasing quality. Quality, Security , etc is all excuses big companies make for not doing something. Like how apple didn't allow third party app stores and payment systems because security. Its the same as apple not including a type C port because they care about environment. But if they cared about environment they would let ppl repair their devices and keep it out of a landfield. Electronics arent getting cheaper so the answer is not to buy new optimal stuff but to repair existing

@KeiyanoI think you don’t get it. I’m not against consumers repairing their own stuff, I do that myself. What I don’t like is the very concept of a positive right. You are not owed anything just because you exist and you should not be able to force other people to do what you want them to do by force. By all means, buy gadgets that are easy to repair and repair them. That’s not what the right to repair is, what it means is that it is illegal to make gadgets that are not easy to repair, and it is illegal not to supply spare parts for the gadgets that you’re producing. Why should that be? Why can’t companies just make whatever they want and consumers can’t just buy whatever they deem optimal for them to buy? In general, who are you to tell me what to do? And besides that can be abused in a million different ways and increase costs, decrease quality and have other unforeseen consequences that are not necessarily positive.

Having R2R denied can easily put people who work in profession that deal with repairs out of business. Like seriously idk why people think this is about apple only. Sure if you wanna be an apple fan by all means do so but it doesn't give you any right to deny other people of their rights as a consumer. If someone as a consumer wants to fix their stuff they should have the right to do so because after you pay for the product it is no longer the companies property.

The term "Honest question" is used when someone wants to ask a question that they perceive the answer to be fundamentally understood by others but doesn't make any sense to themself. They clarify the question as being "honest" because it might be so outlandish that other people might just assume them to be trolling with it.
In other words, they are trying to deflect the brain-dead _"hur-dur how do you not know that?"_ responses that come with the territory of asking questions about fundamentals. I do it all the time.

This whole issue is a conflict of interest with his Framework investment.

However the "public" may not be purchasing this equipment.
The maintenance men are the "public"
Ass for the consumer electronics market however. There Is no argument against right to repair.
I just hate that it's applied to everything with blind logic and no insight as to why it might be a thing other than greed.

Linus has been talking about R2R long before his investment.

The problem is the "Right to Repair" title is completely misunderstanding how rights work... You already have the right to take your phone to a third party. You have that right. You won't be arrested, fined, or punished in any way. You'll just have a shitty experience because the third party repairer isn't skilled enough to fix your device without breaking it.

Repairing a wall outlet could kill you if done improperly. Are we going to ban individuals from repairing their own wall outlets?

@Sidotre
True.
My concern is customers who don't do proper (or any) research.

@Ruben De
Well... If you put it like that... ;)
I should have sad 'in highly exceptional cases', and 'kill/permanently disfigure'. I also think it should not be up to the companies to determine when something is an exception.

So that "exception" would then include... everything?! Like imagine companies trying to say "oh but you can cut yourself trying to undo the unnecessarily agressive glue of our phone screen, therefore you should not be able to repair it by yourself only our trained professionals can do so"...
Put a safety warning in the manual if you so desire and let people repair their shit.

It's on customers to do proper research before attemping to repair their device.

The reason Linus invested in Framework is because they demonstrated that you can make a no compromises repairable laptop.

No. While it would be nice to have everything repairable, no right-to-repair advocate is asking for an uglier phone or less functionality on existing products. There are phones for that specific purpose like the fairphone. But what they want is to not intentionally lock down part supplies and software and hide behind the safety or user experience argument. If you don't want to you can still bring it to the manifacturer for repair just liie before. But say i don't like the apple logo and would rather replace it with a banana, the hardware part is easy as i could just use a case but software is restricted by apple even though they claim it is "my device". (And yes this is a stupid example but after software updates end it is critical in order to reduce waste)

@Rara Cool The absolute TL;DR is libertarianism.
You have the right (notwithstanding any legal contracts you have entered into or infringing on another's rights) to do whatever you want with your own property. That includes repair. So you already have the right to repair - it's an unenumerated right.
No one is bound (notwithstanding any legal contracts you have entered into) to help you repair your property. The creation of legislation that forces any person, company, or organization to help you repair your property is fundamentally authoritarian and unethical.

