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Apple, Google & Microsoft Have Teamed up to Block the Right-to-Repair Law
Apple, Google & Microsoft Have Teamed up to Block the Right-to-Repair Law:
Bloomberg today released a report on how companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are working together to put a stop to laws that would make it necessary for companies to provide device schematics, genuine repair parts, and repair manuals to independent repair technicians.
Almost 27 states have considered the laws in 2021 alone, but in more than half of them, the laws have been voted down or dismissed. Many lobbyists and trade groups representing tech companies have fought hard against this law with Apple pointing out that such measures could lead to device damage or consumers harming themselves when attempting to repair their devices.
In Washington, for example, Washington House of Representatives Democrat Mia Gregerson sponsored a Right to Repair measure that was fought by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, along with lobbyists representing Apple. Lobbyists later said that Apple would endorse repair programs at local colleges if the bill was dropped.
Also at Bloomberg and MacRumors.
See also: Leaked Apple Documents Inadvertently Helped the Right-to-Repair Movement
Louis Rossmann Starts a GoFundMe to Get "Right to Repair" Legistation Passed Through a Direct Ballot
Summary Louis Rossmann, electronics repairman and YouTuber, has started a nonprofit and GoFundMe campaign to fight to get right to repair legislation passed through direct ballot initiatives. For years Louis has talked about the importance of right to repair and how it has become more difficult t...
Right to repair series - Louis Rossmann
In this series he specifically explains why we need better right to repair laws.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyM7FxEaShI
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 22 2021, @03:09AM (3 children)
This whole shit-fight is because once sold, products have a negative value to those selling them, in that they prevent further sales by satifying market demand.
So, left to a 'free market' you'll end up with shoddier and shoddier products filled with self-destruct or just carelessly fragile designs because that allows their 'negative value' to the manufacturers to be lessened.
This is classic short-sighted greed, and another reason why the basic idea of 'free market capitalism' is about as wise as 'golden rule as the be-all and end-all of dealing with people'. (Just in case you are honestly unaware, as many are, the golden rule is appropriate to tell to kids in kindergaten. It is superceded dramatically by the principle that you need to treat people as *they* need to be treated, which depends upon *them* and *not* you).
Death, Taxes, Government regulation - all unavoidable because of the universe, with it's pesky second-law of thermodynamics.
'free-market' and it's bullshit all only depend / want to understand only the principle of the *first* law of thermodynamics, which is really the same as the law of conservation of energy - also conservation of matter. Like Gold, which nicely comes closest to actually behaving that way, in that it doesn't so easily degrade away due to corrosion like other metals.
Running the world using a fincial system which is willfully ignorant so as to maintain a justification for, well, maintaining ownership - even to the point of often demanding tax breaks because, 'boo-hoo my stuff degraded with time :( give poor me a tax break because that's just so unfair :( '
Look into the tax breaks the rich and powerful have arranged for themselves, and you'll see shit like that everywhere. They live in worlds where their servents clean up after them - they really believe that 2nd law - which just guarentees mess and decay in general - isn't a thing. To them, if they find a mess, SOMEONE IS TO BLAME.
And they're the ones who end up in control of the big names like these three...
If anything ever ought to be put into law, and fast - before we lose all ability to repair or even discover how our magic black boxes work - it is this 'right to repair' thing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 22 2021, @03:29AM (2 children)
This is just one of the many things Adam Smith was warning about when he said that businessmen never get together without conspiring against the public good. A free market can only exist in the presence of tight regulations and strict rule of law. The reason Right to Repair is even a thing is because the laws against tying have broken down and aren't being enforced anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 22 2021, @07:21AM (1 child)
Laws against lying?
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Saturday May 22 2021, @08:54AM
Anti-fraud laws are exactly this. As are laws against libel.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.