Right to Repair

I love Apple products. I truly do. When they works, Apple’s devices are worth every penny I spend for them. However, when one of them broke, the price to repair made me question all my decisions in life. In Apple’s own support service, replacing the battery of a iPhone14 would cost 99 dollars, and replacing the screen cost a shocking 279 dollars. To make sure the customers have to pay their ridiculous prices, Apple has been working hard to prevent individuals and third party repair shops from doing similar repairs by deliberately designing their product to be impossible to repair and taking legal actions to make important repair parts unavailable on the market.

As it’s probably expected from a capitalist society, Apple is not the only company this does highly profitable scheme. In fact, it has been a common practice among tech monopolies to refuse to make parts, tools, and repair information available. This has led to a movement to push governments around the globe to establish laws to protect people’s “right to repair”.

Advocates for the “right to repair” believes that such laws will do more than saving consumers’ money. The environment impact is also an important reason behind the movement. As Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of the The Repair Association, said, “You can’t make them last if you can’t make them work. Any time a manufacturer says that they are being good to the environment, and then they refuse to let you fix your stuff, I just cry foul.” Without access to proper and affordable repair programs, reusing or recycling of are impossible. When these electronic devices are force to be disposed, the toxic materials inside are released into the environment endangering all who lives in it.

To counter this movement, big tech companies has employed lobbyists to push against “right to repair” laws. Their main arguments is that safety risks can arise from unauthorized third party repairs. However, this is not universally agreed by security experts. Many believe that the interconnectivity of devices poses a far greater risks than third party repairs. Moreover, Apple’s “Independent Repair Provider” program, a mechanism for repair shops to get access to parts and tools, requires repair providers to turn customer data over to Apple, which is directly against their claim that they aim to protect user’s security from third party repair shops.

Process has been made for the “right to repair”. Biden signed an executive order back in July 2021 pushing the Federal Trade Commission to make third-party product repair easier. Pressure from lawmakers and FTC also forced Apple to make parts and information available directly to consumers to be able to fix their devices. This is not much but it’s a good start. Repair for phones and computers should be at least as easy as repair for cars. Access to hardwares and softwares we purchase should be unlimited. The spirit of hacking and modding is what founded companies like Apple. I hard to believe they are denying it for us now.