[HN Gopher] India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops
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India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops
Author : hilux
Score : 290 points
Date : 2025-04-08 03:27 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| ggm wrote:
| If the thinkpad community gets behind this, there will be a
| market for upspecced thinkpads as long as supplies last.
|
| the reduce re-use re-cycle part here is nicely inserting itself
| into the recycle tail side.
| nxobject wrote:
| It's such a pity 51nb's upgraded ThinkPad project is no longer
| quite as active as it was. I think the small niche market for
| hacker-friendly laptops is far too diluted now, especially with
| qualitatively unique products like the MNT Reform.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/1dh04ud/how_do_ge...
| lproven wrote:
| There are others...
|
| https://www.tpart.net/
| nxobject wrote:
| Wow, just about to be shipped, too! Now if only I had a
| cool $1299++ :(
| noufalibrahim wrote:
| Abhas Abhinav of Deeproot Linux runs "Mostly Harmless" which
| sells refurbished Thinkpads with binary blobs removed.
| https://mostlyharmless.io/computers/
| HexDecOctBin wrote:
| This is amazing, I didn't know we had people doing this kind
| of stuff in India. Are there any other similar services that
| you know of, that are doing open source/Linux-friendly
| hardware, etc.?
| forinti wrote:
| That is super cool.
| balancesoggy wrote:
| Highly recommend. Bought a ThinkPad from Abhas and it runs
| like tank.
| aamederen wrote:
| Even though the aim here is different, sustainability through
| repair and reuse is uplifting. It's also a reminder that 10-year-
| old computers can do a lot and most of us may not need the latest
| shiny laptops.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| It's also good to upgrade certain components.
|
| Firstly, upgrade from HDD to SSD. For random access, these are
| commonly 100-500x as fast, and even for block I/O 10-30x, and
| that will concretely speed up startup by a large fraction of
| that ratio, quite apart from speeding up other things later.
|
| Once you get used to modern SSDs, as almost everyone on this
| site will be, I think you lose track of just _how_ bad HDDs
| are, to run the OS from. My wife's ten-year-old work laptop
| takes _well_ over five minutes to boot up, log in, start a
| browser, load something like Gmail, and settle down so the disk
| is idle and it's running as smoothly as it ever will; and sure,
| the aging i5-4300M CPU doesn't help1; but I suspect spending
| less than a thousand rupees replacing its HDD with even the
| cheapest and smallest SSD (acceptable capacity, in this case)
| _might_ cut that to a minute, and spending a few thousand for a
| faster one _would_ speed it up to below a minute.
|
| (One fun thing about SSDs is that, overall, bigger is faster.
| At some points in history, for some makes, it's been almost as
| simple as "twice as large, twice as fast". This is, of course,
| a gross simplification, but I think not _too_ far off.)
|
| Secondly, if you have less than 8GB of RAM, get more. Beyond
| that it varies depending on what you're using it for, but up to
| at least that point, it's just an unconditional improvement.
|
| --***--
|
| 1 PassMark lists single/multi scores for the Intel Core
| i5-4300M of around 1,700/3,000. Some units in recent
| generations from approximately the same segment: the Intel Core
| i5-1334U scoring 3,350/13,400, and the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H
| scoring 3,450/21,500. This basically means an absolute minimum
| of 2x speedup on _any_ workload, and for most it's more like
| 3-4x. There's a _lot_ of difference in ten years of CPU.
| pjmlp wrote:
| An Amiga or PC running Windows 3.x would be quite capable to
| handle the word processing and spreadsheet related activities I
| do at home, and from the Amiga side I dare say I would still
| enjoy more many of those games than the 80 EUR AAA graphics
| pumped games that come out nowadays with their 60 h gameplay
| and 120 GB disk space.
| tommica wrote:
| Honestly cool, though it really sucks that they don't have any
| safety from all those harmful chemicals.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| What's the chemical exposure from laptop repair? The biggest
| thing that comes to mind is flux smoke, which needs a fan or
| ideally a fume extractor to keep out of your face. Modern
| devices use lead-free solder, though I understand solder is
| mostly a concern for scrapping electronics for gold rather than
| repairing it (unless you don't wash your hands after
| soldering). I've gotten nasty effects from isopropyl/acetone
| vapors and super glue/epoxy too.
|
| EDIT: Are they salvaging components from e-waste, or diving in
| dumpsters with non-computer waste as well?
| tommica wrote:
| Article did talk about lead
| ravirajx7 wrote:
| This reminded me of something that happened to a friend of mine
| not long ago. He'd just been laid off from a pretty good
| Salesforce Admin job and was already in a tight spot financially
| when his laptop's motherboard fried after a voltage spike.
|
| Local shops were quoting [?]25,000-[?]30,000 (roughly $300-$360),
| which he just couldn't afford. Then a friend told him about Nehru
| Place. He sent the laptop there through someone he knew, and the
| repair only cost him around [?]5,000-[?]10,000 ($60-$120). Way
| more reasonable.
|
| He was glad to get it fixed without spending a lot but it does
| make you wonder how reliable those reused parts are. Like, how
| long is it gonna hold up before something else goes wrong?
| gyomu wrote:
| I could also see unscrupulous businesses swapping out original
| parts in machines sent for repair for cheaper ones as a way to
| drive their costs down. The vast majority of customers wouldn't
| be able to tell/prove what happened.
| sokz wrote:
| Spare parts are expensive in general in India. Add to the
| fact that there are unscrupulous repair centers, I am certain
| that the theft of genuine parts happen regularly.
| LordGrignard wrote:
| this is all the more important since 60$ in india is enough for
| a meal for four in an expensive restaurant in one of the better
| malls ( for e.g. in Mumbai ) ... and 25k to 30k is just
| ludicrous for a laptop. Even 5-10k will easily hurt his pockets
| but it depends on what the laptop's specs were and what it was
| worth
| sokz wrote:
| Delhi NCR in general looks like a pretty nice place to source
| tech in India. The Bangalore counterpart of Nehru Place, SP
| Road felt expensive and a bit less competent than I expected.
| InfinityByTen wrote:
| Heh, my brother got his Xbox original controller fixed for
| [?]200 which was just misbehaving due to old battery gunk. He
| could have afforded a new one, sure, but the charm of having
| the thing get another life, is a separate kick altogether :)
| solarpunk wrote:
| Hell yeah! I wanna read more about this kind of stuff.
| nxobject wrote:
| I'd love to learn some of the advanced rework skills they need to
| work on modern motherboards - especially BGA part replacement.
| And how to build a workshop on the cheap! I'm always in awe at
| the skills they need to learn that are nonexistent in the western
| world.
| walterbell wrote:
| Some repair shops have videos on YouTube. Search for a specific
| device or IC replacement. Some videos are oriented towards
| teaching vs. demo.
| Saigonautica wrote:
| Here are some good "value for money" tool brands I use (I live
| in Asia):
|
| 1.Yihua combined hot air rework station + soldering station.
|
| 2.Pro's Kit multimeter, tweezers, and wire snips.
|
| 3.Uni-T hand-held oscillosope (quite optional).
|
| 4.Mechanic brand solder paste. Get the one in a plastic
| syringe. The tubs dry out.
|
| 5.TS100 soldering iron as a spare. Heats up so fast at 24V!
|
| I use them mainly for prototyping, but they are equally handy
| for repair. I don't re-ball BGA though. I've seen vendors do it
| with a machine that's mostly just a holder for the chip, and
| the hot air gun. Plus some templates and the solder balls.
