
International Repair Day - etiam
https://openrepair.org/international-repair-day/
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tda
If we would decide to tax raw materials instead of labour and income, repair
would make economic sense again. Raw material usage is not sustainable as the
resources are finite. Labour on the other hand is very sustainable, given
enough time the supply of labour is infinite and usage of labour is
sustainable. What we tax and what not is not a given, but something that can
and should be revised to gnudge the world into better shape. Even though I
greatly sympasize with the right to repair, as long as it is uneconomical to
do repairs due to incentives (taxation) making it so, we are not really
addressing the root cause and one could argue that this repair day is
distracting attention from the real issues

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nrp
Taxing material use and refunding at material recovery is not totally
unreasonable, but it ignores the energy that goes into both processing steps
and the people required to do labor. Repair is totally compatible with this,
since it reduces waste of all of material, energy, and labor. It’s also
something consumers can readily participate in and influence, unlike tax
policy.

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TeMPOraL
Taxing energy also works as a proxy for taxing material - you need energy
(lots of it) to mine and process raw materials, so I'd expect taxing energy
use to shift the market activity towards services and reuse of already
processed materials and manufactured goods.

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ekianjo
This seems to be all about community-based repair events. How about doing some
lobby towards legislators and companies to do something about their devices
that can't even be opened anymore by end users?

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ahbyb
Heh. How do I lobby to _oppose_ this? I don't want bulkier, thicker and uglier
devices just so I can open them, because I have no interest in doing so. And I
definitely don't want this written into law...

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rzzzt
Is there really no way to manufacture thin and light devices with screws
instead of glueing parts together? Do standardized connectors also stand in
the way of innovation?

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KozmoNau7
A screw and the attendant material to secure that screw into takes up more
space than a bit of glue, and—crucially—is more expensive, both in regards to
manufacturing and assembly.

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rzzzt
It is only more expensive if one doesn't factor in the "toll" a non-working,
unrepairable, yet sleek device takes on the environment.

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TeMPOraL
Reason #74656 why we desperately need emission taxing.

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jotm
Perfect thread to vent. The difference between an Elitebook 8770w and a ZBook
17 G2 is astounding. It's like HP is telling everyone to get fucked. The
Elitebooks (8770 and older) used metal, was easy to open up multiple times,
had a great keyboard. The ZBook, a new model, you'd be lucky to open it 3
times before the absolutely shit plastic clips break, along with the
absolutely shit plastic molds for the nuts. The keyboard is some Apple
butterfly level of shit, mushy keys that fail to register after a few years.
The touchpad buttons went from sturdy rubber to creaky plastic. What an
upgrade.

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pixl97
Those plastic clips suck so bad. Had so many break when trying to replace
broken screens and such.

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GaryNumanVevo
I recently saved $800 dollars by repairing my SO's power steering system.
Fortunately I found a PDF of the repair manual with every subsystem and
procedure listed. I was able to find the exact assembly I needed to replace
and got it shipped from Amazon. Her car is from 2001 so I was surprised to
find they still sell the high pressure hose I needed.

Anyways, after about 150$ in parts and tools and 4 hours later, I had
completely flushed her power steering, installed the new hose, brackets, etc.
I even got to take a wheel off the car. It's incredibly satisfying to maintain
a physical system like a car, everything has a purpose.

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Merrill
Manufacturers are motivated to make products that can't be repaired so that a)
customers will buy more frequently and b) the manufacturer does not have to
stock and supply repair parts. The latter is particularly onerous as the
lifetime of the product increases. Only long-lived expensive capital goods
have parts supplied for 20 or 40 years, and for some of these special custom
order from third parties is the solution.

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ArtWomb
Celebrating by repairing a 10 year old fridge. Fuse blew out, its soldered to
control panel, so just called customer support, got part number, shipped via
Amazon Prime using reward points, tossed out the old, popped in the new and
voila!

Still think the vendor should have comped a replacement due to obvious design
flaw of non-removable fuses. Sort of defeats the entire purpose ;)

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avian
The non-removable fuse is probably there so that in case of a fault you have a
non-functional fridge instead of a burnt down house.

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war1025
I don't think he's arguing that the fuse shouldn't be there. Just that it
should be replaceable without soldering.

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jsharf
Why are there so many fixit events in Europe and so few in the US?

Northern California should have no shortage of tech workers with the skills
necessary to fix devices. We only have a single event?

And China isn't even on the map, in terms of events. But I find that not so
surprising.

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The_rationalist
The true repairman will repair man.

