iFixit Put Up a Right To Repair Billboard Along New York Governor's Drive To Work

Right to Repair website iFixit put up a billboard in Albany, New York, calling for Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign the landmark Right to Repair law, which was passed overwhelmingly nearly six months ago by the state legislature. PIRG reports: Supported by Repair.org, U.S. PIRG and NYPIRG, Consumer Reports, Environment New York, the Story of Stuff Project, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, NRDC, Environmental Action and EFF, calls for the governor to sign the bill have increased The legislation must advance to the governor by the end of December and be signed by January 10, 2023.

The Albany Times Union editorialized twice for the governor to sign the bill, recently noting that the bill has come under intense opposition from manufacturers: "Meanwhile, lobbyists, big corporations and a few trade organizations are pressing for a veto ... Ms. Hochul must sign the bill, and then lawmakers should get to work passing an expanded version that includes all the products that were needlessly stripped from the original. Big corporations and the lobbyists they hire won't be happy, but that shouldn't matter a bit."

Repairability

[backslashdot]

You may have the right to repair, but I have the right to design products without regard for its repairability. As long as I make no promise that it is repairable. Heck, I might even state that generic fools can't repair it. Why? Because the product has to meet MARKET specifications, not the specification of some idiots with political power. If the market wants repairable products, then it will get it. If the market doesn't give a shit about repairability why should manufacturers have to cater to some niche

Re:Repairability

[DrMorris]

My understanding is that the right to repair movement is not about placing repairability as the highest priority (above compactness etc.) and mandating this as such, but rather about not allowing manufacturers to introduce arbitrary hurdles to repair "their" devices. I put "their" in quotes because that seems to be the sentiment that we're transitioning into: it's not you, the consumer, that owns the device and can do whatever the f%@k you like with it... No, for some reason the manufacturers would like to have a say in what you are or are not allowed to do after you purchased said device.

Re: Repairability

[saloomy]

Manufacturers should be allowed to introduce whatever dumb ideas they want. The market should finish them off, if repairability matters to them. Economics. The best solution wins.

Re: Repairability

[Ormy]

In an ideal world with infinite resources I would agree. In reality we tried that, it leads to huge amounts of wastage of materials and energy (both finite resources). The market should finish them off but it doesn't because both manufacturers and customers are greedy and short sighted. We need to try another solution. If we leave it to unregulated free market capitalism, often the worst solution wins.

Re:

[stooo]

There are legal limits and frameworks to free market. Deal with it. It's for your survival also.

Re:

[DrMorris]

I do believe that the market can and should decide most things, but not everything.

Screen size of the average mobile phone?
The consumers have spoken. Apparently we all have giant hands and prefer to carry around a full sized monitor in out pockets rather than being able to operate a device conveniently with a single hand. I utterly hate this trend, but oh well, the consumers decided, the manufacturers listened.

Headphone jack on a mobile phone?
The consumers have spoken. We are happy to believe the manufactur

Re:

[Mitreya]

And since everybody should only ever use bluetooth why do we even need a headphone jack?

I recently bought Sony Xperia 1 III, which has kept the headphone jack. I guess not enough people care in practice?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding is that the right to repair movement is not about

There are a vast number of differing opinions, all of which include themselves in the "right to repair movement"
It is dangerous to generalize them all together.

Some want artificial hurdles banned.
Some want practical/technical hurdles banned.
Some want special access (tools and/or documentation)
Some want the legal threshold to align with their personal skill levels.
Some want completely unreasonable and unrelated things, because of course.

Naturally, depending on which agenda is actually at hand, our own person

Re:

[ewibble]

For me its
artificial hurdles banned and special access (tools and/or documentation) that are the limit, and I would say the are both artificial hurdles.

Not providing documents, which clearly exist or making the tools prohibitively expensive are are artificial constraints made specifically to stop you doing the repair.

The others can be legitimate hurdles and should be allowed, but could be intentionally placed there to make repair more complicated than needed but that would also make them artificial.

Re:

[CoolDiscoRex]

Itâ(TM)s a personal property issue. The rapid encroachment on private property by corporate entities, enabled through schemes like licensing.