| nxobject wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendations! I have a Yihua soldering
| station - such a solid budget option - I'll shell out on a
| hot air rework station too, maybe one with a board preheater.
| knowitnone wrote:
| tons of videos on youtube on how to do this
| anshumankmr wrote:
| I had an HP laptop bought in 2016, that worked like a charm and
| worked perfectly till 2023, when I upgraded to Windows 11, which
| wasn't supported on it. But in Delhi's Nehru Place, I got the
| damn thing repaired several times for several times, including
| battery repairs, a broken keyboard amongst other things, that
| extended its life quite well. In fact, I was open to using it for
| more years, though the HDD kind of sucked compared to the SSD.
| zkmon wrote:
| I grew up in a village, where literally nothing goes waste.
| Eevrything is recycled. You can't think of anything that is junk.
| Animal poop and rotten bio-waste makes a great fertilizer for
| crops. Metal waste is melt by blacksmith, Wood in any form or
| shape is highly reusable. Plastics are almost absent, but they
| are sold in exchange for onions etc. Fabric is extremely reused.
| After reusing multiple time, things end up in a dump at the
| corner of own premises, which degrades and becomes fertilizer, in
| time for next crop.
| blackoil wrote:
| It's simple, the labour cost for repair is lower than the
| replacement cost, we also have people scavenging for valuables in
| landfills. As/When India will become rich enough, this will
| become uneconomical. Long term solution is to force companies to
| build products with repairability in mind.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Companies should have to bear the full cost of cleaning up,
| repairing, or disposing the products they unleash upon the
| world. If I have to throw away my laptop because it broke,
| Lenovo should pay the cost of disposing (or repairing) it and
| bringing the environment back to the condition it was in before
| the product existed. When my car dies, Toyota should have to
| tow it away, part it out and reuse what it can. We've somehow
| normalized the idea that companies can just externalize these
| real disposal costs onto the public and environment.
| meta_ai_x wrote:
| what about people who don't care for the products they own.
| Why should it be Toyota's responsibility for lazy people who
| don't even do basic maintenance?
| lompad wrote:
| Pretty much every product becomes trash at some point,
| maintenance only changes the timescale.
|
| Something somewhat similar is already law in germany and
| works rather well. There is no reason society should have
| to pay for expected costs for disposing a company's
| products - as this would only incentivize companies to care
| even less about the difficulty of recycling/disposal.
| sidkshatriya wrote:
| This is a fair and valid view of looking at things. Though
| the trick is to not get too heavy handed. At what point does
| regulation become too stifling ?
|
| The American way is to possibly put too few responsibilities
| on manufacturers. The European way seems to be to saddle them
| with just too many regulations -- possibly killing so much
| innovation.
|
| One way to approach this would be to put more
| responsibilities on large established companies and less on
| smaller companies. But then the problem is that larger
| companies will want to arbitrage this somehow by indirectly
| "owning" these smaller companies with less environmental
| responsibilities.
|
| This area is far more complex than we think it is.
|
| Also what do we do about totally new materials that are
| thought to be benign when introduced but then are proved to
| have harmful effects many years later. Does the company that
| introduced them now have huge open ended costs and now go
| bankrupt ?
|
| The solution is as always in the middle ground. Society as a
| whole bears some cost of cleanup (a kind of insurance policy
| for all companies) and companies bear some of costs.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Here in Norway, electrical and electronic (EE) goods are
| taxed extra and that money goes to recycling and
| cleanup[1].
|
| Importers and producers are required to be a member of a
| approved company handling returns, like RENAS[2].
|
| Shops selling EE goods are required to accept returned EE
| goods from individuals of the type they sell. So if you
| sell fridges you have to take my old fridge and handle it
| in accordance with the rules.
|
| Seems to work better than nothing, though how well I don't
| know. As with all such regulations there's money to be made
| by skipping steps, and some do[3].
|
| [1]: https://www.miljodirektoratet.no/ansvarsomrader/avfall
| /Retur...
|
| [2]: https://renas.no/
|
| [3]: https://www.miljodirektoratet.no/publikasjoner/2022/fe
| bruar/...
| fakedang wrote:
| > The American way is to possibly put too few
| responsibilities on manufacturers. The European way seems
| to be to saddle them with just too many regulations --
| possibly killing so much innovation
|
| Well that's what the European way is lol. Tax and
| regulate instead of focusing on the crux of the problem,
| which is overproduction and planned obsolescence. Any
| solution that uses taxes and extra charges will simply
| pass the costs onto the consumer.
|
| I like the idea of putting the onus on companies to get
| rid of the product, but there should be a consumer onus
| too. Consumers should be discouraged from tossing
| everything to the landfill, and companies should be
| forced to collect the stuff they product after the
| lifecycle is complete. This might even drive the
| companies to revise their designs to use more recyclable
| materials.
| sidkshatriya wrote:
| A good way to penalize planned obsolescence would be to
| charge a decreasing penalty if the goods are
| recycled/disposed earlier. So if I return the fridge for
| recycling after a couple of years (bad fridge) then the
| company gets charged automatically 5% of the fridge cost.
| If I recycle after 10 years then the company gets charged
| zero (as an example).
|
| Maybe instead of a charge this could be a credit. If the
| recycling happens after a long time the company gets a
| bigger payback than if it happens before. The money is
| collected on checkout so the company can't claim
| bankruptcy or low profits to make the payment.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > So if I return the fridge for recycling after a couple
| of years
|
| Here in Norway consumers enjoy a 5 year warranty on
| products that are meant to last, and 2 years on other
| non-consumables.
|
| So if my fridge dies due to a manufacturing flaw within 5
| years, the store I purchased it on has to repair free of
| charge, replace it with an equal or better product, or
| give a full refund. If the product keeps breaking in the
| same way, the customer can demand a full refund.
|
| And it's up to the store to convincingly argue it's not a
| manufacturing flaw if they don't want to do that.
|
| This provides similar disincentive to import crappy
| goods.
| robocat wrote:
| > there's money to be made by skipping steps, and some do
|
| You must be joking.
|
| "Fifteen major car manufacturers have been fined almost
| EUR600 million by the European Commission and the British
| government after Mercedes-Benz blew the whistle on a
| cartel that fixed car recycling costs and processes."
| https://www.dw.com/en/eu-and-uk-fine-carmakers-millions-
| over...
