On Thursday, September 10, 2015 at 8:48:41 AM UTC-7, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
"We Need the Right to Repair Our Gadgets"
http://www.wsj.com/articles/we-need-the-right-to-repair-our-gadgets-1441737868
"People can fight back against planned obsolescence by fixing the tech
we already own, but the consumer electronics industry isn't making it
easy."

The article doesn't mention all the common industry practices that
impede repair possibilities.

When warranties are required by law or customer demand, small items can
be discarded and replacements provided. It saves on shipping, I suppose,
but it's VERY annoying to find a remote control with its lifetime battery
cemented inside (and the manufacturer ceased operation sometime
last decade). Or my Apple mouse that has a bad switch,but
it's plastic-welded together. Repair is 'unnecessary - just replace'. Bah!

When warranties are served by swapping subassemblies, some really ODD
decisions are made as to what options are available. I've seen a case
where a socketed fuse could only be replaced by swapping the power
supply. Other times, subassemblies left out cables or brackets or shields
that couldn't be found as separate parts at all. Some tired engineer,
finishing up the design, goofed the parts list. Or, failed to
specify what the subassembly includes. It never gets corrected.

An 'extended standard warranty' of five years on cars, is a guarantee that only the
dealerships will know the inner workings of that model, when it hits six years
of age. This hurts independent repair operations.

Internal part numbers: a part my refrigerator needed, was easily available
by its component-manufacturer part number, but permanently out-of-stock by the
refrigerator-manufacturer part number. The parts shop has no way of
supplying it except by refrigerator-manufacturer part number, because
they're the AUTHORIZED distributor and can't trust a search on the internet...
This is OK for independent repair operations, it just hurts the affiliates.

Fairy connectors: China passed laws when the number of incompatible cellphone
charging adaptors got too outrageous. Connectors break a LOT.
This mainly causes obsolescence because the manufacturers aren't good at
supplying compatible chargers to their old gizmos. I see the price, and never
want to buy that brand again...