Right to repair or not?

 There’s a lot of chatter in the technology world, and even in the mainstream press, at the moment over “right to repair”. Whether the subject is mobile phones, computers or even tractors, people seem to want to be able to repair and hack their own equipment (the debate whether they actually own the equipment themselves or are renting it from the manufacturers, as some user agreements specify, can wait for another day). The type of equipment can be very important to the argument as consumers demand the thinnest and lightest mobile phones with as much battery life as can be squeezed in, meaning the designers are very constrained in what they can offer. A phone that is easy to repair and modular for flexibility, is probably a phone that no consumer will want to buy. Even so, many high streets have small shops that will unlock the phone, or change the battery or screen for a charge that is a fraction of the cost of an “official” repair. And that’s only if you accept the fact that you will invalidate your warranty and never be able to turn to the manufacturer for assistance in the future.

At the end of the day, there would not be such a clamour for people to repair their own equipment if manufacturers didn’t use their position of power to charge extortionate prices for often simple repairs. I was once quoted £350 to replace the screen on my £400 Samsung tablet. I realise the design involved a lot of the electronics being incorporated into the screen module, but £50 less than a brand new tablet is probably taking things too far. For that £50 more, I ended up buying the latest model tablet, even though I was happy with the performance of the older one before it was accidentally dropped. If nothing else, this type of design promotes a throwaway society and not a sustainable one, but at least Samsung got two sales out of it and I can’t wait for the company’s next press release boasting about how green they are!

Mobile phones and tablets are designed to be small and highly integrated, but it begs the question if other products need to be the same. A self-driving car needs all the bells and whistles available, purely for the interests of safety, but tractors? I’ve read a couple of articles recently about farmers in developed countries importing older style tractors from the third-world as they have literally no use for the raft of technology that is being designed into modern farm equipment. As well as making the vehicles more expensive, the technology is integrated deeply into the operation of the tractor so that even some basic repairs are impossible without going back to the manufacturer or a licensed agent. Automotive repair facilities fought manufacturers when they tried a similar thing and won, but small farmers have much less organisation and power. Manufacturers claim that the technology is needed to provide the data that will allow the farmers to get better yields, but does your usual small farmer really sit at a computer digesting data on soil moisture and asking himself he can gain an extra percentage yield, or does he trust the experience he has gained over years working the land?

Personally I think there needs to be some sort of compromise. The balance of power seems to have swung too much in favour of manufacturers and their desire for new revenue streams instead of trying to provide customers with what they actually want. Software subscriptions and authorised dealer repairs are great for some products, but in others they seem to be forced on customers for no good reason other than it provides regular profits to the manufacturers. Customers only have a choice if there is an alternative that doesn’t use the same tactics, and in some areas, those are becoming more and more rare.