Right to Repair Movement: Consumer Control Over Products

Consumers are losing control and ownership of products due to manufacturers' restrictive repair policies and hostile software updates.

### The Right to Repair: A Battle for Consumer Control
* 🛠️  The right to repair movement is gaining momentum, pushing back against manufacturers who **restrict consumers' ability to repair their own devices**.
* 📱  Manufacturers like Apple are implementing software barriers like **parts pairing**, preventing users from using **third-party components for repairs**.
* 💰  Apple's business model relies heavily on new iPhone sales, with about **2/3 of their revenue** coming from **new device purchases**.
* 🏗️  Hostile software updates are becoming more common, **removing features and changing settings without user consent**.
* 🌐  Consumer rights are being eroded across various industries, with examples like BMW considering **subscription fees for heated seats** and Adobe facing lawsuits for **hidden fees**.
* 🏛️  Recent legislative victories, such as California's **Right to Repair Act**, are starting to shift the balance **in favor of consumers**.
* 🔧  Despite some progress, critics argue that manufacturers like Apple are still not **fully embracing the principles of right to repair**.
* 🌱  Advocates argue that right to repair is not only beneficial for **consumers**, but also for the **environment** and **overall product longevity**.

this video was brought to you by brilliant. Hi, welcome to another episode of Cold Fusion. Look at the phone or the laptop that you're watching this video on. You think you own it, right? Well, you kind of don't. Over the years, you and I have slowly lost control and ownership of the products we buy. Maybe you've noticed it, maybe not, or maybe it just hasn't bothered you yet, but the fact of the matter is that we're being punished for wanting to make decisions about how we maintain, repair, use, and operate our devices and software. From Cars to TVs, laptops, and phones, fixing things has become a nightmare. Companies are actively blocking our right to repair the products that we own. I'm looking at you, Apple, and more anti-reaction. Think in putting together this episode, a secondary topic presented itself: the fact that we're slowly losing control of everything that we own. Hostile software is transferring the power from us, the consumer, to the tech Giants. We'll explore that too. And one final piece of housekeeping: I sat down with right to

repair Advocate LS Rossman to get his thoughts on the subject. I'll be using bits of the interview throughout this episode. You are watching C Fusion TV. It's not a new phenomenon that manufacturers want to control their products even after they've been sold to you. Back in 1985, Nintendo introduced the checking integrated circuit or cic. It was a chip for the NES console that stopped unauthorized Game cartridges from being inserted and played. Developers like Atari games were then sued for releasing games without Nintendo's approval. This is innocuous by today's standards, but it was a sign of things to come. Since then, our games have ringly become online. Arcade mode is the only part of GT Sport that works offline. You can't do driving tests, buy cars, take photos, or even save progress unless you connect it to the PSN. So, if a game maker decides to shut down a server a few years after you bought it, you're stuffed. That game you paid for, it's now unplayable. But it goes beyond games. Entire hardware devices can become

paperweight when a company decides to stop supporting it. Spotify's Hardware car audio player didn't sell well so they're abandoning it, leaving all of those who bought it stranded with an expensive paperweight. These things are all terrible enough, but the most egregious transgression of all is the inability to fix our own devices. Manufacturers will tell us that as technology improves, components naturally get tougher to fix. Sure, there is some truth to that, but the real kicker here is that they're not just making Hardware repairs more difficult, they're also designing software that practically puts our devices on lockdown. This has sparked a movement of consumers, Advocates, experts, and politicians alike who say enough easy enough, enter the right to repair movement. The right to repair movement is essentially demanding a return to the old school ways of Technology development, you know when products were built to last, but if something did break, you could just grab a manual, some spare parts, and get it back up and running. So right to repair is you should have the ability to repair your own product.

the manufacturer should end be putting intentional roadblocks in your way of doing so, and there's this misconception that right to repair means that I want to have a cell phone that's the side of what you know Gordon gecko was using in the movie Wall Street. And that's not really what it's about. Rights to repair is about manufacturers not putting intentional barriers between you and your ability to do your job. The sad truth is gradually over the years and decades Corners have been increasingly cut. And now Products just don't last as long as they used to, and consumers as a whole just got used to throwing things away. In a 2024 survey, nearly 50% of people said that they replace products and not repair them. That's almost 50% of broken products ending up in the trash instead of being repaired. Now let's see how manufacturers lock us out from repairing things ourselves. There's a thing called Parts pairing. A decade ago if a phone component broke, you could just go to any

electronic store and get it replaced with a compatible part. Try that now with an iPhone and good luck. It's not going to work anymore because of Parts pairing. Parts pairing is a manufacturing choice. Apple leads the pack here, rigging its system with software barriers so you're forced to use only its parts, tools, and services. So the first is Parts pairing, where a part will have a serial number, and the device will check the serial number of that part. And if it has changed, it'll say, even if that is a perfectly compatible part, even if you have taken that part out of another device that you just purchased new for $2000. Something about that won't work properly. And that's something that's obviously bad for many people. This makes sure that they only work with the specific device they came with. In September 2023, Apple upped the ante and launched its most software-locked phone yet, the iPhone 15. With this model, you can't even swap out parts between iPhones of the same model if you need to.