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > You must be joking.
|
| Sarcasm was indeed intended...
| sidkshatriya wrote:
| This is a good design. The company that manufactures the
| product does not need to be necessarily responsible for
| the cleanup. The cleanup is done by another company and
| the costs are added on customer checkout. But this is
| open to abuse as you mentioned -- some companies may take
| short cuts or the cleanup companies may become an
| oligopoly and charge unreasonable prices that add a lot
| of cost to the products.
|
| Also, what happens if you order a product online from
| another company in a different country ? Does Norway
| still get to add tax for cleanup on these imported goods
| ? I would guess that this would be a powerful incentive
| for customers to skirt these regulations for lower
| prices.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > Does Norway still get to add tax for cleanup on these
| imported goods ?
|
| If you import as a private person AFAIK no. Consumers
| have very good consumer protection on goods bought from
| domestic shops, so there's a strong incentive to do that
| rather than import.
|
| Though all that Temu junk is another story...
|
| But companies importing EE goods have to report to the
| return company they're a member of, and pay them
| accordingly.
|
| Can't recall offhand if there's special "flag" on the
| import declaration or if they just go by HS code. And
| presumably they get audited on this.
|
| IIRC it used to be more directly linked to the import
| declaration but they streamlined it.
| Ray20 wrote:
| I don't think the Norway example is relevant. We are
| talking about a country that produces oil for more than a
| thousand dollars a month per person, including old people
| and babies. It is literally a country where EVERY person
| is a millionaire from oil money alone. So they can set
| the most failed policies and make them work.
| more-nitor wrote:
| but ryandrake's comment might be the solution to what
| trump/republicans/rust-belt wants:
|
| 1. employment-rate for Americans. 2. bringing back
| industrial capacity in US.
|
| If large companies are forced to recycle/repair INSIDE USA,
| that ultimately means employment for Americans, and
| bringing back industrial capacity back to US.
|
| (which could mean forcing Chinese manufacturers settings up
| whole industrial complexes in US...)
|
| btw, this would be a much easier/lesser-side-effect measure
| than "tariff on everyone" situation
| daedrdev wrote:
| There are plenty of products where recycling will never make
| sense, as it's literally worse for the environment to try and
| recycle it.
|
| And for disposal modern landfills in rich countries are very
| good at avoiding environmental problems.
| vlz wrote:
| > literally worse for the environment to try and recycle it
|
| For example? What products do you mean?
| lproven wrote:
| Basically anything plastic.
|
| Plastics recycling is a scam.
|
| Glass recycles well, if colours are kept separated.
|
| Aluminium and iron and most pure or semi-pure metals too.
|
| Far better to wash and reuse, of course, as was still the
| rule when I was a child, and in some of Scandinavia even
| 25Y ago.
| forgotoldacc wrote:
| Making the company responsible for the entire lifetime of a
| product also makes them effectively own the product. Your
| idea sounds a lot like renting from the producer.
| HappMacDonald wrote:
| Said responsibility can remain the choice of the consumer:
| producer _must_ accept repair /replacement if consumer
| brings it back to them, but consumer is not forced to bring
| it back to them if anything goes wrong. Consumer may also
| choose to self-repair, sell, etc. Perhaps consumer must
| bring it back to dispose of it though, as nobody benefits
| from hucking it directly into a landfill.
|
| The other difference between "renting" from the producer is
| that the producer isn't collecting any rent, only initial
| purchase.. and that producer cannot claim the item back
| whenever they please.
| sadeshmukh wrote:
| So renting, but with only the negative parts for the
| company
| nottorp wrote:
| > If I have to throw away my laptop because it broke
|
| Actually you should be able to bring it to one of the
| multiple 3rd party repair shops _of your choice_ , get it
| fixed and not have Lenovo involved at all, except maybe by
| selling you parts at a reasonable price.
|
| Incidentally you should also be able to _modify_ the laptop
| as you want, or if you lack the skills, pay said 3rd party
| repair shops to do it for you.
| jdietrich wrote:
| _> Actually you should be able to bring it to one of the
| multiple 3rd party repair shops of your choice, get it
| fixed and not have Lenovo involved at all, except maybe by
| selling you parts at a reasonable price._
|
| You already can, it's just often not economically viable in
| high-income countries. Lenovo have a very comprehensive
| parts service and provide useful service manuals.
|
| Ironically, Apple devices are the most widely repaired by
| third-party specialists despite Apple's strenuous efforts
| to make that difficult, because they're expensive and
| depreciate slowly.
| nottorp wrote:
| Yeah, it's wrong to name names, except maybe Apple for
| assholery. This should go for any brand.
|
| > You already can, it's just often not economically
| viable in high-income countries.
|
| But are we sure it's only because of high labor costs?
| jdietrich wrote:
| As someone who is adept at electronic repair, I am
| absolutely certain that it's overwhelmingly because of
| high labour costs. I fix my own stuff for the fun of it,
| but there's no way I'd do it for a living because there
| are just much better uses of those skills in the modern
| economy. Just look at the prices for old electronics on
| eBay or Facebook Marketplace - unless the item is very
| recent, repair doesn't offer good value to the owner or a
| viable margin for a recycler.
|
| People used to darn holes in their socks, but that's an
| eccentric hobby in a world where you can buy perfectly
| good socks for less than $1 a pair.
|
| It's still a factor in the developing world. Those awful
| scenes of e-waste being melted down for scrap in open
| pits are symptomatic of the fact that a lot of devices
| just aren't worth fixing or dismantling for spare parts,
| even at third-world labour rates.
|
| Manufacturing is heavily automated, which is the reason
| why you can buy a toaster or a clock radio for less than
| $10; without massive advances in robotics and AI, the
| only similarly automated end-of-life solution for those
| items involves a shredder and a furnace. Here in the EU,
| the manufacturer is responsible for bearing the end-of-
| life costs for electronic devices, but it doesn't really
| change the economics.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| > Companies should have to bear the full cost of cleaning up
|
| So the end users, got it.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > Companies should have to bear the full cost of cleaning up,
| repairing, or disposing the products they unleash upon the
| world.
|
| Where I live, you pay a "removal fee" when buying electronics
| or appliances for just that. If you're buying a new washing
| machine for example, the party delivering your device is
| obligated to take the old one with them.
|
| Of course, that's only part of it, your country also needs to
| have good waste processing and ideally not export it.
| rishav_sharan wrote:
| That's an interesting law. which country is that? I would
| love to know more about it.
| catmanjan wrote:
| Companies never bear any costs, their customers do
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Companies should have to bear the full cost of cleaning up,
| repairing, or disposing the products they unleash upon the
| world
|
| Boy have I got a WEEE for you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
| Waste_Electrical_and_Electroni...
|
| More broadly:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dot_(symbol)
|
| (however, both of those schemes don't put everything back
| directly - which would be inefficient. They allow delegation
| by paying recyclers. This can result in "carbon offset" like
| shenanigans.)
| goku12 wrote:
| Please don't define everything in India in terms of poverty. It
| gives the impression that anything good in India happens only
| because of economic concerns. But that isn't entirely true.
| Let's not undermine the recognition of those who do it as a
| social responsibility. I'm personally acquainted with a rather
| successful engineer and businessman who does it because he
| believes in sustainability. His reworked Thinkpads are very
| popular among the tech community here - not because they're
| cheap, but because of his workmanship and configurability (it
| even comes with coreboot). And none of those customers are
| incapable of affording high-end laptops either - many are FOSS
| contributors when they're not at their full-time jobs.
| zkmon wrote:
| My Dell XPS-15 laptop's screen was falling off. To fix it, I
| drilled holes right though the border area of the screen and
| fitted 4 bolts so that the screen stays with the laptop. My
| colleagues were horrified to see large bolts at the back of the
| screen, but everything worked like a charm.
| grishka wrote:
| My classmate at the university had a laptop that first
| developed lines on the screen that he fixed by strategically
| cramming pieces of paper between the bezel and the LCD panel,
| and then eventually the hinges broke so he carried a book stand
| to prop up the lid. He did get a new laptop eventually iirc
| noufalibrahim wrote:
| I "fixed" broken hinge on a Dell laptop using some mseal.
| Sort of worked.
| dangle1 wrote:
| Can also add a binder clip after applying the adhesive for
| additional strength. The handles will fold around the
| screen kind of out of the way.
