I’m generally curious what you all think about the “R2R” movement, because as a whole, it's great imo and Louis Rossmann, who’s the most recognizable face of it, is someone who I wish was more well known to the general public, but as a whole, what it aims to do is make it so that you're able to fix the things you purchase, rather than be “encouraged” by the company to purchase a new one, and in general, has become a question of “do you own your device/car/tractor/etc., or does the company” in terms of how much you're allowed to do with what you own.
People who farm have had to deal with John Deere locking down their tools so only licensed dealers can work on them effectively and have had to resort to jailbreaking their tractors on occasion, Apple and other Big Tech names have made their electronics harder to repair over the years, serializing and pairing parts to motherboards so they don't work even if you swap between two of the same part between two of the same brand new phone, it's a whole mess in and of itself, but the general conclusion that’s been agreed on is that only two things can really change this:
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Government regulations preventing all the nonsense like serialization/pairing, making manufacturers/OEMs have to provide parts and schematics.
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Society actually puts pressure on said companies by not buying those harder to repair products, which is pretty fucking hard, considering what society we live in, illustrated in this video.
Most R2R activists think that number 1 is way more likely to happen, and have been doing that, getting R2R laws passed in almost 20 states so far, but I'm just wondering if anyone has any issues with having to use the government to make companies less shitty when it comes to actually owning the device you purchase, or not.
What's old is new again. The reason you can use OEM-equivalent parts and independent auto shops to repair your car without voiding your warranty is because that battle was fought decades ago and the government made laws to prevent the automakers from screwing you.
Government is a tool. Like most tools, it can be used for good or evil.
If the government wasn't such a tool, there wouldn't be any corporations large enough and dominant enough to attempt to lock people out of their own possessions.
We're in this position in large part because governments have spent the last century picking winners and losers.
How does government do this? For example, what regulations did the government implement to allow Standard Oil to become a monopoly in the first place (asking because a lot of people blame the government for monopolies).
Granting of leases to drill on federal lands on favorable terms (in comparison to the terms offered to their competition), intervention against the railroads on behalf of Standard Oil, and probably other less critical things.
But that's because the Rockefellers understood how to use their money to operate the levers of the tool.
This is the way