“It feels like the Berlin Wall of tech repair monopolies is starting to crumble, brick by brick.”
Feeling like that just screams how corrupt our government is. Apple shouldn’t get a vote, and their approval is the last thing that should be required to approve this.
Corporations should have to work in whatever environment consumer protection laws let them have, instead of dictating what protections we get.
They don’t approve it, they’re just going to get their arse tickled by California, then absolutely fuckin reamed out by the EU if they don’t
It’s a bit more complex than that unfortunately. Governments have not invested significantly in regulation, the people writing the regulation have almost no idea how the underlying tech works and as a result they have to lean on tech companies to help write the regulation that’s going to regulate them. It’s a weird line to walk, but if they don’t walk it they end up with regulation that just gets thrown out of courts every time they try to enforce it.
One recent example, a few months back the GDPR slapped Facebook with a $13B fine for the way they transfer user data from the EU to the US. It was all over Reddit, people were celebrating, but it’s going to be thrown out if it hasn’t been already. Why? Because there is currently no legal method of transferring user data from the EU to the US, and, like it or not, that’s critical for the operation of thousands of global companies.
The high level TLDR is that the EU courts invalidated the only legal way to transfer user data from the EU to the US, causing a conflict in US and EU data transfer laws. Companies started using a different method, which was agreed to be allowed until the EU and US came to an agreement on how data is legally transferred. This was in the works when the Irish DPC used the GDPR to throw a $13B fine at Facebook for using the only data transfer method available to them, causing thousands of companies across the world (including mine lol) to collectively shit their pants.
When this shit happens once, whatever, but when tech regulation starts getting laughed out of court regularly we’ve got a bigger problem on our hands.
BuT coORPEratIOns arE PeOplE
Apple backs their version of personal repair where they still control who repairs what, who can sell or buy parts and at what price and continues to be completely anti-consumer to protect their massively profitable repair business.
Very suspicious.
The only “Apple” that I will believe when it comes to supporting right to repair is Steve Wozniak.
When imposter is sus.
Apple just wants to get in on the ground floor so they can shape the legislation to benefit themselves. There’s no way in hell a company as blatantly anti-repair as apple has suddenly decided to shift it’s priorities when it makes them absolute bank.
They don’t have to pay people to repair their phones if they let people go somewhere else to get their phones repaired.
They make far more money on margins for their tightly controlled parts doing the repairs themselves in house than letting independant repair shops do it for them. There’s a very clear reason why companies like apple/john deere are so anti right to repair. They make shitloads off of being the place to go to “repair” your device at an insane markup(to discourage repair in the first place.) And if you don’t like it, you can just buy a new one of their products. So they win either way.
Letting independant repair shops replace a chip for a couple bucks in parts andmaybe $50-$100 in labor absolutely eats into their margins and they see none of that money. It’s a big reason why they control their supply chain so tightly and do stupid things like serializing parts and programming/pairing parts together. So other shops can’t do the repairs they themselves can do.
“Backs” it… yeah nah
Part is the same price as just sending it to apple.
Isn’t this legislation kinda half backed since it let’s them “protect” their IP.
I haven’t gotten a chance to look at it yet, but Lewis Rossmann’s comments are usually very helpful for things like this. I don’t know what apple is playing at.
Apples policy’s won’t change much. Anything considered a “security” feature or part doesn’t have to made available or can be bundled into a “package”. Speciality tools and schematics don’t need to be made available etc. same watered down stuff as usual. Apple wants the positive PR of seeming like they are on the right side of right to repair.
From the comment section on YouTube
“Further, the bill has a component that prevents manufacturers from being required to make tools, parts, and documentation available for any component that would disable or override antitheft security measures, which would encompass features like Face ID.” Apple isn’t giving away the farm. As long as they consider it security-sensitive, they don’t have to share it with anyone.
Still can’t edit on mobile yet. :(
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