[HN Gopher] Right to Repair laws have now been introduced in all...
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Right to Repair laws have now been introduced in all 50 us states
Author : LorenDB
Score : 331 points
Date : 2025-02-24 16:55 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ifixit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ifixit.com)
| deadbabe wrote:
| Can someone explain why this isn't the big win we think it is?
| tossandthrow wrote:
| I think it is. But what company is going to advertise this on
| times square?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Because a bill was introduced does not mean that it will pass
| nor be signed into law.
| techjamie wrote:
| It's better than nothing. But introduced and passed are
| different things. An introduced bill may never actually become
| law.
|
| The upside is that this shows how popular RtR is, and there's a
| good chance at least several states may implement their laws.
| At some point, even if it isn't universal, all it takes is
| enough states to force manufacturers to support independent
| repair by default.
| abeppu wrote:
| In particular it's depressing that the map near the top of
| the article shows that for a majority of states, the
| introduction of the bill is "historical", as in neither
| passed, active or current, but (IIUC) it was floated in some
| prior legislative session, but it's not even under
| consideration in the present session.
| immibis wrote:
| They could go for the Apple-in-Europe model, where you have
| the right to repair only if your geolocation detects you
| being in a state where it's mandatory for you to have that
| right, otherwise it still locks you out.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Because this just means a single legislator has sponsored a
| bill. It doesn't mean it has pass, nor does it it even mean it
| is likely to pass. It's actual laws getting passed that matter.
|
| Of course this IS a milestone to getting a law passed, and
| shows that the campaign is getting legislators' notice etc. So
| it is still good.
| recycledmatt wrote:
| Lawyers and lobbyists paid lots of money to figure out how to
| subvert stuff.
|
| OEMs may work to make stuff less consumer
| repairable/upgradeable to force folks to use their repair
| services that need stuff like bga reballing or soldering. Bye
| bye upgradable ram slots!
|
| Things like software locks and restrictions in the name of
| 'security' will lock stuff down and make repair harder (see
| Apple's part pairing)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Things like software locks and restrictions in the name of
| 'security' will lock stuff down and make repair harder (see
| Apple's part pairing)
|
| Unfortunately, I don't see an alternative to that given how
| juicy targets even locked phones were for "chop shops" before
| Apple introduced parts pairing. People were mugged left and
| right for their phones.
|
| (Obviously the solution would be to tackle poverty, drug
| abuse and mental health issues, but that is _even more_
| unrealistic)
| recycledmatt wrote:
| Yes - but they paint with a big brush. Unfortunately
| legitimate repair and reuse is caught in the mix and made
| much more difficult.
| WediBlino wrote:
| Wait a bit and you'll see what Tim Cook's donation to the
| inauguration fund bought him.
| Frederation wrote:
| A lump of coal _if he 's lucky_
| seanw444 wrote:
| Even the "active and passed" states (particularly New York)
| passed a neutered version of right-to-repair that barely does
| anything. I only understand vaguely, but Louis Rossman has been
| outspoken about the progress of NY right-to-repair in
| particular, and how it flopped hard. As much as right-to-repair
| seems like a party line issue, even many of the Democrats have
| thus far been all talk and no substance.
| AaronM wrote:
| Because the large corporations have virtually unlimited power
| to water down bills with campaign contributions. It takes
| very little to money to sway a representative federally. How
| much less do you think it takes to sway a state level
| candidate?
|
| Spending cash on candidates to prevent bills like this is
| likely a rounding error on their yearly budget.
| glenstein wrote:
| >Can someone explain why this isn't the big win we think it is?
|
| I mean, there is the psychological phenomenon known as the Just
| World Hypothesis. When presented with something that's simply
| bad, or simply good, people are skeptical and tempted to search
| for the counterbalancing element, treating it like a trick
| question even if it's not.