| devsda wrote:
| I would have made it needlessly complex by gluing a set of
| strong neodymium magnets on the exterior and a set of small
| flat magnets on the screen side to avoid the risks of drilling
| and protruding bolts.
|
| Of course gluing or taping are also viable options ?
| saidinesh5 wrote:
| During my middle school days, we lived in a small town for a
| little while (read: A place where i was allowed to take my
| bicycle out onto the main road).
|
| After school, I used to spend a lot of time just hanging out
| around some TV and radio repair shops and just watched them work.
| They used to be friendly and gave me parts like spare motors,
| lights that were lying around from broken Walkmans they wouldn't
| repair. I took those motors and added to my bicycle as a "dynamo
| light" , built "wired RC car" etc ...
|
| Fast forward to a few years ago when i got into building racing
| drones, soldering certain tiny wires was difficult for me. I went
| to a nearby mobile repair shop to get that done and he was happy
| to help me out.
|
| I owe a lot of my curiosity and my knowledge today to these
| repair shops.
|
| It's not a good thing that our electronics are becoming less and
| less repairable these days. No wonder these repair shops are
| vanishing as the time progresses.
|
| The closest thing to that we have these days are makerspaces. At
| our local makerspace we encourage people try to fix their broken
| electronics instead of throwing them away. But I feel like there
| should be more.
| gloxkiqcza wrote:
| All tech is becoming more and more integrated and purposefully
| locked down. Everything from operating systems to cars. It's
| truly a shame. I think many of us tinkerers/hackers have a
| similar story to yours - something grabs your attention when
| you're a child and develops into an engineering knack later on.
| vladms wrote:
| All tech or all physical tech? For now software managed to
| somehow go in the opposite direction. In the '90s many / lots
| of operating systems / tools / libraries were paid / hard to
| access, today we have lots of (open-source) stuff for people
| to tinker with.
|
| Tinkering with physical stuff is also good and should be
| encouraged / supported, but let's also be careful not to
| loose the software tinkering (for example by not permitting
| in any shape rooting mobile devices).
| coretx wrote:
| No, most people are stuffing everything into the
| application layer, or worse, a web/mobile app these days
| and don't know how to fix anything below it. I know many
| "programmers" who can neither configure a SME/Enterprise
| firewall or switch nor build their own PC or server from
| parts. Also, during the 90's _everything_ was easy to find
| and access. Piracy was the norm and FOSS was booming.
| vladms wrote:
| The field exploded though, both in terms of complexity
| and of number of people involved. I know many engineers
| that can do from compiler optimizations to web apps. I
| also know "programmers" that don't want to learn a new
| library because it stresses them.
|
| Lots of tech we currently rely on is built under FOSS
| model (thinking web stuff, mobile stuff, os stuff, data
| center stuff). Of course you must choose to use it, but I
| find nowadays using Linux daily on desktop as easy as
| using Windows or MacOS. 20 years ago you had to fight
| drivers, file formats, browser issues, media formats,
| lack of software (I mean we run many Windows video-games
| on Linux without issues, how cool is that?!)
|
| I did not check piracy lately because I find FOSS
| alternatives (or I can afford to buy some stuff).
| coretx wrote:
| The house of cards is build with far more than just libs.
| And everything you just mentioned came at a price.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Even proprietary software in those times was accessible via
| piracy, and was generally tolerated/accepted as long as it
| wasn't for profit (in fact it benefited the software
| authors by allowing users to learn the usage of their
| software, for which they'd then push their future employers
| to buy).
| HPsquared wrote:
| We (in the West, at least) live in an age of vendor lock-in.
| In the East, it's state lock-in but vendor freedom.
| intrasight wrote:
| There are plenty of places where both are locked in
| HPsquared wrote:
| I suppose, but they are free to pirate Disney movies or
| whatever. Maybe "freedom" wasn't the right word for lack
| of IP protection.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > Everything from operating systems ...
|
| The subtle reference to systemd has not escaped our notice;
| and it is truly a shame.
| yason wrote:
| Question is what domain/field is the next virgin frontier for
| hackers, unspoiled of commercial greed and integrated and
| locked down solutions, where you can still not only buy
| things but also own them, and rebuild from parts what you
| bought when it breaks down?
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| There are all sorts of things like this, but one that
| springs to mind is drones, specifically FPV drones. You can
| build a very good drone from basically parts that runs on
| open firmware. The videos that you see coming out of
| Ukraine is clearly using flight control software that is
| basically the standard for non commercial drones. Nothing
| more cyberpunk than fighting fascists using open source
| software and commodity hardware.
| 9rx wrote:
| What seems to be lacking is the path to accidental
| discovery that underlies these stories from the past. Is
| there a reasonable way people will find themselves
| building drones without being intentional about it?
| saidinesh5 wrote:
| Not accidental, but government restrictions are the main
| reason people built their own drones here. Government
| banned import of drones here back then. Only way to fly
| and have fun was build your own. build them part by part.
|
| I have built them for dozens of non technical friends
| too. And then they themselves got into fixing them once
| they broke. Solder the wires. Get parts 3d printed etc..
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The normal progression is that you had a commercially
| built one, and one of two things happened. 1. It was a
| prebuilt FPV drone and you need to repair it after
| smashing it into something at mach Jesus or 2. You bought
| a DJI, which is really a camera platform, and you want a
| drone that can fly at mach Jesus and do the cool
| aerobatics so that pulls you into the FPV genre where you
| buy a prebuilt or just build from scratch.
|
| Drones are just an example, there are plenty of other
| areas where people might get sucked into DIY
| electroncisbuilding. E-skateboard/bike/scooter
| modification and fixing, keyboard hobbyists, cosplay, 3d
| printing, home automation etc...
| saidinesh5 wrote:
| Embedded systems for sure.
|
| Eg. Home Automation with custom LED strips + an ESP32 (via.
| tasmota, esphome etc...), Wireless sensors using the same,
| FPV Drones and RC toys/cars in general, 3D printers, Custom
| keyboards are the usual gateway hobbies in my experience. I
| haven't seen anyone who is into one of these and hasn't
| explored the others.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| My dad has set up a repair cafe near where he lives, and
| they're popping up in loads of places now. While some
| electronics are hard / impossible to repair, sure, there's
| still a lot that can be done with the rest. Household
| appliances, for example.
|
| The main issue of course is cost; these places are volunteer
| run, but to make a living out of anything you need to charge an
| X amount per hour, and if the repair is more expensive than a
| replacement it's simply not worth it.
|
| All the e-waste going to e.g. India like in the article is
| stuff where repairing it where it comes from is not worth it.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > The main issue of course is cost;
|
| This is exactly it, and it's a similar issue to what people
| talk about with clothing (Shein etc). Although clothing isn't
| automated, that really is just cheap labour.
|
| We have all these electronic artefacts in the first place
| because of highly integrated processes (starting with the
| "integrated circuit" itself!), done on mostly-automated
| production lines. But the automated processes rely on rigid
| standardization: all the inputs must also be new and
| precisely in-spec. You can't easily "undo-redo" part of the
| manufacturing process to fix something.
|
| As a society gets richer through automation, things which
| still require humans get relatively more expensive. This is
| known as "Baumol cost disease", the phenomenon that things
| like education and healthcare are much more expensive than
| consumer goods because the latter can be automated and
| outsourced while the former can't.
|
| People will pick cheap-unrepairable over expensive-repairable
| almost all the time. The awkward corner is expensive-
| unrepairable, which is becoming an issue (see John Deere vs
| right to repair).
