FriedChicken

Let me first say thank you for taking the time to reply to my concerns. I also want to add: I do not disagree with the intent of what you are doing, I simply have a problem with the means by which you hope to achieve them.

Right to Repair is fundamentally in support of free market capitalism.

I mean, it's not. Right to repair is fundamentally a regulation on business.

The problem is that there isn't a free market for repair service right now

This simply isn't true. I used to have an iPhone Repair business (now shut down because it became unprofitable), the market is free and the competition is fierce. Nobody is stopping me from opening a repair service business.

and manufacturers' repair monopolies have gotten bigger and bigger.

I agree the manufacturers are intentionally inhibiting 3rd party repairs for their devices. Apple's and John Deere's software locks are the most blatant examples. That said, I don't see why this shouldn't be within their rights to do as a company (which is exactly what your regulation wants to change). Ultimately I think the issue remains with the uneducated consumer (IMO a failure of journalism from tech reviewers and others). Me personally, I am not ever "upgrading" my phone simply because mine can still be repaired for very cheap. I will not buy a device which I cannot reasonably repair myself. Ultimately the choice in the free market rests with the consumer.

No US Right to Repair legislation has tried to restrict design or stifle innovation—actually, we're mostly fighting in the antitrust space.

This goes to basic free market theory: the intent of the legislation is never what the consequences end up being. Let's say right to repair passes, and I now want to build and sell a device to consumers. Will I now be beholden to all the right-to-repair legislation as well? Will I have to go through the expense of cataloging, selling, and distributing parts for whoever may want to fix the device? This is impossible to do for emerging businesses, and therefore, as a consequence, actually restricts design and innovation.

Even for entrenched companies, you brought up innovation and design as a very valid point. Apple has increasingly restricted their computer hardware away from standard components and made upgrades impossible. This is in the form of soldered memory, unswappable drives, etc. At the same time though, apple has also brought innovation in their shrinking all the components of the motherboard into a single SoC. The RAM is now part of the CPU, as is the GPU. A legislation that, for example, mandates swappable memory would have inhibited this innovation.

Copyright takes freedom away from citizens and hands it to creators. That's a reasonable tradeoff for music and art—we don't mind not having the freedom to duplicate music willy nilly. But if you give that same level of control to a manufacturer, who then uses it to restrict repairs, we have a problem.

I'm not familiar enough with how copyright is used to stop repair services, except that service manuals and schematics are not made publicly available. I therefore can't comment on this.

Right to Repair laws like the New York bill require manufacturers to stop stacking the deck against independent repair shops: They'll have to share parts, tools, and information with those shops at fair and reasonable terms. That's it.

See my point above about a new innovator entering into the space. They wouldn't necessarily have the resources to immediately make these available, or their product line could be changing so fast as to make it infeasible or impractical to the consumer. The inherent risk with legislation, such as that which you are proposing, although overtly targeting the large businesses and their practices, effectively entrenches them by increasing the barrier to entry for new businesses that might serve as competition.

A free repair market would be great. I would like that. We need legislation to get there from here.

As I said, there already is a free repair market. Nobody is stopping me from opening a repair shop except the companies who refuse to provide parts. I agree that the government has overstepped here in protecting the large industries, the best example being when US Customs and Border protection seized Louis Rossmann's Macbook batteries that he purchased from the factory in China manufacturing them. I was dumbfounded as it reeked of crony capitalism, where the government protects the interests of the large businesses.

That said, the courts have ruled in favor of hackers who seek to jailbreak the devices, or replace parts without voiding the warranty. There is nothing stopping me from offering a service of jailbreaking iPhones and swapping the parts against apple's wishes.

Anyway, I again want to re-iterate: I agree with your intentions. I think it's ridiculous what apple is doing with the software locks on their devices, and I applaud both of you, iFixit and Louis Rossmann for informing the consumer of this practice (Although I'm not sure why iFixit is giving the latest iPhone a high repairability score when the software locks make it all but impossible to do). My problem stems from instituting legal mandates on how the companies must run their businesses for the reasons I have given above.

Thank you!

My fundamental problem with all of the proposed "Right to repair" legislation has its roots in free market capitalism.

This is a bandaid that will effectively do a couple things if passed: 1. create a barrier to entry for effective competition., and thus 2. entrench the established companies, strengthening their position in the market.

While I understand the need for a "right to repair", I'm very hesitant for the government to get involved in a market as volatile as electronics, the development and growth thereof came from liberal free market policies.

Legislation by the tech giants to ban things like hacking and voiding of warranties for repair work have been shot down for similar reasons. A lot of these right-to-repair issues can be nullified by legal hacking of the devices, and maybe the energy should be spent there.

The Capitalist argument here is: if the consumer demands it, the market will follow. If consumers really care, they will demand repairable devices, and someone will emerge that meets that demand. What we have seen in the tech space, unfortunately, is lack of enforcement of antitrust legislation in the form acquisitions intended to literally gobble up competition by the tech giants.

Still, what the entire right-to-repair argument sounds like to me is a desire for the government to prop up an industry through regulation. In the long run this will have a detrimental effect for everyone, including the consumer.

What do you say to those who want to maintain free market enterprise here?