|
| And so it can be hard to accept it simply is good. But that
| doesn't have to be the end of the conversation because that
| impulse can be channeled productively just by changing the
| baseline. Right to repair, I would think, simply is good, but
| since we need a bad thing, we can talk about the long road
| ahead to full implementation, or the effort necessary to
| overcome cultural inertia, as well as status quo extremism in
| our institutions.
|
| But I think the right to repair itself is a good thing.
| weaksauce wrote:
| i'm more for right to repair than not but i can see
| unintended consequences of things like iphones being bulkier
| and heavier if modular components like batteries are required
| in the broadest reach of the concept. these bills may be
| narrower and probably are. that's the ultimate question
| though is how far the balance should be.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Im pretty sure thats a falsity. Making tech repair friendly
| doesnt really add to the form factor of a device if you
| know how to design correctly, even with phones.
|
| I remember that phone[0] that google killed and that was
| back in 2013? Since then other projects have sprung up to
| tackle this. There are links at the bottom of the page.
|
| [0]: https://www.onearmy.earth/project/phonebloks
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| One drawback to consumer-rights laws is that we as consumers
| end up with less access to cool stuff. Some companies have
| chosen to stop selling into the B2C market altogether, to avoid
| incurring expenses and liabilities associated with conforming
| to right-to-repair and other pro-consumer legislation. Rohde &
| Schwarz and Keysight come to mind.
|
| That is bullshit, of course -- just an excuse for companies to
| dodge basic business responsibilities, and a blatant failure on
| their part to acknowledge why consumers felt this legislation
| was needed in the first place. But it is certainly true that
| there are short-term drawbacks.
| freedomben wrote:
| Interesting! I think you're probably onto something there.
| Agree it's more of an excuse than a reason, but still there
| will be low margin products that have to go that direction
| due to the math.
|
| I tend to think B2C is who needs the most protection from the
| gov since C are relatively powerless, whereas B2B tends to be
| more balanced, but the more I think about it the more I think
| that perhaps we're overlooking an important area.
| Nevertheless I think for now we need to focus on B2C and
| worry about B2B later. Can't spread ourselves too thin.
| alnwlsn wrote:
| To be fair, Rohde & Schwarz and Keysight aren't names I'd
| normally associate with consumer devices. On the other hand,
| neither are Mcdonands' ice cream machines.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Challenges from _Alliance for Automotive Innovation_ mounting
| also though:
|
| Massachusetts https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43021108
|
| Maine https://pirg.org/articles/automakers-sue-maine-to-block-
| repa...
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Regarding the Maine aricle:
|
| >The association of automakers also alleges that because the
| "independent entity" has not created a "standardized platform,"
| they have no way to securely share vehicle data. They are
| asking the court to declare the law unenforceable until the
| independent entity has undertaken its obligations.
|
| That sounds understandable. Just until the independent entity
| gets their act together.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| I really have trouble understanding that map. What does "Active
| and Passed" mean? I assumed it meant they had passed laws and
| updates in the works, but those States are excluded from the
| praise over the "Passed" States. I presume "Historical" means
| "Failed to pass" and no current activity to get a law passed.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Maybe they're excluded because they've already been praised,
| and they're focused on the new states joining in? I assume
| "active and passed" means that they not only passed the laws,
| but they are currently in effect. A law being passed doesn't
| necessarily put it into immediate effect.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| I did consider that interpretation, but by "praise" I simply
| mean that the article says "Five states (New York,
| California, Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado) have passed
| electronics Right to Repair legislation" and that "the
| remaining states are working hard to restore repair
| competition" which is also overblown since so many of the
| States are merely "Historical" with nothing going on.
| antasvara wrote:
| Based on what I know about one of the states in question, I'm
| thinking that "Active and Passed" means they have both a passed
| bill _and_ an active bill that isn 't passed. Though I'd think
| they'd call that "Passed and Current" to match their other
| nomenclature.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| You are correct, something is not in sync with that map and
| their description. That is, their description says that five
| states have passed legislation: New York, California,
| Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado. But in the "Passed" and
| "Active and Passed" categories on the map, it includes those 5
| states plus Massachusetts.