| saidinesh5 wrote:
| > The main issue of course is cost; these places are
| volunteer run
|
| There is cost, and there's also the companies/devices
| themselves. We are losing modularity. With almost no benefit
| to the user.
|
| I mean companies have the audacity to solder an SSD to the
| motherboards of laptops. And make the batteries - one of the
| biggest points of failure - non user replaceable. We had all
| that. It was cheap. It was user friendly. When one failed,
| you were able to replace it yourself.
|
| Once there is enough momentum on letting users fix these
| failing parts themselves, the ecosystems would automatically
| fix themselves imo. That's one of the things that companies
| like Framework, Valve etc.. seem to do really well with their
| hardware endeavors.
| sandeep1998 wrote:
| reminded me of my own childhood.
| userbinator wrote:
| Happens a lot in China too.
|
| https://www.hwcooling.net/en/recycling-in-china-laptop-cpus-...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Less so now than a decade ago. You need to watch them while
| they repair it, I learned that the hard way.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| EVERYTHING gets recycled in China period.
| usagisushi wrote:
| Here's a somewhat cyberpunk-ish fact I learned today: Back in
| '98 Taiwan, unbranded, mysterious desktop CPUs called Golden
| Soldier ("Huang Jin Zhan Shi ") were available in the street.
| It turns out they were actually modded mobile Intel CPUs
| installed in slockets.
|
| https://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/article/980618/parts4.ht...
| https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%84%E9%87%91%E6%88%A6%E5...
|
| BTW, speaking of repair culture, I love this idea of repurposed
| headless MacBooks.
|
| https://www.notebookcheck.net/Screenless-MacBooks-masqueradi...
| pjmlp wrote:
| I remember up to the early 1990's we had repair shops all over
| Portugal, we would buy devices for life, and any kind of
| malfunction would be rescued at one of those repair shops, unless
| it was really a death sentence for the device.
|
| Now in a throw away society with planned obsolence devices, most
| of those shops are gone and the repair knowledge gone with them.
|
| Unless goverments fix the planned obsolence culture it is almost
| impossible to have the repair culture back.
| zoobab wrote:
| "The throw-away society is a human society strongly influenced
| by consumerism. The term describes a critical view of
| overconsumption and excessive production of short-lived or
| disposable items over durable goods that can be repaired."
|
| -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw-away_society
| djrj477dhsnv wrote:
| Isn't it also a natural consequence of rapidly improving
| technology.
|
| Even if a laptop were built to last 20 years, who would want
| one when a new one is an order of magnitude better?
| fitsumbelay wrote:
| > Even if a laptop were built to last 20 years, who would
| want one when a new one is an order of magnitude better?
|
| Someone living in poverty whose life may be markedly
| improved by having one?
| Ray20 wrote:
| Not really. Building a laptop that will last 20 years is
| several times more expensive than building one that will
| last 5-10 years. So they will be less accessible to poor
| people.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| They will be less accessible initially to poor people,
| but if the laptop actually does last 20 years then there
| will be a lot more on the used market therefore driving
| down the cost when someone buys a used one. That is the
| avenue most people who can't afford a new one will likely
| go.
|
| It makes it more expensive to be on the cutting edge and
| turning over your laptop once every couple of years, but
| it makes the used purchases cheaper.
| Ray20 wrote:
| >but it makes the used purchases cheaper.
|
| In fact, no, because they will also become less
| accessible to the less poor, and less poor will start
| using them longer and will also buy used ones.
| consp wrote:
| 20 years is a bit much but a 10 year old laptop can still
| browse normal websites. Just not the javascript loaden
| addfactories.
|
| Doesn't mean you dump it after 2-3 years because a new
| fancy models comes along or the battery is not repairable
| because it's welded shut.
| eviks wrote:
| > would want one when a new one is an order of magnitude
| better
|
| It's not, you're just ignoring two obvious points:
|
| 1. a person with no laptop would prefer it
|
| 2. a repairable laptop can also have its parts upgraded, so
| a 20 year laptop could have 1-year old parts
| ponector wrote:
| Cheap laptop I've bought in 2011 went through several
| upgrades: replaced ram doubling amount of GB. Replaced
| HDD with SSD, added HDD instead of DVD reader. Even
| replaced CPU to get more cores!
|
| Nowadays I can only replace m.2 stick to get more
| storage. Everything is soldered.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Compared with 8 bit home computers appliance nature, that
| wouldn't be a big problem if we had repair shops all over
| the place, which could nonetheless take over
| replacing/upgrading soldered items.
|
| I do agree having back user upgradable ram, disk and GPUs
| on laptops would be much better alternatives.
| Ray20 wrote:
| Today there are also plenty of cheap models that support
| memory expansion and have an additional slot for an SSD.
| The only exception is the ability to replace the
| processor, which is extremely rare. So you should rather
| ask yourself why you, as a consumer, chose a non-
| upgradable model.
| pjmlp wrote:
| My Asus 1215B netbook from 2009 has served me well, until
| it died last year.
|
| There was nothing in 2025 laptops that I would have
| replaced it for, the use cases haven't changed from my 2009
| requirements in computing on the go with a cheap laptop
| like device.
|
| Its replacement is now Samsung tablet with DEX
| capabilities, which I will likewise use until it dies.
| linacica wrote:
| I would like to point out 20 years old it's was in 2005,
| which isn't very old imo,
| wink wrote:
| Some stuff is usable, but not fun.
|
| I have a Centrino laptop from 2004, and it's single core,
| with 1.5GB RAM and, of course, spinning rust.
|
| It _works_ , but even playing a video on youtube can be
| taxing. I'm not arguing for "performance" tasks here,
| just sitting on the couch and surfing, and clicking
| random links.
|
| Then again my home server is a 2013 i5 that does
| everything it needs to do (except be super power
| efficient). So I'd say ~10-14 years is the sweet spot,
| but 20 is historic and mostly useless, sadly
| anthk wrote:
| Mpv + yt-dlp + https://alex.envs.net/dillectory
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Cheap netbook-like devices are widely available from
| China these days. They'll probably be cheap enough even
| accounting for the new tariffs. Or you can just buy an
| older 'ultrabook' laptop on the used market.
| keyringlight wrote:
| The 'cheap' angle is something I wonder about, especially
| for the coming year with tariffs, and especially when
| Microsoft is trying to tell a lot of people that they
| need to buy new PCs to get off win10 and I doubt a huge
| proportion will be able/willing to do the remaining
| bypasses or learn another OS. It seems like a perfect
| storm if you're trying to be frugal, so I assume 'frugal'
| is going to translate into a lot of people on unsupported
| systems.
| pjmlp wrote:
| They might be, but I rather favour the local businesses.
| ciupicri wrote:
| The 1366x768 resolution is small, there are websites
| which are hard to use at that resolution.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Not everything needs a retina screen to be usable.
| griffzhowl wrote:
| If it's two orders of magnitude cheaper then plenty of
| people could want one. It's handy to have a spare laptop or
| two around and with a lightweight linux on there old ones
| can be perfectly functional
| srean wrote:
| New laptops, phones also last a lot less (borked storage,
| borked motherboard), forcing us to buy another - which I
| think is the point.
|
| We have one refrigerator that's still going strong after 50
| years whereas one of our 'newer' air-conditioners had to be
| replaced after 6 years.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| >> We have one refrigerator that's still going strong
| after 50 years
|
| In that particular case, it might not meet energy
| efficiency standards anymore.
