"Right to Repair" - Potentially great news for DIY!

[greeniguana]

I want to see you say that to a farmer with a non-working John Deere tractor and crops to get in who's just been told a factory-authorized tech will be available sometime next month.

Strawman. Just stop the big tech companies selling software locked goods. Maybe farmers need to pay more for a "jailbroken" tractor that isn't collecting their data.

Or maybe goods manufacturers can sell discounted stuff that's non repairable and software locked if the end user agrees to voluntary data collection.

Lots of possibilities.

 

[lexvil]

Lots of paranoia, amazing.

 

[lowwall]

Sounds like someone wants to "control the means of production." Where does it end?

When it comes to tech, especially something like dive computers, ongoing support and the ability to do firmware updates are factors I consider before making a purchase. That seems to be good enough in a free society.

I often wonder if anyone espousing unregulated "free markets" has actually read Adam Smith. He made it very clear that the "invisible hand" only works where there is unfettered competition and it is a legitimate government interest to encourage this competition by discouraging the monopolists and oligopolists who wish to restrain trade.

But the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind, though it cannot perhaps be corrected, may very easily be prevented from disturbing the tranquillity of anybody but themselves.

That it was the spirit of monopoly which originally both invented and propagated this doctrine cannot be doubted; and they who first taught it were by no means such fools as they who believed it. In every country it always is and must be the interest of the great body of the people to buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest. The proposition is so very manifest that it seems ridiculous to take any pains to prove it; nor could it ever have been called in question had not the interested sophistry of merchants and manufacturers confounded the common sense of mankind.

 

[Bob DBF]

Maybe farmers need to pay more for a "jailbroken" tractor that isn't collecting their data.

First they would have to be made so there is a choice, and I doubt any manufacturer wants to lose that data.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I don't think the right to repair is a scuba issue, as there's already HOG and Deep 6. Want to get trained and parts for your reg? There you go. Want someone else to do it for you, you can pay someone else to service your regs, including HOG and Deep 6. Not all LDSs will service HOG and Deep 6, but everyone has a LPO (local Post office). With an LPO, you make one trip to the post office (or Fed Ex or UPS). Then sometime later you get it back. And don't tell me that LDSs always are faster, as I waited 6 weeks to get regs serviced. And they still screwed up.

For some things, like farm equipment, John Deere and others decided to control who services the equipment the equipment they sell, and I do think that's a violation of free market principles. If John Deere wants to compete in service, that's fine, but they must allow others to do so as well.

Firmware development is a niche skillset. I'm pretty sure the number of people with the aptitude to fix code or enhance a feature set is MUCH smaller than those that are mechanically inclined to fix a motor or replace parts in an iPad or phone.

 

[flymolo]

Strawman. Just stop the big tech companies selling software locked goods. Maybe farmers need to pay more for a "jailbroken" tractor that isn't collecting their data.

Or maybe goods manufacturers can sell discounted stuff that's non repairable and software locked if the end user agrees to voluntary data collection.

Lots of possibilities.

And your assertion the government is just "placating whiny morons who can't hold a screwdriver" isn't?

 

[Bob DBF]

I don't think the right to repair is a scuba issue...

It is an issue in any industry that makes equipment that can be repaired but limits parts and repair to agents of the manufacturer. This was stopped in the auto industry long ago, but did not cover other industries. It's about time.

 

[Bigbella]

This all strikes me as much ado about nothing, at least in terms of scuba equipment DIY. There have long been workarounds — aftermarket sources for equipment; o-rings and other parts, from a dark period when just about all of the manufacturers were complete tools -- and the lion's share of techs, approved to work on their equipment, were fresh from an afternoon regulator repair seminar and stale doughnuts at a Sheraton.

As @rsingler has already mentioned, much information has already been offered on this site -- a plethora of repair and diagnostic information; and aftermarket versions of service kits are already available, for a number of brands.

Rumor even has it, that @rsingler is even offering classes.

During a move, some years back, with all of my tools in storage, and a serious lack of time, I had a couple of regulators serviced in San Francisco. The boneheads screwed up three times; tore two diaphragms -- made my first stage look like an over-sized Alka-Seltzer tablet; and also made a f**king leaf blower out of my FFM.

Even the DIY movement isn't really that new; Harlow offered decent sourcing information for a number of things, including fashioning one's own tools, as early as 1999 in Scuba Regulator Maintenance and Repair — a definite relief from a period, when a number of us were basically cannibalizing older regulators from swap meets, for parts; when the pin-heads of Parkway, for example, who were then distributing Poseidon, made actual obtaining service kits a near impossibility . . .

 

[Bob DBF]

This strikes me as much ado about nothing, at least in terms of scuba equipment DIY. There have long been workarounds — for aftermarket sources for o-rings and other parts, from a dark period when just about all of the manufacturers were complete tools -- and the lion's share of techs, approved to work on their equipment, were ginormous boobs, fresh from an afternoon scuba repair seminar and stale doughnuts at a Sheraton.

Although I agree with your assessment of the scuba situation in this, I would rather not have had to use workarounds. The dark period we had in scuba is what is prompting this for other industries, as they are in them now.

All may be a moot point, because it is only an executive order so the next president can change it back, or it could be decided in the courts if a manufacturer has the money to fight it.

 

[lowwall]

Strawman. Just stop the big tech companies selling software locked goods. Maybe farmers need to pay more for a "jailbroken" tractor that isn't collecting their data.

I don't think "strawman" means what you think it means.

My example was both on point and actually occurs on a regular basis. You can read some examples here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...deere-over-who-gets-to-fix-an-800-000-tractor