|
| FWIW, all of the searching I could find about Right to Repair
| laws in Massachusetts focused solely on vehicle right to repair
| (e.g. see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Massachusetts_Question_1),
| not on electronic devices generally, so maybe that's why
| Massachusetts was not included in the description (which
| specifically said "passed _electronics_ right to repair
| legislation ") but was categorized on the map.
| seanw444 wrote:
| As someone who frequently disagrees with the overwhelming
| majority political opinion on this site, this is one thing I wish
| all states could find common ground on. The amount of waste and
| value extraction that corporations force on us, when we could
| simply repair and maintain what we already have, is downright
| evil.
| mindslight wrote:
| But there isn't really an "overwhelming majority political
| opinion" on this site? Hence the long threads of comments of
| people disagreeing on the merits of ideas. Unless you're
| referring to the anti-trump sentiment, which is more pan-
| political as there are obviously a whole bunch of Americans
| that don't want to see our country destroyed regardless of how
| we wish it might be reformed.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| When you say pan-political do you mean this:
|
| a specific term, used mainly in social sciences as a
| designation for those forms of nationalism that aim to
| transcend (overcome, expand) traditional boundaries.
|
| I never heard of the term before as why Im asking.
|
| Also, in my own view. I don't consider myself political, I
| watch what people do, versus what they say they're going to
| do. And for me, any political figure can say one thing when
| the really want to do another.
|
| I agree that government needs to be reformed, but somhow, Im
| thinking the reform issue is just being used as a vehicle to
| push a Accelerationism agenda.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| Hard to imagine any reasonable individual being opposed to
| this, regardless of politics!
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| > reasonable
|
| If your net worth is high enough that anti-consumer policy
| pumps your assets harder than it dumps your consumption, it's
| rational. A huge jerk move, sure, and arguably unreasonable
| on those grounds, but it's rational. Unfortunately the $600B
| sponsor and $6B president are faaaar on the other side of the
| invisible net worth boundary where that starts to be the
| case, so I wouldn't expect RtR to get much traction, but who
| knows. There is enough chaos to make it worth a try even if
| it "ought" to fail on grounds of "government by the rich, for
| the rich."
| asacrowflies wrote:
| It has been politicized heavily by maga type crowds who don't
| really know what it means.... I have had ppl at the
| barbershop call me a socialist because I wanted right to
| repair...
| 98codes wrote:
| I imagine bringing up the current situation with John Deere
| and how the law would enshrine the right to repair the
| tractor that you bought with your own money would go
| farther than most arguments with those folks.
| hoten wrote:
| It's an interesting idea. But I like to think if they
| owned equipment like that, they'd already be on the side
| of right-to-repair. Farmers are smart businessmen and
| this is an obviously needless extra cost.
|
| But for the non-farmers, perhaps it'd really sway tribal
| mindsets to understand people "similar to them" (more so
| than elite techies...) benefit too.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| He's just advertising the filter bubble he lives in.
| Everyone wants owners to be able to be able to access the
| info they need to repair things. About the only gripe
| you'll hear from the most hardline libertarians is
| "that's not the government's job" and even then it's
| usually prefixed with "this is nice but". Occasionally
| some Karen who hasn't really put much thought into it
| will screech about "but what it someone repairs something
| wrong and makes it unsafe" as if supposed professionals
| don't do that all the time and right to repair isn't just
| as much about enabling individual professionals as it is
| owners.
| asacrowflies wrote:
| I did receive the "it's not the governments job" speech
| but they had no rebuttal when I asked about border agents
| seizing official refurb apple parts as "counterfeit" or
| Microsoft jailing someone trying to keep old PCs out of
| landfill... Or the concept of IP as a whole and the John
| Deere tractor example someone else replied to me with in
| this thread .
|
| As if I'm blind or stupid and wouldn't try the obvious??
