- There's a troubling trend in the technology industry.
More and more the devices we buy are becoming locked down
through a combination of hardware and software,
that's designed to prevent us and independent shops
from upgrading, repairing, and in some shocking cases
even using them in ways that aren't sanctioned
by the original manufacturer.
This tight integration has brought us improvements
like smaller and less expensive gadgets, but
it's come at the cost of producing more waste,
making repairs unnecessarily expensive and inaccessible,
and even manufacturers trying to use their control
over your electronics to remove functionality,
unless you agree to pony up a monthly subscription fee.
I mean, I'm sorry, what? Making deals and then altering them
after the fact, how is that even legal?
It sounds like some kind of fictional dystopia, doesn't it?
But it's not. It's real and it's right now.
Thankfully we do have a solution called
right to repair, but before we can take it
from a concept to actual legislation that protects
consumers, small businesses and the environment,
we need to talk about it and make sure
that we are all on the same page.
After I tell you about our sponsor, Glasswire.
Instantly see your current and past network activity,
detect malware and block badly behaving apps on your PC
or Android device with Glasswire.
Use offer code Linus to get 25% off at the link below.
(upbeat music)
Every time we bring up right to repair,
I am surprised afresh to see that
the vast majority of the opposition to it comes from
either people who haven't had it explained to them properly
or from folks that are on board with right to repair
even though they don't realize it yet.
So for that reason, I think we should start
with what right to repair is not.
Nobody is calling for manufacturers to be forced
with a gun to their head to repair your stuff.
Now, many OEMs these days do offer voluntary repair programs
for their products.
And sometimes they're an extension of the warranty
like with Koss' headphones,
where they will repair or replace your headphones for free
as long as you pay the shipping fees.
These types of repair programs are great for consumers
but forcing a product manufacturer to implement one
could add costs that will either need to be absorbed
by the business, potentially putting it in jeopardy,
or passed along to the customer,
potentially making the product more expensive
in the first place.
Another common argument is that right to repair legislation
would hurt innovation.
And on the surface, this one sounds reasonable.
I mean, if I'm Apple why should I bother
developing a new iPhone if I'll be immediately forced
to give the plans for every component
to third parties who can then make their own iPhone
without the upfront R and D.
This is a perfect example of a straw man argument.
Most of the electronics repair industry is small shops
performing relatively simple jobs
like screen replacements and keyboard repairs.
These are things that wouldn't require Apple
to give up enough details about these parts
for someone to make their own.
Except when they might do just that,
leading us perfectly to opposition point number three.
If manufacturers can't protect their users
against fake or reverse engineered sketchy parts,
there is no way to ensure that the customer experience
will be a safe and positive one.
Think of this.
Apple makes the news every time, an iPhone lights on fire
and anyone who only skims the headlines
is gonna miss important details.
Like if the user had a shoddy third-party charger
or screwed up a DIY battery replacement,
that's a fair point,
because this kind of thing can cause immeasurable
long-term damage to a brand.
So it sure is a good thing that
no one is asking for that either.
With right to repair, no one should be able to
build another company's device entirely
with third-party components or manufacturer patent
infringing parts.
What they should have, is the right to access OEM components
and resources to make repairs to consumer's devices
when required.
And the craziest part of this controversial stance
is how uncontroversial it all really is
in the automotive industry.
We'll talk a bit more about that later.
On that note though,
we have a few videos coming out on some very
cool electric vehicles
so make sure that you're subscribed.
Now the last argument against right to repair,
yes, you in the back of the room, go.
- [Man] But I don't wanna repair my own stuff.
- Ah, yes, but that's the thing.
Right to repair means you have the right to repair it.
You can still go out and buy a new one,
or you can have someone else
exercise their right to repair it for you.
Just like with your car
where a combination of laws and industry norms
ensures that decades after production ended,
you can still get new brakes for your 97 Datsun.
But enough about what it isn't, what is it then?
Right to repair supporters know that there's no
single perfect solution that's ready-made right now.
But what it's about is figuring out
how to tackle the problems that I just outlined
with the goal of improving consumer choice and freedom.
Here's a hot take for you.
Anyone who fully understands right to repair
and opposes it, opposes individual freedom.
It really honest to goodness is that beep simple.
So then particularly in America
we're getting branded anti freedom, is pretty undesirable.
How is it that lawmakers, lobbyists
and corporations are working so hard at it?
Did you really have to ask?
I mean, think about it.
What do you think is more profitable, selling you a screen
for $70 and billing an hour or two of technician
time to replace it or selling you a brand new phone
for over $1000?
And don't get me wrong. I'm a business owner.
I'm not some kind of anti-capitalism activist.
If my business has an opportunity to make money,
longtime viewers are gonna know, I'm into it.
But a business model that is designed to force you
to buy more is unethical at best,
which in my mind is just another word for
something that should be illegal, but just isn't yet.
And before you guys say it, planned obsolescence,
manufacturers forcing you to buy a new one
by breaking the old one, that is not some kind of
tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. That is a real thing
and has been for decades.
After the Great Depression, it was discussed
that the things that we use should all be made to fail
after a certain amount of time
or have specific dates where they can no longer
be used to increase consumerism
for the purpose of strengthening the economy.
I can't even make this stuff up guys,
and since manufacturers aren't penalized
for the excess waste that this mentality generates,
there's never been an incentive
for them to go back to making longer lasting stuff.
I mean, if you wanna see some brilliant examples
of planned obsolescence in the real world,
Veritassium just uploaded an excellent video
looking at how the light bulb industry went
out of their way to engineer inferior light bulbs,
so consumers would have to buy more of them.
Going even as far as to fine companies
that produced better bulbs.