|
| But I agree appliances breaking the day after the
| warranty expires is evil. Depending on the country,
| warranty may be meaningless, or close to that
| soco wrote:
| We still have here in Switzerland "repair cafes" run by
| volunteers, where mostly elderly bring their usually outdated
| devices to be repaired, while having a coffee and socializing.
| It works, as long it works...
| pjmlp wrote:
| Starting to exist a bit around here in Germany as well.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| I think it would be fun to volunteer at a repair clinic, but
| there's none nearby and it probably wouldn't work well with a
| low population density rural area.
| jdietrich wrote:
| In the early 1990s, Portugal had a GDP per capita of less than
| $10,000 per year. Portuguese people today just have much better
| things to do with their time than fix old toasters.
|
| I repair my own stuff for fun, but there's absolutely no way I
| could make a living from fixing other people's stuff. The phone
| repair business in my area is dominated by illegal immigrants,
| because fixing iPhones is only marginally more lucrative than
| delivering pizzas.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Go tell that to the folks earning minimum wage, splitting 800
| euros for everything a family needs.
|
| Yeah Portugal is a great experience when visiting with tier 1
| country salary.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Stuff still is repairable these days, it's just most of us live
| in countries where labor is so expensive locally it makes more
| sense to just buy a new one than to pay someone to replace
| components on a circuit board.
| vel0city wrote:
| Right? If the replacement is $500, and the repair guy is
| going to charge $100/hr in labor to diagnose the issue and
| repair it plus an unknown cost of replacement components, the
| risk of spending more on the repair is quite high.
| vjk800 wrote:
| This is the reason.
|
| I've fixed old electronics myself sometimes and quite often
| it's doable and the spare parts usually cost approximately
| nothing. However, paying someone 50 euros for half an hour
| worth of work to fix a thirty euro Christmas decoration
| doesn't feel like a good deal. Maybe for 10 or even 15 euros
| it would be.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Your lord and savior the government cannot do anything about
| the fact that it's cheaper to manufacture new than to repair.
| Unless you want to de-industrialize, which of course is a
| popular ideology among Europeans.
| pjmlp wrote:
| We only need to throw into the arena the mighty power of
| executive orders, and great wall of Europe.
| Sateeshm wrote:
| I used to do at-home computer troubleshooting as a part time job
| when was in college. Most of time it was just opening up the
| casing, dusting it and reattaching all the parts/reinstalling
| Windows that did the trick. 90% of time it was just RAM popping
| out a bit. But in rare cases, it was the components themselves. I
| used to rely of these shops in the city (Hyderabad, India) that
| fixed motherboards etc. really cheap and relatively quickly (less
| than a week most of the time). People that worked there weren't
| engineers or anything, more like tradesmen. It was amazing to see
| them work.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I remember a time when I bought an used laptop and was able to
| upgrade the CPU, RAM and hard drive.
|
| While I might buy now a laptop such as a MacBook without being
| able to replace major components, I will never buy a desktop such
| as a Mac Studio and accept the same shortcomings. And it's not
| only that I want to tinker with hardware, but buying parts and
| assembling the desktop myself has a much better price/performance
| ratio than buying of the shelf parts. Being able to upgrade is a
| bonus and that allows me to have cheaper upgrades than selling it
| and buying another one.
|
| How much more would Apple tax me for a Mac with the equivalent
| performance of i9 14900K, Nvidia 4090, 128 GB RAM and 8 GB SSD I
| assembled in a few hours.
|
| If I were much richer so the few hours spent on assembling the
| thing were more valuable than the price difference, I might have
| thought differently.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| I have a friend who runs a devices (mostly Laptops and Phones)
| rental business. Repairs are a key component in their business
| model. They have a well-established setup powered by processes
| automated by technology. He is a programmer, who bootstrapped his
| business into a successful enterprise today.
|
| If you are in India (or more specifically Bangalore), check out
| his team https://spurge.rentals
|
| I remember advising him to protect his domains with a .com while
| using an interesting but .com domain.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I grew up in a poor Eastern European country which is not as poor
| anymore.
|
| We repaired anything: worn out shoes, distressed socks and
| clothes. Even cooking pots were patched when they developed
| holes. Everything had very long lifetimes and those lifetimes
| were extended with periodic repairs.
|
| Cars were rare and using parts of low quality made the break
| often. People repaired their cars in front of their houses or
| apartment buildings. Or on the side of the road if it broke
| there. Everyone carried big toolkits in their trunks and and
| almost any car owner or driver knew how to fix the car. If a tire
| ran flat, they had the tools to fix it on spot.
|
| There were electronic repair shops everywhere. There were also
| other kind of repair shops.
|
| If someone looked in the trash cans at the time, most of it was
| vegetable waste resulting from people cooking their meals.
|
| It wasn't unusual to own a 30 years old car, a 20 years washing
| machine, a 30 year radio or a 15 year black and white TV, all
| being repaired lots of times.
|
| Some mass market goods, or most of them, were handed down to the
| next generation as priced possessions.
|
| Now, we repair next to nothing. We still repair cars, although
| many people sell their old car if it breaks and buy a new one.
|
| PC, TV, washing machines, fridges, furniture get replaced in a
| few years even if it's in perfectly good condition.
|
| Good got cheaper, although of uncertain quality and the wages got
| high so it's expensive to repair something even if you find a
| place to do it. If you buy a new bicycle and go to the repair
| shop two or three times it will cost you the price of a new one.
|
| I am not nostalgic about it, and I don't think people should
| stick with old junk. But I do believe we need an equilibrium,
| goods should be of higher quality, easier and cheaper to repair.
| I dislike being forced to throw something away because it can't
| be repaired, even if such a repair should be simple and cheap in
| theory.
|
| We pay less for good and we don't spend for the wages of repair
| technicians (almost none left) but since the goods are of low
| quality, have planned obsolescence built in and can't be
| repaired, we end up buying the same good two or three times so we
| spend more. While that might create jobs in China or other remote
| country, I as a consumer, care more about my budget and my
| quality of life.
| rockyj wrote:
| I spent many a weekends at Nehru Place, even though it was a 90
| mins drive and the parking ... oh the parking, well if you want
| to test your patience this is this is the place to go.
|
| But for a hardware / gaming junkie this was the place to be. Not
| to mention (pirated / photocopied) books. Almost any book / media
| you could dream of. The lanes are buzzing with scamsters /
| pirates and geniuses who can build / repair anything - phones,
| TVs, PCs, laptops, watches etc. At one time Nehru Place was the
| "IT" hub of New Delhi. The street food was not half bad as well.
| I was just happy watching the men at work in dinky shops fixing
| anything, built a few PCs there (a tradition which continues to
| this day).
|
| Some happy memories (but you have to be careful or you will need
| to walk back home without your wallet and your shirt).
|
| Edit: 2 movies to understand this culture (a bit more) -
|
| - Rocket Singh (salesman of the year)
|
| - Mickey Virus
| farhanhubble wrote:
| Nehru place was almost 100% scammers than real geniuses but
| definitely the place if you wanted a custom computing rig. The
| food was good enough, like you said but the prospect of having
| a 2GB RAM module made you salivate even more!