|
| You can't reason people out of positions they didn't
| reason into
| asacrowflies wrote:
| Doesnt work. Nor examples of apple screen being seized as
| "counterfeit" nor blatant abuses by Microsoft or Nintendo
| that has ppl JAILED for doing what they will with their
| own property. They don't really listen to reason. Right
| to repair sounds" nice" and like it might help poor
| people .... So they will fight it to the death as
| socialism handouts.
| CivBase wrote:
| Reasonable people are sometimes lead to believe that
| repairability is counter to
|
| safety (i.e. "if an amature does the repair wrong, they could
| hurt themselves or the owner"),
|
| security (i.e. "if we let people know how it works, it'll be
| easier to hack"),
|
| technilogical advancement (i.e. "smartphones would have to be
| chunky bricks with no water resistance if we designed them to
| be easily opened for repair"),
|
| consumer protection (i.e. "unauthorized repair technicians
| are unaccountable and might do something unscrupulous to your
| device"),
|
| value (i.e. "if companies have to design for repair and
| provide support for repair, then those costs get passed onto
| consumers"),
|
| among other things. I don't find these arguments compelling
| and I think there is plenty of precedent for repairability
| being best for consumers. But they come up a lot - especially
| from anti-R2R lobbiests.
|
| Our society has also been trained to be consumers, always
| throwing away old stuff in favor of the latest and greatest.
| When something breaks, the first thought is usally "how much
| will it cost to replace this?" instead of "how do I fix it?"
| Everything is treated as disposible, so there isn't much
| motivation for the average person to care about repair.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| +ecology (i.e. "the new device uses 1kW less energy per
| month so you shouldn't even try fixing the old one")
| stevage wrote:
| I think there are reasonable arguments against it. It
| increases costs of selling products, reduces profitability.
|
| I think the benefits outweigh those costs, but the argument
| isn't unreasonable.
| azemetre wrote:
| It needs to be explicitly shown how and why it increases
| costs because if anything it feels like the opposite to me,
| especially when companies use proprietary pieces and hiding
| schematics rather than open standards and common
| configurations.
| butlike wrote:
| Botched repair then 3 iterations of resale to obfuscate it
| was originally repaired badly could dilute brand strength,
| but that's kind of a stretch
| layer8 wrote:
| Note that "introduced" refers to bills being filed. Only five
| states have actually passed RtR laws yet.
| esafak wrote:
| Proposed would have been more accurate, for the average person.
| whartung wrote:
| And those that have passed, are not necessarily universal. For
| example, Californias (I think) only applies to electronics, not
| cars. The John Deere "thing" is still a "thing" in California.
| The CA law is mostly about iPhones.
|
| I don't know if they have other bills and what not in play to
| address other industries.
| amelius wrote:
| Does this mean I have the right to repair my Tesla, and how long
| until Musk thinks this is a bad idea.
| gs17 wrote:
| If anyone from The Repair Association is reading, there are a
| bunch of issues with the website. It sends me to
| https://tennessee.repair.org/ , which has a broken iframe for the
| "Make your voice heard" section. Fortunately the "Tell your
| repair story" section seems to also handle contacting
| representatives, except it auto-fills to what seems to be the
| wrong bill. It tells them I want them to support SB0077, which
| "As introduced, extends the medical cannabis commission to June
| 30, 2029" (I don't know enough about it to know if I actually do
| support this or not), instead of SB0499, which "As introduced,
| enacts the "Agricultural Right to Repair Act." The header of the
| page has correct bills for last year.
| kwiens wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback! Fellow Tennessean here so I'm a bit
| embarrassed. I fixed the Make your voice heard embed (we
| removed a CallPower integration).
|
| I'm working on fixing the letter now.
|
| We built this tech when having five or six states with bills
| was exciting. Now, 50 states times two chambers times sometimes
| two or three bills has become a whole thing to keep track of it
| all.
|
| Keeping all of these bills up to date across 50 states that
| change every year is quite the project. It's a pretty manual
| process right now, alas. I'd love to automate it.
|
| Everyone else: please thread any bill year mismatch / other
| issues you find here, and I'll fix them!
