Right to Repair Laws

[nrslam | 495]

I see where the EU has a new right-to-repair law: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/eu-repair-laws-require-technology-144409354.html

I'm sure the scope of this law will eventually expand to include gaming devices, if it doesn't already, and spread to the US.  Reading thru it, I had a hazy memory that the US used to have laws mandating the availability of spare parts for consumer electronics. Not quite the same as right-to-repair laws, which have as much to do with the who and how of repairs as they do spare parts, but these laws did ensure that a thing could be repaired, even if you did have to go to an authorized repair shop.  These laws (if my memory isn't totally wrong) were just ignored by the flood of cheap imported electronics using the claim of repairability=higher prices.  Think the new laws will end up any different?

[Code Monkey | 2,217]

Have you seen some of the strange laws in Europe? They aren't even allowed to ship a computer with a pre-installed web browser. Many of them will never work in North America.

[chromableedstudios | 24]

Why would that never work? That was more or less the initial outcome of the msft anti trust case...
 

I think the repair manuals might be a bit of a stretch, but for both the environment and the end user right to repair seems like mostly a good thing