If you buy a product, and its price is primarily determined by the physical hardware, then any code needed to make that hardware function in the advertised manner is part of the purchase. At least historically. That is why you purchased your pocket calculator, your car, your microwave oven, your alarm clock, and did not license them.

The licensing scheme is just

Re:

[backslashdot]

Who modded the above as "Troll?" What the heck? It's not trolling to say something you disagree with. If you disagree with what I said, then respond with something other than censorship.

Re:

[narcc]

Moderation isn't censorship. It's the Free Market you pretend to love at work. In the marketplace of ideas, your nonsense lost.

Also, you post looks an awful lot like a troll post. It's hard to image it as anything else. Were you actually serious? It's hard to tell these days.

Re:Repairability

[Dutch Gun]

I skimmed through the bill, and saw nothing in it that requires manufactures to change the way they build a device. The significant stipulation is that they must provide independent third-party repair businesses the same tools and documentation they provide to their own authorized repair centers.

By all means, read the bill yourself and see if I've missed something significant.

https://legislation.nysenate.g... [nysenate.gov]

Re:

[stooo]

THIS.

Re:Repairability

[drkshadow]

Who is to say repairability is more important than say compactness and waterproofing?

The voting public.

Don't like it? Take your trash elsewhere. When your market shrinks to next-to-nothing, perhaps you'll reconsider what the public wants.

Re:

[Ormy]

Yes you have the right to design and sell a product with zero regard for repairability. You do not have the right to actively prevent your customers from attempting their own repairs by adding systems/locks that only function to prevent third party repairs. Repairability may not always be more important than compactness or waterproofing. It is more important then your desire to actively prevent third party repairs and parts availability so you can price gouge your customers on repairs and spare parts.

Re:

[stooo]

>> You may have the right to repair, but I have the right to design products without regard for its repairability

You may design, but not be allowed so sell.

Re:

[jonwil]

I think the place to start with "right to repair" is to require that if a manufacturer of any device (be it a smartphone, a combine harvester, an elevator, an airliner or whatever else) makes some item (parts, documentation, tools, diagnostic hardware/software, service bulletins, software for paring parts to devices or whatever else) to an in-house or authorized service centre, the manufacturer has to make the same item available to anyone who wants to buy it (and at a reasonable price)

Re:

[PPH]

Wait... the governor drives to work!?

She doesn't have her own chauffeur and police escort to and from the governor's mansion? So the billboard is for the benefit of Hoke Colburn [imdb.com].

Effectiveness?

[freeze128]

Was iFixit the first to advertise specifically to the Governor by using that billboard? Don't you think other lobbyists have tried it as well. Don't you think that the Governor knows this, and is able to just tune it out?

Re:Effectiveness?

[Opportunist]

This isn't supposed to remind the governor to sign it, this is to remind the governor that everyone else can see that, too, and that they'll think the governor doesn't do a good job if it doesn't get signed.

Well ...

[fahrbot-bot]

iFixit Put Up a Right To Repair Billboard ...

Pretty sure they had to pay someone else to put it up -- and will to change it, take it down, etc...
Their *next* billboard will be about the "right to put up your own billboard". :-)

NY Governor Reads?

[NoWayNoShapeNoForm]

I thought she could only parrot what she saw on the Teleprompter device.

Re:

[techno-vampire]

No, that was President Obama.

Re:

[ArsenneLupin]

Seeing text (on a teleprompter device or elsewhere) is called reading, especially when speaking it out loudly ("parroting") while doing so :-)

I doubt ...

[CptJeanLuc]

... that the Governor's driver has the authority to enact this legislation.

Re:

[ArsenneLupin]

You know, it's possible to read roadside billboards from the passenger seat too. Actually easier, as you're not distracted by the road.

In my country, the governor has a deadline

[Flavianoep]

In my country, if the governor does not sign a bill within 15 workdays, the bill goes back to the assembly (so is called the state legislative branch in Brazil) to make it law.

Re:

[Flavianoep]

I must correct myself. If the governor does not manifest within 15 workdays, the bills goes back to the assembly. They can veto it, if they do so, the it's ended.