| ok123456 wrote:
| Car manufacturers trying to lock down their systems turned the
| tide on this issue.
|
| Tell someone their $500 gadget is disposable; most people will be
| mildly frustrated. Tell someone that their $70,000 vehicle, on
| which they still have years of payments to make, is disposable or
| unrepairable by their usual mechanic; most people will feel more
| than just frustrated.
| freedomben wrote:
| I want to think you're right, but most of the activation I've
| seen on RtR is from people who _are_ mechanics and others whose
| livelihoods are threatened by this (like farmers). Most
| consumers (at least in my small sample of anecdata) don 't seem
| to care at all for whatever reason. The ones who do are a small
| enough group to be safely ignored.
| sudoshred wrote:
| On the surface that makes sense. From a consumer perspective
| lack of RtR just indicates the consumer needs to spend
| elsewhere if it becomes a concern.
| octorian wrote:
| This is an easy dodge. The problem is that when lack of
| repairability becomes the norm, the consumer no longer has
| that choice. Or they have to severely compromise their
| market choices in the search for repairable products.
|
| And wanting repairable products is something most consumers
| don't even think about at time of purchase. Its something
| that comes further down the line, when the purchase
| decision has already been made.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _wanting repairable products is something most
| consumers don 't even think about at time of purchase_
|
| This is the core of the problem. The coalition pushing
| for these laws doesn't include most consumers. Absent an
| expensive ad push, I don't see that changing.
|
| Takeaway: make hay where the sun shines. Focus on farming
| states and those with lots of dealerships and repair
| shops. Maybe put an anti-Musk / anti-Tesla angle on it in
| blue states.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| This is why organizations are pushing for repeatability
| scores to be printed on purchasable items, I think that
| would go a long way towards hinting that this issue is
| important for consumers in the long run.
| octorian wrote:
| Focus on farming also gives the issue a bi-partisan spin,
| which is something you really need to make any actual
| progress on issues in US politics these days.
| bluGill wrote:
| From what I can tell the only mechanics who care are trying to
| illegally bypass emmissions controls, or they are trying to run
| a chop shop steeling cars for parts. Cars are very repairable
| outside a dealer for most things.
|
| though I'm told tesla is an exception and they are unrepairable
| - I don't drive one so I wouldn't know.
|
| the above is my personal opinion. My employeer has an opinion
| on this subject, but I don't speak for them.
| protonbob wrote:
| This is incorrect. Often times manufacturers will lock down
| the systems that can report statistics and reset failures to
| only work with their proprietary tools. They will not sell
| these tools and force people to go to the dealer. After a
| while the dealer can close or not sell that tool anymore and
| now people have an expensive paperweight that caused tons of
| emissions to create.
| bluGill wrote:
| This is often accused but it is already a violation of
| federal laws that have been around for ages. It is called
| obd and covers a lot more than emissions.
|
| right to repair may cover more but it isn't nearly as
| useful for normal diagnostics.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| OBD isn't enough anymore.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Have you ever worked on a car?
|
| OBD standards literally only require emissions controls
| to be openly diagnosed. The rest of the CEL codes can
| 100% be vendor specific. So when your body control module
| shits out, and you can't lock and unlock your doors
| anymore, you're fucked. When your ABS light comes on, and
| all you need to do is replace a $10 wheel speed sensor,
| you still need an expensive proprietary code reader to
| read the codes.
|
| "OBD II is an acronym for On-Board Diagnostic II, the
| second generation of on-board self-diagnostic equipment
| requirements for light- and medium-duty California
| vehicles. On-board diagnostic capabilities are
| incorporated into the hardware and software of a
| vehicle's on-board computer to monitor virtually every
| component that can affect emission performance. "
|
| Yes a lot of the primary engine functions affect
| emissions, but the majority of diagnostic codes on modern
| cars are not available to standard OBDII readers. Once
| you get outside of the engine, forget it. Every module in
| modern cars now is VIN-locked and can only be swapped in
| by a dealer, or some kind of cracked 3rd party software
| if you're lucky.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| I had to find on some strange forum the CEL codes to
| monitor my DPF. Otherwise I would never know when it is
| filling up and never be able to reach out a highway to
| allow it to clean nicely.