|
| The neighboring areas also had electronics importers that
| proved super helpful. You could find some of the most "lethal"
| tech with their help. I got myself some powerful FPGA kits that
| are normally not accessible outside defense, academia, and
| select licensed labs. I have great admiration for those folks
| who let me lay my hands over the most powerful technology of
| that time.
| boricj wrote:
| Somewhat related, Gamers Nexus made a video about motherboards
| made from salvaged parts in Shenzhen a while ago:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNje63vx73s
| FilosofumRex wrote:
| In the US they're not called repair shops, they're chop shops -
| where all our stolen electronics wash up
| h4ck_th3_pl4n3t wrote:
| There was this famous guy, which sold custom old Thinkpads, but
| with newer mainboards and Intel 10th gen chips in it, with custom
| USB-C adapters and all.
|
| At some point he kind of disappeared and rumors appeared that he
| is now in mandatory military service, but will come back
| afterwards. Well, that was pre-COVID.
|
| He also knows a friend that backports coreboot to the new
| mainboards. No idea how they manage to do that in a 2 person
| project like this. So yeah, all of the laptops they sell run
| coreboot in it (including the Thunderbolt EC, which is insane
| amount of work to implement).
|
| Nonetheless the build quality was insanely good, and lots of
| folks were amazed by what they essentially bet blindly on when
| they ordered it. The X2100 would be my dream laptop, but I didn't
| manage to get one in time.
|
| [1] https://www.xyte.ch/shop/x2100-pricing/
| accurrent wrote:
| His last post was in 2022. Singapore's national service is 2
| years, he'd be out by now. Seems like he probably ran into
| issues. Also he mentions his university: you can't start
| university till you've finished your military service.
| lproven wrote:
| Try:
|
| https://www.tpart.net/
| h4ck_th3_pl4n3t wrote:
| Holy shit. X210 with an Intel 7 Ultra 165H in it? Damn. I'm
| sold.
|
| Anyone got one of these already or are they still in pre-
| production?
| anthk wrote:
| That's the way, India. Helping the poor and avoiding waste it's
| the key point to improve the society.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Not the same thing as this article, but I was impressed with the
| Chinese trend of "fixing" 2015-era MacBook Pros with broken
| screens by deleting the screen and installing a blanking plate,
| leaving the machine as a sort of C64/Amiga/ST/Acorn style
| keyboard-and-CPU single unit that could be plugged into an HDMI
| screen. https://ioshacker.com/news/people-in-china-are-using-
| macbook...
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| I did this with an old ASUS laptop. Just removed the whole
| screen after the hinges and LCD died. Worked fine!
| fifticon wrote:
| Part of the appeal of refurbished computers is that currently,
| fresh new laptops and tablets have reached a horrible minimum-
| quality. I have chewed myself and our household through a
| possibly obscene number of laptops, tablets and smartphones over
| the last 15 years or so. One of the villains in this story is
| Asus.
|
| An ugly pattern emerges. In my country, there is mandatory 2year
| warranty on bought electronics - if it breaks before 24 months,
| the retailer owes you a working specimen. Well, what do you
| know.. I see a pattern of a lot of these items breaking before 3
| years have passed. It is almost as if some hierarchy of managers
| have dictated "can you make this thing last for 25 months, but no
| further than that?"
|
| - 1 the non-replacable battery will die, leaving the device a
| brick.
|
| - 2 the power management IC will die, so the system refuses to
| light up or receive electrical current.
|
| - 3 often, when (2) happens, the motherboard will be toasted as a
| by-product, leaving you to pay 600 DKK to have the retailer
| inform you "we have looked at your device, unfortunately the
| motherboard died, so repairing it will cost you same price as
| brand new. Thank you for the 600 you paid to have us tell you
| that".
|
| Within the last year, I have had two separate Asus VivoBooks die
| on me, both after about 24 months of use - but critically, ">24",
| so no repair/warranty. One of them a DKK-10.000 purchase, the
| other a DKK-6.500 purchase. Neither of them have seen particular
| abuse, they were used by me, as "household pets" - so laptops
| that never left the couch.
|
| I have taken a long time to learn this, but my learned lesson is
| that I have stopped buying these "10k DKK for 24 months of
| laptop" devices.
|
| I am a pathological computer hoarder, and I have plenty of
| desktop PCs that are still alive and kicking after 10+ years (in
| which I may understandably have to replace PSUs).
|
| The scam/grift that suppliers like Asus are operating on comsumer
| devices, is that the PMIC is designed to fail, is soldered into
| the motherboard, and that they love whenever the failing PMIC
| kills the motherboard during its death throes.
| lou1306 wrote:
| I literally just bought a 2nd hand laptop, made by
| $huge_tech_conglomerate_from_pacific_northwest, with an 11-th gen
| i7, for less than EUR 250. The reason it was so cheap? It has a
| defective charging port so it only charges via USB-C. So it's not
| even "dead" dead.
|
| This is mind-boggling, the CPU alone almost basically makes the
| full price. In what world is this an efficient allocation of
| resources?
| fn-mote wrote:
| > This is mind-boggling, the CPU alone almost basically makes
| the full price. In what world is this an efficient allocation
| of resources?
|
| The world in which diagnosis (plus risk of incorrect diagnosis)
| is done at $200/hour. Obviously a corporate sale, where they
| cannot be bothered to check it out because that's not their
| core business.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Want a real solution to electronic waste, with real international
| knock-on effects?
|
| The EU should mandate 10-year warranties for higher-end consumer
| electronics and durable goods.
|
| This could work on a sliding scale: less expensive items get
| shorter warranties (but never below the current 2-year minimum),
| while pricier products require longer coverage periods.
|
| Such legislation would:
|
| 1. End the exploitation of workers in sweatshops producing
| deliberately short-lived products
|
| 2. Discourage planned obsolescence and reduce manufacturing waste
|
| 3. Significantly decrease the climate impact of consumer
| electronics
|
| 4. Create genuine incentives for a Circular Economy where durable
| products like quality ThinkPads become standard rather than
| exceptions
|
| By requiring products to last, we'd not only protect consumers
| and the Environment, but also the vulnerable workers currently
| trapped and exploited in sweatshops designed to produce
| disposable goods.
| MaxGripe wrote:
| It seems to me that one (of many) factors contributing to the
| fact that electronics are no longer repaired as often in Western
| countries is the wealth of these countries and the relatively low
| cost of electronics. If an hour of a technician's labor costs X,
| and a particular piece of equipment can be bought for, say, 3X,
| it doesn't make much sense for most people to repair it.
| sunshine-o wrote:
| Are there any good online resources for this beyond iFixit?
| intrasight wrote:
| As a suburban kid in New York in the 70s, I also got my start in
| tech by taking apart and sometimes repairing old radios. In my
| case it wasn't a repair shop but an older sibling who encouraged
| my interest.
| preezer wrote:
| I just love it, when people repair old stuff and the things are
| running again for another time. I love to repair things myself,
| it's just a very good feeling, if you managed to repair a device.
| Don't ask how often it would be cheaper to buy a new device, but
| the feeling is priceless.
| danielktdoranie wrote:
| One of the events in my early life that got me interested in
| computers was a friend from middle school who lived near a Radio
| Shack and a neighbourhood computer store. He dumpster dived and
| got every computer he owned that way. He had a couple of
| Macintosh computers, this was like 1992, with cracked plastics. I
| enjoyed just sitting there and watching him tinker. His entire
| bedroom was filled with stuff he liberated from dumpster diving.