swap your iPhone 15 Pro Max camera or screen with a phone of exactly the same model. Features will be disabled or the part just wouldn't work. We have the red motherboard with the blue phone internals, and we have the blue motherboard with the red phone internals. We'll boot both of these phones on Face ID issue detected. We have the important battery message, important display message through tone is still disabled, auto brightness also doesn't work, and the same goes for some MacBooks. While Apple is the most restrictive, the trend has spread. HP tried to discourage non-HP printer ink with fake error messages. GE Fridge owners had to find hacks to use off-brand water filters. Even Kig blocked third-party K-Cups, a move that was roasted by coffee lovers. Parts pairing is enough to get under anyone's skin, but that's just one piece of the puzzle. There are plenty of other tactics, some are pretty nefarious, that manufacturers use and keep getting away with. Until now, 2009 marked the beginning of Apple's

anti-republican. It only got worse from 2016. Apple would solder their solid-state drives to the MacBook logic ports, making replacements and data recovery nearly impossible. Many other manufacturers would pull all sorts of tricks to scare off would-be DIY repairers. In a 2022 repairability report card, Samsung and Google phones flunked, while Lenovo, Microsoft, and HP laptops barely passed. So, a part of the motivations for the right to repair movement is to counter the war on independent repair. Take Apple, for example. As you can tell already, they've earned a bad reputation, but not without reason. Until recently, Apple only allowed repairs at the Genius Bar or authorized third-party repair shops. To give you an idea of just how far they went, these shops are geotagged, and repair parts are tracked by IP addresses. And this is so repairs can only happen within an approved zone. When I'm at the other shop, I can do them. That's the shop that's off. Do so we have to do them from that geo as such, oh, I.

see, so Apple actually tells you where that repair can happen as well. Yeah, everything's coded. When we order the part, they come direct to that store, and we can only use them within that store because obviously Apple would know by the IP what address where you're doing it. Wow, there's a lot into it. They're very clever. Apple even sued a small business owner in Norway for using refurbished iPhone screens that were never advertised as genuine parts, and that's the next phase of the issue: manufacturers actually blocking your ability to repair your own stuff. Take John Deere, for instance. Until 2023, they outfitted all their tractors with software that only company-authorized representatives could access to repair. John Deere then set the price of repair to around $170 per hour and then made the farmers cover the representatives' travel expenses. For farmers living in remote areas, which is common, this was a huge pain, especially since tractor downtime means lost crops and income. To get around this, and this is hilarious, some farmers resorted to searching

the dark web for John Deere software from Ukrainian hackers. In the words of one such hacker, quote, We want Farmers to be able to repair their stuff for when things go wrong and now that means being able to repair or make decisions about the software and their tractors. Okay, so back to Apple. In 2019, CEO Tim Cook partly blamed cheaper batteries for bad iPhone sales. He put it to investors, When people can repair their own devices, they don't buy new ones. Of course, it's a smart economic strategy and it's paid off. About 2/3 of Apple's Revenue comes from new iPhone sales. We see this everywhere, like dishwashers. You can buy a new one for around $200, but if something breaks, the replacement parts cost almost exactly the same as a brand new dishwasher. It's the nature of the Beast. Consumers Chase Bargains and corporations Chase profits. And next, we have hostile software. Nothing in big Tech's easy to use anymore. I'm sorry, you Got You Don't Own anything. They make changes that you

have no control over every upgrade seems like a downgrade. Um, this is true of all the companies, and we were making things that were intuitive where the human would do something that seemed to make sense, and it would work. And now you have to search for it sometimes. Where did they move it to? Everything Changes. You have to subscribe. You don't own. You don't own products anymore. Uh, it's just they'll make a change the next month on you, and you have to subscribe, pay money, and set up names. Companies just love updating our software, and it's really for benefit. Software updates are becoming hostile, removing and breaking features at will, and there's nothing you can do about it. And the market Trend goes beyond Electronics. We're losing control of everything we buy. Remember when BMW was trying to charge buyers of their cars a subscription fee for heated seats? Well, thankfully they backed away from that, but it goes to show you the thinking of these companies. They want to make a buck wherever they can. And then we have Adobe, who's recently come under