|
| This shouldn't be obscure. But they keep saying "hey this
| is our intellectual property"
| poly_morphis wrote:
| Take Volkswagen vehicles (VW/Audi, mainly). Nearly every
| electronic module in the car that you'd want to replace has
| component protection, making it literally impossible for a
| non-dealer to replace it since you need access to VAG servers
| to get the token to code the module for the car VIN. I had
| this experience recently with a CAN bus controller module
| that just randomly failed. $3k at the dealer. I would have
| preferred to do it myself but there is no way.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| I couldn't believe it when my wife's '16 GTI (base) needed
| a new battery, and I realized for non-base models, the
| BATTERY is coded and needs dealer programming to be
| replaced.
|
| Our '08 Caravan had the ABS module die, and try as I might
| with 3 or 4 independent mechanics, had to go back to
| Dodge/FCA to get it reprogrammed for the car to accept the
| new module.
| api wrote:
| Also farmers, who have been turned upside down and shaken by
| John Deere and other manufacturers using locked down hardware.
| The farming lobby is powerful.
| lolinder wrote:
| Yeah, my sense in following this is that farmers have had a
| far bigger impact than consumers. I see your $70,000 car and
| raise you a $500,000 tractor that's core to a farmer's
| livelihood.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| there are ways to omit the right to repair. My mechanic told me
| story about the new emergency system (mandatory in EU) that
| calls automatically for help on the crash event. It has a
| battery and a small controller in a all-in-one module. If the
| battery goes down - it will stop working and require replacing.
| If you replace only the battery it won't work. Not sure if you
| can replace battery while maintaining voltage, but this might
| be impedimented using plastic cover or something like that.
|
| The new module costs 500$
| noobermin wrote:
| Time for republicans to call them woke and dei so they can be
| safely disposed of.
| 42772827 wrote:
| I wonder if we'll see "compliance devices" like we saw compliance
| cars in California. That is, highly modular, repairable devices
| available to consumers inclined that way, "offsetting" some of
| the other devices companies like Apple make
| swayvil wrote:
| This is morally obvious. We only have a law about it because
| somebody's feeling greedy or squeezed.
|
| Law is a maximally complex representation of reality manifested
| by anxiety.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| that last sentence is great.
| smashah wrote:
| Right to Repair should extend to software also. Just the same way
| someone can make an accessory for a tractor without permission
| from the tractor company, developers should be able to make tools
| for software/accounts without the express permission of the
| megacorp behind it without needing to worry about legal threats.
| oblio wrote:
| For comparison:
|
| https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/consumer-protecti...
|
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240419IP...
|
| https://repair.eu/
|
| It's not perfect (see the last link for details), but it's a
| great start. Also, if you have the time, read the actual
| directive. It's fairly readable as far as laws go.
|
| https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A... -
| see Article 5.
|
| Also the FAQ:
|
| https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/2d443b31-dc2a...
|
| Also there's an entire directive for batteries:
|
| https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1542/oj
|
| Article 11 is the one that's probably most interesting to people
| here, the reason why we are now starting to see easily removable
| batteries in mobile devices, again. Actually "easier to remove",
| they're definitely not as easy to remove as the Nokia 5110
| batteries :-p
| Yhippa wrote:
| Who is most likely to be against this? NADA most of all maybe?
| They seem to be the most anti-consumer and (rightfully to them)
| propping up their member dealers.
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| Pretty clearly this is a good idea, but even the best ideas need
| champions to get up.
|
| Thanks iFixit for championing this cause for so long. The rest of
| the world will follow these states' lead.
| dataflow wrote:
| Don't get your hopes up just because they have something they
| call right-to-repair legislation. It doesn't imply a practical
| ability to get repairs done. That requires e.g. parts
| availability, schematics, etc., way behind what legislation I've
| heard of requires.
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