Explain.

@Idiocy dont worry, ths Khalmoon dude is really sounding like an apple fanboy by slightly mentioning things to discredit the ability to repair, such as "I only ever broke my apple products 3 times" and only replied to the 4th comment, ignoring the earlier comments that have way more information and a point to it. Khalmoon is just a salty shill.

So you're against right to repair just because you don't like some dude making a profit off of repairing products he doesn't use? You think he's more of a problem than the companies that are 99% anti-consumer? And you mentioned Samsung wasn't able to repair or replace your devices but that's more of a service issue than a right to repair issue. Apple and Samsung devices are currently "repairable" but at the cost of what? Just like Linus said and let people repair their devices without companies making it harder to do it.

@Von Potatostein That is good for the environment but I would argue it's significantly worse that companies like samsung produce ewaste phones at 50-100 dollars that get tossed every year. I worked in retail I've seen it happen. Every year new trash products rather than repackaging the old stuff.

@R3 Let's be real here it spans to other topics but obviously the Apple Repair guy is going to lobby heavily to make things better for him and his company. Which isn't a bad thing. But in my opinion I would suggest that if its such a problem, just stop buying apple products. Most people in this comment section don't own Apple products anyway. Once it becomes an inconvenience then it will be an issue.
Yes I'm aware the issue spans more than apple but no one can open their mouth about it without mentioning it

I'm sorry but this is an ignorant take.
The Right to Repair movement covers far more than just Apple. Louis, the guy you're obviously talking about, frequently talks about other companies besides Apple, such as Samsung. Most recently about how Samsung is trying to exclude the importing of *_all_* OLED screens into the country because of some BS patent dispute (And that includes ones they have no patents on as well!). He also frequently talks about farming equipment and medical equipment and the automotive industry. It's not just Apple. In fact, most of the times this stuff comes up in the public it isn't even about Apple.
Plus, he isn't "spear heading" anything. He's just one guy who is a major figure. There are other people who are larger and have more influence.
You're entire perspective, as I can surmise from your comment, is based on your very narrow exposure to the people talking about the subject.

Cool story bro, you want a cookie for it? how about, if you dont have anything to say about a video, just dont say anything...
You should be given a keyboard without the letters "f,i,r,s,t"

@Neojhun Yes, in theory EV's should be easier to maintain. However, in practice the car industry has been pivoting to a anti-RTR stance for years and EV's have been a big push to reach their goal. EV's are even easier to restrict with hardware DRM's. Many modern cars, especially cars with "smart" technology like most EV's, have DRM's, (software)backdoors and software-locked features baked in. Just check Rich Rebuilds' experiences with Tesla. Cars that are hard to get repaired for a reasonable price will get replaced, meaning more cars need to got produced, which is terrible for the environment.
I love the idea of EV's and I'm sure there are some good options for EV's, but I think it's naive to think that EV's that are sold are all good for repair-ability.

@Neojhun it's much more dangerous to self service evs compared to ICE cars due to the high voltages of the battery packs and depending on the repairs needed. Secondly I wouldn't advocate for any ICE car made after 2018 from most manufacturers since they can and do reset the tune to the ecu if you change it for more power like the way GM has in some of its cars like certain models of the corvette. So I would outright avoid those ICE cars entirely if you aren't able to replace it with a standalone ecu.
Also what's to stop a manufacturer from saying "we don't like your opinions or that you state facts that offend certain people so you can't drive the car you bought from us so we're disabling it" because last I checked companies like pre Elon Twitter and current Facebook etc did that at their pleasure so why wouldn't a car manufacturer be able to do that if they wanted to. Hence why I never advise anyone to buy cars with networked ecus.
Maybe also look up how vw refused to track a hijacked car that had the owners child in it unless the owner paid for their tracking subscription. This is something we will see more of in the future so why not have a system you actually control instead of letting a corporation put a price tag on helping you get your child back in a situation like that

Insane Nonsense. BEVs are EASIER to repair than modern ICE cars. To the point you can do major work like Motor and Battery Swaps with much less specialized tools in a modest private work shop. You are just spamming Political Rumors about Technical Reality.