A populist wave is rising to end the 'captive' repair economy

toss1

Right To Repair is a fundamental of freedom from oligarchy. It is literally the question of who owns the things we buy. Or, are we forever just de-facto renting those things, while sending all the data to the corporate overlords? It seems obscure, but is a key element of freedom and democracy.

7777777phil

Captive aftermarkets are roughly the biggest hidden cross-subsidy in consumer goods imo.. printer and tractor OEMs price the unit near cost and pull the lifetime margin out of parts, service, and locked firmware. That's why right-to-repair is one of the few issues where farm states and urban progressives end up in the same column.

erelong

as an alternative to right-to-repair laws, consumers could simply buy repairable products and avoid unrepairable ones my only concerns with these laws is they help corps who can afford to make repairable designs and the laws will just be used against competitors who might struggle in the same way to comply with more red tape