The Fix Is in—DIY Repair Clubs Grow in Popularity
The repair revolution is pitting tinkerers who want to fix their own
stuff against product manufacturers
By Anne Kadet, Feb. 19, 2019, Wall St. Journal

Brooklyn retiree and self-described “compulsive repairer” Joe Holdner
just can’t stand to see a salvageable gadget thrown away.

He likes to fix his own stuff. He wants to fix your stuff. And if he
has his way, new laws will make it easier for everyone to fix their
own smartphones, laptops and vacuum cleaners.

“I’ve signed petitions and gone to a demonstration or two in that
respect,” he said.

Mr. Holdner, who remembers replacing the clutch on his first car with
the help of a book back in the 1960s, is a foot soldier in the growing
army of “repair-culture” advocates who would require manufacturers to
provide repair instructions and replacement parts.

“Right to Repair” legislation—which is stirring opposition from device
manufacturers—is being considered by New York state lawmakers, and
advocates hope to see it passed this year.

The movement is centered in groups such as the Fixers’ Collective, a
long-running volunteer outfit that meets twice a month in Brooklyn and
Manhattan, offering free repairs to anyone bringing a busted gadget.

On a recent evening, Mr. Holdner and fellow fixers met in small room
over Commons Cafe in Brooklyn. Their first guest: Anna Dengler, who
brought in a broken DVD player. “I told my son we could watch ‘Blue’s
Clues’ on Friday,” she said.

The volunteers quickly found the culprit—a busted tray latch which
couldn’t be repaired. Mr. Holdner proposed a fix: Bind the device
closed with rubber bands.

Amy Rothberger brought in a year-old humidifier. “It’s making a very
scary sound,” she said. “It’s so loud you can’t sleep.”

It took three fixers nearly half an hour to find the worn ball bearing
on the humidifier’s fan.

“Sometimes the hardest part is opening the damn thing up—they don’t
want you to get inside,” volunteer Emily Forman said later.

Nowadays, she said, many devices are glued shut, or can only be opened
using the manufacturer’s proprietary tools. “The newer stuff is, the
harder it is to fix,” she said.

The evening was a typical session for the Fixers, said Vincent Lai,
the group’s program director. There are roughly 10 core volunteers,
about half of whom show up for any given session. Their success rate
is about 75%, Mr. Lai said, and sometimes involves a makeshift
solution, like the time they replaced the electric motor on a paper
shredder with a hand crank.

“We were able to shred!” he recalled. “We were all ecstatic.”

More important is the sense of empowerment generated when people
gather to do their own repairs, he said.

“People are starting to realize that they can repair their stuff even
though there are companies and manufacturers putting up roadblocks,”
he said, referring to device makers that provide parts and repair
instructions only to authorized dealers.

Mr. Lai said fixers depend on the contributions of a broad DIY
community, including free repair manuals available on iFixit, a site
offering nearly 50,000 guides submitted by professional and amateur
fixers who reverse-engineer devices.

The movement is especially big in the Hudson Valley and Catskills in
New York state. In 2013, retired television producer John Wackman, who
lives in Kingston, N.Y., founded the area’s first “Repair Cafe”—as the
events are called—where residents can bring in broken items ranging
from bicycles to laptops for free repairs by volunteer fixers.

Typically held in libraries, village halls and churches, the DIY
federation has expanded to 25 sites in New York towns, including New
Paltz, Rhinebeck and Beacon; five more are expected to launch this
summer, Mr. Wackman said. Repair Cafes also have emerged in Long
Island and northern New Jersey.

“This is a repair revolution,” Mr. Wackman said. “It’s a matter of
agency. People just feel like the control over their own lives and the
things they own is somehow denied them and taken away from them. They
want it back.”

Last May, Mr. Wackman and fellow advocates set up tables in the
Capitol building in Albany, demonstrating repairs to lawmakers.

Their mission: To garner support for “Right to Repair” legislation,
which would make device manufacturers give owners and independent
repair businesses access to service information and affordable
replacement parts.

The legislation has been introduced in 16 states so far this year,
including New York and New Jersey, said Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive
director of the Repair Association, a fixers’ advocacy group.

Right to Repair is a nonpartisan issue, she noted. Conservatives like
it because they want to support small businesses. “Then you have the
rabid tree-huggers,” she said. Environmentalists want to reduce waste.

One group opposed to the legislation: device makers.

“Untrained repairs can cause personal safety and cybersecurity
issues,” said Josh Zecher, executive director of the Security
Innovation Center, a coalition representing device manufacturers.

The law also would jeopardize the intellectual property of
manufacturers, he said.

As the battle builds, fixers predict they will be far outspent on the
lobbying front. But Ms. Gordon-Byrne said that as the message gets
out, broad support is inevitable.

“Rich or poor, black or white, male or female, everyone needs to fix
their stuff,” she said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fix...ty-11550588401