Fire and is being sued by the US Justice Department and FTC for hidden cancellation fees and also making it unnecessarily difficult to cancel subscriptions. Let's get into why Adobe is being jointly sued by the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, alleging that the company imposed a hidden early termination fee and complex and challenging cancellation process upon subscribers, violating the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act. Wow, what a catchy name, which has been around since 2010. This isn't to mention the recent controversy around their terms of service. Critics claim that they can access user files to train their AI. Essentially, you pay while they siphon your hard work straight from your computer. Case of Adobe, they outwardly state that if you've uploaded something to their database, they use it to train generative AI. It's not even debatable if they're doing this; it's literally written in their terms of service. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for stock photos and I ended up on Adobe Stock, where I noticed something strange.

and found more again words spelled wrong. If they were even words at all. In this one, the tape just kind of disappears into the headlight of the car. If I did want to license any of these photos, it would cost me $80. $80. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. We all know about Windows forcefully updating and reactivating settings that you turned off. And then there's Facebook shoving AI into search features no one asks for. Looking at the broad picture, consumer rights are taking a beating. All right, so this all sounds pretty bad, right? How did we get here? How did we get to a point like this? How did manufacturers get away with such anti-consumer behavior for so long? Well, let's put it into perspective. These massive companies lobbying against right to repair are collectively worth about 1 trillion. This is a David versus Goliath battle if I've ever seen one. In 2019, Microsoft even offered to pay more taxes to fund stem education in Washington if right to repair never went to a floor.

vote manufacturers love to parade their list of excuses against right to repair. They argue that it threatens their intellectual property, puts consumers at risk of injury, and leads to botched parts and repairs that damaged their reputation. Back in 2017, an Apple lobbyist warned a Nebraska Senator that passing right to repair laws would turn the state into a mecca for cyber criminals. Now, imagine if a car manufacturer said that you couldn't replace your brakes, alternator, or radiator anywhere but in their own dealership to discourage theft, and if you dare to try that, it would make your entire car unusable. What do you think? Do you think these arguments pass the sniff test for [Music]? You okay, so there's got to be some positives here. Fortunately, there is. Things are starting to turn around, and that's thanks to some recent legislative victories. In October of 2023, California passed the Right to Repair Act, which requires manufacturers to provide the tools to fix electronic devices. Over a dozen other states in the

US are toying with similar bills across the pond. The European Union has been pushing forward legislation for the benefit of end users. Remember when Apple was forced to switch out their charging port, the lightning cable, for USBC? That was thanks to the EU mandating that all handheld devices must use USBC charging ports by 2024. Apple has been a reluctant participant in all of this, but they've shown that they can play nice. In 2022, they rolled out a self-repair program. However, Apple's self-repair setup requires a $1,210 credit card hold, 75 lb of gear, and when he tried it, the iPhone screen shattered immediately. It seems like this is lip service from Apple only. Fast forward to April of 2024, an Apple has made a surprising about-face. Now some of us can fix our devices with secondhand genuine parts, and most importantly, their devices will work as usual. But Louis Rossman says that these policy changes still aren't a legitimate solution for easy repair, which is why it's also

frustrating to see all these press releases. This 24-page thing from Apple, where it talks about how we're making repair available to all, like that's a core value. It's like, no, it's not. Suck, like, it's no, no, get them out of here. It's, it's not. It's demonstrably not. It's not a logistical thing where they're doing the right thing, but there's one little hang-up in this particular area, the supply chain. But in their program, I have to collect all this information on you that you, I don't have to collect if you're just my normal customer. Feel free to be anonymous. You, I have to collect all this info on you, collect information on your device, and then I have to order the part. Now I have to buy a part and wait a week or 2 to 4 days for it to show up. Who's going to wait a few days for a battery on a smartphone? That's insane. I would imagine that this is just something that was

made up by a group of people that wanted to be able to show legislators. They're trying to make us look stupid. They're trying to make us look petty. In my opinion, so in conclusion, right to repair is important. It benefits us as consumers, and taking into account E-Waste, it's better for the environment and even our own health. Manufacturers have proven that they can design products that are easier to fix. It's time that more of us demanded it. These companies saying that modern products can't be repaired easily because they'll be too bulky or lose water resistance is false. The LG G5 phone did this all the way back in 2016. Furthermore, Dell's XPS comes with an easily swappable battery and SSD, and Microsoft tweaked its Surface 3 laptops to make repairs less of a headache. And then there's the extremes, such as the Framework laptop, where every part is replaceable with a single screwdriver. To some degree, this should be the way forward. This is the Framework Laptop 16. This is a DIY laptop. This is so