I've run into this personally just a few weeks ago
when I purchased my new home.
The previous owner said to me,
yeah the clothes dryer it's pretty ugly and it's real old
but I had a service technician come in
just a couple of years ago to replace the belt,
and he basically said, don't you ever throw this thing away.
They don't make them like this anymore.
And that example of right to repair an action is so good
because it demonstrates why the status quo
isn't good enough and why we need new laws
to address new exploitative business strategies.
Cause here's the thing, nothing prevents me
from making the choice to repair that dryer
rather than replace it.
But in the electronics industry,
which by the way in case you didn't notice,
is quickly becoming every industry,
the same company can both profit by selling more goods
and have the ability to remotely cripple those goods
forcing customers to buy more of them
even if they worked just fine.
I mean, that is a clear conflict
of interest if I've ever seen one.
So then back to phones for a moment.
I mean it's not like you can't repair them at all.
Apple will happily sell you AppleCare
for 150 bucks or offer you repair services
if you opted out. Only like so many things in life,
the prices for uninsured repairs often don't make any sense.
A screen replacement for $300 dollars
and that assumes that you have an Apple store nearby
that you can walk into or that you can live
without your phone for a week while it's in the mail.
Given estimated cost of $70
for the screen of Apple's latest and greatest phone,
and Apple's reported genius salaries
of about 20 to $25 an hour,
I think it's pretty clear that this is less about
taking care of customers, well covering their costs,
and more about nudging customers towards
a shiny brand new device
since they're already in the store anyway
and it only costs a few hundred dollars more
than repairing the screen, didn't it.
Now that's where independent repair shops
are supposed to come in and they have done so for years.
The problem is that over the years,
Apple has attacked this industry.
Going as far as raiding shops
over their stock of replacement parts
if it has an Apple logo on it and refusing to
provide diagnostic tools that wouldn't be necessary
if Apple didn't specifically create barriers
that require these diagnostic tools.
Now to Apple's credit,
they have made progress in recent years
and they've even made parts available
to members of the independent repair provider program,
but joining the program reportedly
comes with some onerous requirements including
submitting to unscheduled inspections from Apple.
Remember though, this isn't just about the iPhone or Apple
it's about consumer choice and freedom,
and Apple deciding to grant its customers
a little bit more ownership of their own devices
that they paid for, is not consumer choice
and it's not freedom. That should be a right.
Not something that Apple grants at its discretion.
Another goal of right to repair
is keeping devices out of landfills.
We're producing over 50 million metric
tons of e-waste per year.
And a lot of it is repairable or even perfectly functional.
A local electronics refurbisher and recycler GEEP,
is currently in a legal battle with Apple
over about a hundred thousand devices
that were refurbished and resold
instead of being shredded
according to their agreement with Apple.
Now, to be clear we're not siding with GEEP here.
They violated their contract, and we have no way
of knowing if the refurbishing that they did
was up to Apple standards, which could damage Apple's brand.
But it does raise a larger question.
Why is Apple paying to shred a hundred thousand
devices when people could be using them?
The answer is right in Apple's claim
that part of the 22.6 million in damages
is from lost profit due to gray-market sales.
Now I'm not trying to pick solely on Apple here.
John Deere is another company that shamelessly fights
against the interest of their customers
and the general public.
It's just apples brazen hypocrisy
that makes me keep coming back to them.
They have a whole page on their website that is dedicated
to how eco-friendly they are
but then they literally spend money to keep working devices
out of consumers hands.
To be clear, Apple at least makes an effort
through their recycling programs.
But any environmentalist can tell you
that reduce, reuse and recycle
are in that order for a reason.
Recycling particularly e-waste is not as clean a solution
as you might've been led to believe.
So, with all of this in mind, what can we actually do?
Well right now, Louis Rossmane, who has been a huge advocate
for right to repair and operates his own repair shop,
has a GoFundMe going to get a direct ballot initiative
published in Massachusetts.
Hopefully this will lead to the push
that's needed for right to repair
to become a reality in the electronic space.
He'll be working with the same firm
that managed to get right to repair
pushed to a direct ballot initiative
for the automotive industry, which
as you remember from my examples, is a space where
right to repair actually freaking exists.
So if you want to support right to repair,
this is one of the best ways and the best times
to go about it.
So a link to the GoFundMe is gonna be
in the description down below for you guys to check out.
I wanna see what the LTT community can do.
And I'm gonna be kicking things
off with $20,000 from our only fans
April fool's gag to get this engine started.
So let's go, go, go boys.
Maybe if you guys contribute enough
we'll actually do some of that crazy stuff.
No, we're not gonna do that.
We're not gonna to, we're not doing any beep.
This video is brought to you by Ting mobile.
Ting mobile has new rates that make it easier
than ever to see how much you can save by switching.
They've got unlimited talk and text for $10 a month.
Data plans starting at just
$15 a month and unlimited data for $45 a month.
And if you liked their previous pay
for only what you use plans, guess what?
They're still there.
They're called Ting Mobile flex plans now,
and they charge just $5 per gig.
Data can even be shared if you have a family plan
so you can connect more phones to save more.
And if you sign up before April 30th Ting's
five gig plan is only $20 for the first six months.
You'll get the same nationwide coverage
in the US and award-winning customer service,
and pretty much any phone works with Ting.
So check them out at linus.ting.com
and get $25 in credit towards your account.
If you guys enjoyed this video
you might enjoy one of our previous experiences
with right to repair inconveniences,
when we broke our iMac pro and Apple refused
to fix it for us.
Remember guys, oh man, so many people thought
we wanted them to repair it for free.
We wanted to pay. They wouldn't do it.