| bubblethink wrote:
| This is largely a result of tariffs/duties that India imposes on
| everything. A typical $800 laptop is going to cost $1200-$1500 in
| India. Combined with the purchasing power parity, a good laptop
| is out of reach for most people. The repair culture works
| entirely due to artificial scarcity. Nostalgia for repairs
| notwithstanding, it is a failure for the country that people
| can't afford a decent laptop in 2025.
| InfinityByTen wrote:
| Food for thought: if a failure (of sorts) can make the
| successful rethink their ways of being, is that success missing
| the point, maybe?
|
| A lot of ways of life in India are sustainable. In fact going
| the consumerist ways of West is a step in the opposite
| direction, given what all problems that has created for the
| planet. I think the motive of the piece is not the nostalgia of
| repairing, but how living with constraints births
| sustainability and how we all can learn from it (including
| India) and in fact foster it in a positive way :)
| gruez wrote:
| >A lot of ways of life in India are sustainable. In fact
| going the consumerist ways of West is a step in the opposite
| direction, given what all problems that has created for the
| planet. I think the motive of the piece is not the nostalgia
| of repairing, but how living with constraints births
| sustainability and how we all can learn from it (including
| India) and in fact foster it in a positive way :)
|
| Isn't this the degrowth ideology expressed in a slightly
| obfuscated way? Being poor is more "sustainable", because you
| don't have as much resources to consume.
| InfinityByTen wrote:
| I didn't know there was a term to it. I wouldn't think of
| my stance currently as advocating of purposeful scarcity in
| an anticipation of better distribution. Instead I do
| consider it critical to "take a step back" and "evaluate
| the problem statement at hand". Is the end goal more
| consumption or better living?
| bubblethink wrote:
| The end goal is progress and prosperity. Semiconductors
| are one of the few areas where there is rapid progress.
| Depriving your large working age population of the tools
| they need to improve their lives is counterproductive.
| The problem statement at hand is that you have a poor
| country plagued by graft and bureaucracy with the only
| sliver of hope being technology that can create upward
| mobility for your billion+ people.
| gruez wrote:
| >Instead I do consider it critical to "take a step back"
| and "evaluate the problem statement at hand". Is the end
| goal more consumption or better living?
|
| Except the context of this thread is talking about
| tariffs on laptops, not random trinkets from aliexpress.
| If someone is willing to part ways with $1000+ to get a
| laptop/phone, I think that's a pretty good sign the goal
| is "better living".
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| A few years ago, I wanted to add more RAM to a Lenovo laptop. I
| opened the thing, remove the RAM, and like a complete idiot,
| switched on the power without any RAM in the slot.
|
| The laptop refused to start.
|
| I took it to the Lenovo center and they said about 7-10 days and
| a minimum of Rs 10,000 (about $150 in those days).
|
| Since this was too much for an old laptop, I looked for
| alternatives. Someone suggested a repair shop in Nehru Place, New
| Delhi
|
| This was tucked into the back of the basement of a big tower. A
| tiny 10x10 room filled with laptop parts
|
| The guy at the counter looked at the laptop, opened it up,
| twisted some wires around, added another few wires, and the thing
| was working again
|
| Total time: under 10 minutes.
|
| Total cost: Rs 200 - just about $2.5 today
| einpoklum wrote:
| Wait, you mean the laptop refused to start after replacing the
| RAM? And - was the price quote you got for adding RAM, or for
| fixing the laptop so that it starts again (with the old RAM
| SODIMM)? I couldn't quite follow the example.
| gruez wrote:
| >I opened the thing, remove the RAM, and like a complete idiot,
| switched on the power without any RAM in the slot.
|
| >The laptop refused to start.
|
| >I took it to the Lenovo center [...]
|
| This makes no sense. Why didn't you just replace the RAM? I
| seriously doubt starting the laptop without RAM bricks the
| laptop.
| nirui wrote:
| > "...For instance, we salvage parts from old laptop
| motherboards, such as capacitors, mouse pads, transistors,
| diodes, and certain ICs and use them in the newly refurbished
| ones," says Prasad.
|
| This highlights the problem of parts availability, especially for
| older laptops (10 years old or even older). Since no one, the
| original manufacturer as well as the "dup(licat)ors", is going to
| make parts for laptops that old.
|
| During my own attempt to revive my old laptops, I had to buy
| three different keyboards, each costs around $8, from 2 different
| recycling shop, to "Frankenstein" a working and fairly new-
| looking one. And then the screen bezel and palm rest is another
| struggle. One total revival ended up costed me around $50 and 2
| weeks, and give up on another one.
|
| I imagine in order for laptop/electronic repairing to work
| reliably, manufactures needs to create standardized parts, like
| what happened to desktop PCs. But that hasn't happened since
| ...ever?
| pmontra wrote:
| I remember that my old HP nc8430 from 2006 cost only 20 Euro
| some 10 years later. I could have bought a couple of them for
| spares if I planned to keep it running. The problem was that
| the GPU run out of software support circa 2012 and I had to pin
| the Linux kernel to a 3.1x version. An open source driver
| apparently made it into the kernel many years later but I never
| checked if it actually works. I bought a new laptop in 2014
| which is a kind of Frankenstein on its own nowadays. I replaced
| the screen (a defective hinge under warranty), the RAM (maxed
| it out at 32 GB), the HDD with a 2 TB SSD, the DVD burner with
| another SSD, the keyboard many times as it wears out and maybe
| that's it.
| knowitnone wrote:
| It is somewhat standard. CPU, memory, drives, LCD. The only
| thing not standard is the motherboard. With 3d printing, you
| can print your own base to contain the motherboard, plug all
| those parts back in, screw on the LCD. Framework Computer is
| doing repairable laptops
| schnable wrote:
| I wonder if repair culture will expand in the US if prices on
| consumer elections rise with tariffs.
| knowitnone wrote:
| The US is unable to fix anything even if they are willing.
| Throw-away culture has consequences.
| dartharva wrote:
| India is a classic cyberpunk dystopia. High tech penetration,
| extreme income inequality, prevalent hacker undergrounds (as
| shown in the article) and horrible quality of life.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| This should be the top comment.
| sharadov wrote:
| India still has a thriving repair and refurbishment culture,
| which was born more out of financial necessity than environmental
| concerns.
|
| I know someone who exports automobile tires from the US to India
| to be retreaded.
| penguin_booze wrote:
| The repair culture exists because there's a market for it.
| People's disposable income--or lack thereof--forces them to make
| do with less shiny, older, products. As society gets richer, this
| repair culture, too, will fade and go extinct. "When I can easily
| afford, why should I settle?", the thinking will go.
|
| What I'd like to see is for society to embrace repair culture
| because that feels the right thing to do. A culture where it
| should feel immoral to chuck something out when there's still
| life left on the product. A culture where repairing makes
| economic sense--i.e., the cost of repair doesn't surpass that of
| a new, comparable, product by a wide margin.
|
| When deprecation is the norm and fashion, when companies are
| incentivized to "innovate" (read: planned obsolescence) and flood
| the market with cheap products, there won't be a repair culture.
| srameshc wrote:
| I bought a 2016 for someone for about $150 and it was probably
| refurbished at such shop few months back. It had 16GB RAM and i7
| processor enough to get going with design work with a nice
| external laptop. I wasn't sure if it will last but took a bet and
| it works perfectly.
| silexia wrote:
| Please ask your local representatives to vote for the right to
| repair!
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