The problem is that the right to repair faces major obstacles: one is the price tag - products that are less or not repairable can be designed and manufactured for cheaper, and people are used to this.
This is an absolute load of garbage.
The CORE arguments of right to repair do NOT impinge on a manufacturer's right to build a device any way they want. Even the serialisation bullshit is manageable - if the ability to do the appropriate programming is available.
I think you're going on a loop with this. Must be tickling something.
At least try and read what people say. Take all points and ponder. As I mentioned, even if a given manufacturer doesn't take any particular step to help repairability, they'll still need to make some documentation, firmware, possibly firmware programming software and tools, etc, available. This has a cost. If you think just releasing technical documentation fit for external use has no cost for a company, you probably have never been involved with this in any. I think you wouldn't believe how "not fit for external consumption" most internal docs and tools are in the average company, even the big ones. That was for the direct costs.
But then I also mentioned indirect costs. I said that part of the price of current products is subsidized by their relatively short lifetime. This is obvious. If you think prices wouldn't change if customers ended up buying fewer new products, you probably live in a fantasy world.
Now if you think this would have no impact on this at all because, statistically, very few customers would actually have their products repaired, then it's a fair point, but you're missing the big picture. Do you think both companies and governments will bother for addressing just a marginal percentage of products and consumers in the end?
And I don't get why you would get all worked up with this. As I said, I'm all for this. I'm just being realistic. I just do know for it to have any real impact, it would have consequences. Such as price increase. And I for one am perfectly ready to pay more for a product that I can repair. I have zero problem with this as long as it doesn't, OTOH, becomes a way to milk the cow.
In particular, and related to what you said, there's a fine line (contrary to what some seem to say) between not actively making a device repairable, and actively making it impossible to repair.
"Impossible" to repair is a huge challenge. How many things do you know that are impossible to repair?
It's absolutely zero challenge. A huge number of things are almost impossible to repair. Any use of custom parts - if said custom parts are not available to buy, or not anymore - any use of specific processes. If there's a chip on board (COB), try replacing it. Even something as mundane as underfilling BGAs. Try *successfully* reworking a BGAs with underfill (fortunately - or not, for reliability reasons - most products out there don't use underfilling on BGAs, but that's not something particulary bizarre either.) There are so many examples.
I'm sorry, but designing a product to give anyone a fair chance of repairing - even if not excessively going out of your way- it usually takes effort. It's absolutely not a given.
I understand your point - but it would be very dangerous to start including issues related to FCC, CE, Consumer Protection, etc. areas. Those areas already have legislation in place and to double up in a separate (even if related) piece of legislation risks everything from confusion to contradiction. That is a legal mess that even the legislators would know about and want to steer clear.
I get it that people pushing the right to repair absolutely do not want related issues to be mixed in. I'm just saying that yes, conformity of repaired products is a legal mess, and this will have to be addressed sooner or later, and is unfortunately likely to hinder the right to repair in some way. So I understand that you'd want that to be ignored for as long as possible. But, if a significant fraction of sold products eventually become repaired, the question will inevitably be raised. It's all a matter of being under the radar or not...
I'm again all for a right to repair, preferrably one that is applicable and realistic. I must say I'm a bit surprised by the reactions this topic seem to trigger, making discussing it difficult unless you just blindly promote it. I wasn't expecting this. This is interesting.