By NICHOLAS MOORE
Business Manager
If you ever recall damaging a personal laptop, phone, or other expensive and “complicated” pieces of equipment, more often than not taking it back to the manufacturer or vendor resulted in estimates for repairing or replacing the device that cost much higher than fixing it yourself.
Fixing some devices on your own, however, is borderline impossible for numerous reasons, being manufacturers have a chokehold on supplies/materials for parts or the parts themselves; performing service work as a non-registered party voids the Terms of Service, warranty, or End User License Agreement (EULA); or the item was not built for being dismantled and rebuilt to fix common errors, and manufacturers rely on the customer to instead buy a brand new item. Brands that are reputable in other ways do this, such as Apple, General Motors, Toyota, John Deere, and other significant manufacturing companies.
The lack of some companies’ cooperation isn’t to say that not everything has limitations on repairing broken items. Advocacy groups, such as IFixit, The Repair Association, and platforms such as the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) and Repair.org have led to such massive outreach in recent years to where only eight states have not introduced a “Right to Repair” or “Fair bill ever in their congressional history, every other state either has previously or has current legislation in progress. New York State currently has assembly bill A6315 and senate bill S4104 in progress to pass “fair repair” acts, with the following objectives:
A6315 (Assembly): “Requires manufacturers of digital electronic parts to offer for sale documentation, diagnostic and repair information in the same manner as such manufacturer provides such diagnostic and repair information to such manufacturer’s repair provider; establishes such section does not apply to motor vehicles.”
A4104 (Senate): “Relates to the sale of digital electronic equipment; requires original equipment manufacturers to provide diagnostic and repair information.”
With this in mind, while this is an opinion piece, it is not my job to formulate an opinion for you. There are plenty of resources that explain the background, current struggles and market dynamics, and actions that you can take if you support the idea of an individual’s right to repair. With those resources, you can come to your own educated opinion on the topic and create your stance on the matter. What I will provide is from personal experience and understanding of having to repair devices for a previous job and why the arguments big companies are making do not stack well with just wanting to control their devices, markets and squeeze profits on already capitalized markets.
Obsolescence of products
These days, products are designed to be either replaced by newer models within a few years or when broken. The easiest thing the consumer can do to remedy the situation is to buy a new one.
For companies that release newer models every year, this point is of most concern to them, as targeting their newer products as the “latest and greatest” would be a bit counterintuitive if people could repair previous models for a much cheaper entry cost and not have to buy new models immediately. There is an understandable point of contention here for a business’s interest; however, there is one counterpoint to this.
While company loyalists will buy newer products, older devices that are repairable may be a way to attract previously skeptical buyers. In doing so, if their customer base expands due to right to repair legislation making people feel more comfortable with trying older products out without worrying about high maintenance costs, it can effectively increase their pool of customers, meaning higher revenue potential. There is no concrete evidence to defend this position. However, as someone who would tinker with spare pieces of cheaper products, this may be a mitigating effect if given the opportunity.But repairing is “profitable”
To the argument, I say absolutely false. Most of the previously mentioned companies’ revenue stems from selling the initial product, much less from repairing the low number of defective/problematic units or units that customers damaged. The fact that they only capitalize on the repairs of broken devices has left companies an uncapitalized loophole. They could sell the individual parts for additional revenue instead of going through labor and overhead during repairs themselves. Selling spare parts/replacements to individuals, non-competitive third parties, and privately owned repair shops could significantly boost revenue if capitalized appropriately.
The monopoly effect
A current issue with a chokehold on replacement parts or the knowledge to repair broken equipment is that there is a pseudo-monopoly on these markets.
To use Apple as an example, if you broke your iPhone right after reading this piece, you would have to find either an Apple store, Genius Bar, or a certified Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple Authorized Reseller location for these stores even to be able to do anything. Once you were to talk to someone from this store, obviously they would most likely not be able to help you unless you wanted a new device, and your device would have the physical data saved, cloud data locked while you are without a device, sent to a repair location, repaired for an unscaled cost, come back to you, and even if the job is adequate, because you are at their mercy for pricing, what they charge is what they charge, there is no competition in pricing.
While profitable, holding chokeholds on markets is unhealthy overall for a competitive commerce archetype that we have. Being able to open the market to more competition, especially against companies that would not make a significant or “material” hit in their revenue. This also goes to say, anytime markets become competitive, the customer always wins (to elaborate for anyone unfamiliar with this quote, whenever two companies compete to make their item favorable, it will usually be to the benefit of the customer, by reduced prices, higher quality, or other favorable factors).It’s one of the few non-partisan issues
I don’t believe I need to go into great details here. A congressional win is a congressional win as this bill archetype has gained traction recently. It is not guaranteed, but it has viable passability if the legislation passes through state assemblies. When it came to votes per population rather than assembly, an overwhelming majority of voters favored the right to repair legislation, regardless of political affiliation.