anti-apple in like the best way possible. The screws are labeled. That's right. The instructions for disassembling this laptop are literally printed on it. Three screws, boom, battery out. And now to get the main board out, we just have this connection here for the fingerprint sensor, a pull tab for the speaker, two pull tabs for the display assembly, and our two antennas for the wireless card. And finally, if we have right to repair people like Kenny wouldn't have to wait 63 days for an authorized technician to change his wheelchair battery. Quote, No one should ever have to fear death or fear for their family because a company decides a medical equipment customer does not have the right to replace his own batteries. And that just about sums it up. We all need a right to repair. TR, try to spread the word right to repair by saving somebody money or by getting them to be excited even if they just do something like make their thermostat work again. Like there's going to be a kick of dopamine when you solve a problem that you didn't know how to.

solve and you solve the puzzle and it actually works there's always that little gu and if you get people to experience that then you've got people on your side for Life. Try to spread the word that way. Don't tell people you're bad you bought this product you're bad you didn't fix this thing and or you're bad because you don't care about repair you should care about this. Here's why you should like try to not lecture people on it get the share on your joy. If you want to see the full interview with Lou Rossman I'll leave a link in the description below. Not being able to repair our own devices is frustrating but have you thought of the fundamentals of how your Tech works well fortunately there's a fun and easy way to learn about that with brilliant.org. Brilliant is where you learn by doing with thousands of interactive lessons in maths science data analytics programming and AI. Their course on how technology works is a great fit for today's topic. Every lesson on brilliant allows you to play with Concepts a method proven to be

six times more effective than just watching lecture videos. Plus, all content on Brilliant is crafted by teachers, researchers, and professionals from MIT, Caltech, Duke, Microsoft, Google, and more. You can learn at your own pace to brush up on a project for work or just for your own self-development. To try everything Brilliant has to offer for free for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/coldfusion or click the link in the description. You also get 20% off an annual premium subscription. Deson, anyway, that's about it from me. If you did like this episode, feel free to share it with someone who'd be interested. And also feel free to subscribe if you like. All right, my name is Toogo, and you've been watching Cold Fusion, and I'll catch you again soon for the next episode. Cheers, guys. Have a good [Music] one and you don't t no Coke. All right, I'm going to on my all right, all right. [Music]

How Companies Profit off Unfixable Devices (ft. Louis Rossmann)

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ColdFusion

The Erosion of Consumer Product Ownership

Companies are increasingly preventing consumers from repairing the products they own, transferring power to the manufacturers.

From game consoles to hardware devices, the trend of making products unrepairable is growing, leaving consumers with expensive, unusable items.

The right to repair movement is pushing back against this trend, advocating for the ability to easily repair and maintain products.

The Impact of Parts Pairing on Device Repair

Apple's use of parts pairing restricts the use of any parts, tools, or services not manufactured by the company, making it difficult for users to repair their own devices.

The introduction of the iPhone 15 took this a step further, preventing any swapping of parts between devices of the same model.

This practice has also been adopted by other manufacturers, leading to a growing war on independent repair.

The right to repair movement has been motivated by manufacturers' tactics to discourage and control DIY repairs, with Apple geotagging authorized repair shops and tracking repair parts to ensure repairs only happen within approved locations.

This has led to a widespread reputation for Apple's restrictive repair policies, while other manufacturers have also implemented various strategies to deter independent repairs.

Apple and John Deere, among other manufacturers, are restricting the ability of consumers to repair their own devices and equipment.

This is causing inconvenience and financial burden, especially for farmers who rely on their equipment for their livelihood.

The trend of corporations limiting repair options and enforcing software updates is diminishing the control consumers have over the products they purchase.

Adobe Sued for Hidden Fees and Difficult Cancellation Process

The US Justice Department and FTC are jointly suing Adobe for imposing hidden cancellation fees and a challenging termination process on subscribers.

Critics are also concerned about Adobe's terms of service, which allow them to access user files for AI training.

Recent controversy has surrounded Adobe's pricing and licensing practices, raising further concerns.

The EU's Impact on Apple's Repair Policies

The EU's legislation pushed Apple to switch to USBC charging ports by 2024 and implement a self-repair program.

However, Apple's repair program requirements and policies have been criticized as inadequate by the likes of Louis Rossman.

The right to repair is important for consumers, the environment, and has been demonstrated by other manufacturers like LG, Dell, and Microsoft.

Laptops with labeled screws allow for easy disassembly, highlighting the need for the right to repair.

The right to repair is crucial for individuals who depend on medical equipment with batteries, emphasizing the impact of this issue.

Spreading the word about the right to repair through joy and excitement, rather than lecturing, can help gain support for the movement.