The growing right-to-repair movement tackling throwaway tech culture

On the day my San Francisco household got its first computer, my housemate started to unscrew the boxy beige casing. An Apple Macintosh that cost over $2,000 in the late 1980s, our new machine was the costliest purchase either of us had made.

“What are you doing?” I gasped.

“I want to show you something,” he said.

“But...” I was nearly apoplectic. “Opening it up violates our Apple warranty!”

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Nonetheless, that's what he proceeded to do and, inside, he showed me something that I had to admit was pretty cool. The signatures of the original Mac design team, including Steve Jobs, were cast into the casing. We admired them for a few minutes before he replaced the casing.

Apple warranties, alongside those of many electronics and white goods manufacturers, remain a major bone of contention for buyers all these decades after we officially demolished our Mac warranty on a whim. For many costly devices, from smartphones to TVs and washing machines, buyers have no right to repair an item except through the manufacturer or through a restricted range of authorised third-party outlets.

The tinker-and-repair contrast between Macs and PCs was, for many buyers, a strongly persuasive reason not to opt for Apple. Years later, when I had a Dell desktop PC, I could easily and cheaply upgrade its memory, as well as its internal fan, myself – just open it up, slide out the old stuff, slide in the new.

Authorised dealer

A Mac had to be sent in to Apple or an authorised dealer for a far more expensive upgrade – which sometimes could not (and still cannot) be done at all.

You have probably encountered a similar issue with something you own, paying well over the odds for a basic repair that has to be steered through the manufacturer.

An equally frustrating irritation is discovering that parts have been discontinued for an item you have bought – perhaps only a few years earlier – leaving you with an expensive, and now unusable, appliance.

These issues have contributed in no small way to a throwaway culture in which items that our parents or grandparents would have sent to a local repair shop now get tossed and replaced with a new item. This is unsustainable and wasteful, adding unnecessarily to landfill.

In some cases, with electronics, there’s also the risk of turning land and groundwater toxic due to the poisons in everyday components. And frankly, it’s ridiculous to go spend hundreds of euro to replace something, such as a vacuum or TV, that should last a decade or more.

Uncompetitive

These concerns have led to a growing “right to repair” movement. Manufacturers’ parts and repair restrictions are grossly uncompetitive for both consumers and third-party repairers, and also significantly contribute to household and corporate waste as easily repairable or upgradeable items are sent to incinerators or landfill.

In the case of items like computer servers, such restrictions directly contribute to the continued use of less efficient and more energy-demanding older or non-upgradeable machines, in energy-gobbling operations like data centres.

One of the biggest pushes internationally for a right to repair comes from farmers. That might seem odd to anyone who hasn’t noticed the changes in modern farming. Agriculture is now one of the most cutting-edge sectors for tech applications.

Modern tractors are basically computers with a farming focus. Often, that extremely expensive farm machinery comes with a warranty that limits repairs and upgrades. And thus it turned out to be farmers who helped persuade US president Joe Biden to sign an executive order this month, asking the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to introduce rules that will allow consumers a right to repair a range of electronics and to limit manufacturers' control.

In signing the order, which contains 72 initiatives, Biden specifically highlighted “unfair anti-competitive restrictions on third-party repair or self-repair of items, such as the restrictions imposed by powerful manufacturers that prevent farmers from repairing their own equipment”.

Spare parts

The EU brought in right-to-repair legislation earlier this year. In the EU, the European Commission has added a (still, limited) right to repair to the Ecodesign Directive that went into effect in March. Five of its 11 measures, pertaining to TVs, refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines and servers, focus on repairability and recyclability. Manufacturers will have to guarantee parts, or hardware and firmware upgrades, are available for up to decade.

However, more is needed. In the EU, the right to parts and repair information is, for now, limited primarily to third-party repairers, not consumers. And such rights do not yet extend broadly to include smaller household devices or smartphones, laptops, gaming consoles and PCs.

The EU plans to address such electronics next, despite manufacturer complaints that security and safety – and their intellectual property rights – could be affected. In the US, the FTC has already dismissed such concerns in an extensive report on the issue. At last, change may be on the way.