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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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It's tight to balance between the demand on how impossibly small things are getting, the space requirements for user serviceable latches, and just straight up reduction in component sizes.
I remember back when it was easy to desolder a capacitor/vacuum tube to replace a part; then they got smaller and replaced by IC chips. I remember back when we can just pull out a and replace memory modules on cards; then they got soldered on, but hey the card can still be ripped out of the PCI slots and replaced. Now we're seeing the GPU, CPU, and memory all getting smaller, all getting fused into a single SOC on the ever shrinking logic board... It is just the inevitable future if the world continues to want things smaller (to fit in pockets) and faster (lesser distance for signal to travel).
Unpopular opinion: I find this whole "right to repair" really pointless endeavour pushed by repair shops wanting to retain their outdated business model. In 50 years, when the entire system that's more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer today lives entirely in the stem of your glasses, and the display is fused into the lens or projection, no one will have the necessary tools to pull apart the systems nor the physical precision to repair things... and that future will come, whether these right to repair people want it or not.
It is probably better use of our collective resources to focus on researching technologies that will help us deconstruct these tiny components into their constituent matters (stable chemical compounds), such that they can be reused to build into newer equipments, as opposed to sitting in a landfill never being used again.
Either you're a shill, or you have zero clue what you're talking about. It's one of the two.
Think what you want. The eventuality is either humanity’s own undoing or Computronium; good luck rearranging literal atoms at home.
PS: incidentally, before the previous reply, I just shared a bunch of info to show someone how to replace soldered RAM module. So I’m probably/hopefully not completely clueless. But, again, think what you will.
Why not explain why you think this rather than level accusations. It's not clear to me why this person has "zero clue" or is a "shill".
Because it's not only about being able to repair everything at home, but forcing the companies to avoid anti-repair practices and making you to either pay an (purposefully) exorbitant price to have it repaired by them or just having to buy a new device altogether.
That's why that dude is a shill, because he is talking as if companies act in good faith (for whatever reson) and the devices are simply "too complex" to repair. They are not, companies are puposefully making it as obscure and hard to repair as possible so that, again, you have to either pay a shit ton of money for them to repair it for you or just buy a new device altogether because changing shit like the glass of the back of the phone is half as expensive as a new device or a design "flaw" that should be covered by warranty gets turned into a simple "motherboard is faulty and warranty doesn't cover it".
the guy's neither, of course. It's a valid opinion, well-described.
I completely disagree with him, but his point has obviously been considered over the course of a long career actually repairing gear.
And, based on downvotes, experience and perspective are valueless.
I take issue with some of the statements here. First of all:
Right to repair is definitely not just being pushed by repair shops. If you take a good look at the rate Framework is selling devices at (batches instantly sold out until Q1 2024), you'll see that consumers want this more than any other group. We, as the consumers will ultimately benefit the most from having repair options available. Right to repair is not meant to halt innovation, it is not about forcing manufacturers to design products in ways detrimental to the functioning of said products. It is about making sure they don't lock third parties out of the supply chain. If you replace a traditional capacitor with a SMD variant, someone is going to learn to micro solder. If you convert a chip from socketed to BGA mount, someone is going to learn how to use a heat plate and hot air gun to solder it back in to place.
The main problem is manufacturers demonstrably going out of their way to prevent the feasable.
The second part I take issue with is this:
From my 12 years of experience in design of consumer goods and engineering for manufacturing I can tell you this is not happening because no one is going to pay for it. The more tightly you bond these "constituent matters" together, the more time, energy, reasearch and money it will require to convert them back into useful resources.
There is only one proper way to solve this problem and it is to include reclamation of resources into the product lifecycle design. Which is currently not widely done because companies put profits before sustainability. And this model will be upheld until legislation puts a halt to it or until earth's resources run out.
In terms of sustainability the desireable order of action is as follows:
Only thing is that repair technically should belong to "prolong" I think, so even more desireable.
In the very long term you are right. The thing is we aren't there yet. Lots of companies are making things unrepairable for no reason right now. This is at a time when we need to produce less stuff to help the environment.
I agree we’re long way from it; but, I don’t think the secure signing of components would necessarily equates to “no reason”, though, that’s definitely not a blanket statement. Personally I’m huge proponent for locking down components with secure signing on the portable devices — less likely to experience theft, if thieves cannot get into the device nor salvage for parts (though right now they just skim passcode and reset iCloud account to circumvent it; but this can be fixed with more security around the workflow). However, for fixed devices, it makes less sense.
Yeah nah. Signing components isn't gonna stop people stealing phones just like iCloud dosen't now. Nobody apart from you actually wants this feature.
This sounds like it's better to wait for imaginary benefits than do the things we really can do. Anyway, there is absolutely no reason not to repair things even if you want your scifi disassembler. Our collective resources are not strained in the slightest by repairs.
I might agree with you if the boards themselves were disposable. If a high end macbook were $300 then sure, just get a new one. But they're $2000 or more just for an "ok" model. At that price they should be repairable.
I think people's anger stems from the fact that it wouldn't be hard for laptops to be repairable and in fact Apple's putting in additional roadblocks over time to make repairing harder. At the very least, having broken components be removable would do a lot for hardware lifespan.
I can see an eventual future when the cores, RAM and storage are all on one IC or something which would also be great for performance (I just bought a desktop processor that does some clever stacking of extra L3 cache on top of the cores). As others said though we're not quite there yet.
Ever since Steve Jobs (I think perhaps as a way of coping with illness making him thinner himself) Apple has done this thing of telling consumers that they want thinner, thinner, thinner at all costs (and other manufacturers following Apple because of course they do) but I've seen no real evidence of consumers actually wanting this. I for one (and I know I'm far from the only one) don't actually mind a bit more thickness if it means a bigger battery, using an M.2 slot (oh no a few mm difference) etc.
Yeah I’d love them to rid the camera mesa plateau by flushing the back with extra thick battery… but apparently consumers don’t want the extra weight… 🤷 can’t win them all I guess.
I mean, you were never blocked from replacing ICs. Most people just didn't have the capability to solder. Today, IC replacement is blocked by hardware DRM.
It's nothing new. Have you ever opened up a laser disc player or discman from 1989? Extremely intracate parts Ave mechanisms that are nearly impossible to work with.
Even a basic VCR or DVD drive has a ton of small moving parts which are difficult or impossible to fix and designed to break early and often.
Yep. And the steady march towards even smaller parts that are not user serviceable will continue to persist. The pipe dream of being able to self service will fizzle out — if not in 50 years, in an inevitable eventuality of the Computronium; good luck self repairing by rearranging literal atoms at home.
Do you need to rearrange atoms to change the display panel of your laptop?
We're not at the computronium age yet, but as technology progress, that's the eventuality. As such, repair shops' attempt to rally clueless regulators to put in right to repair law is merely getting in the way and slowing down the inevitability.
It's not just repair shops that want right to repair.
We'll reach a point where performance improvements are largely unnecessary. Sure, governments and corps will still privately compete to get those precious nano seconds ahead on trades or whatever.
Technology doesn't proliferate as quickly as you'd expect. Most people aren't on the cusp of the latest and greatest. I worked for a fucking multibilliondollar international company 2 years ago, and they still pick product, and communicate inventory adjustments with pen and paper.
People rely on the previous shit they've bought.