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.
All of this sounds good, but I don’t trust the most prominent endorsers any further than I can sling a piano.
Also: “Giving money and power to government is like giving car keys and whiskey to teenage boys.” —P.J. O’Rourke
Which is why you should not make judgements based on personalities, but rather issues. If a leftist says something that's good, good for him (also I've seen this fellow with Yarvin, so I don't think he's a leftist)!
The old 'government is bad' paradigm is valid, but we live in an age where corporations are more powerful than ever, and can be even more censorious than government. We should not just focus on government power, ignoring the power of megacorporations.
I was actually thinking more of Cory Doctrow than Rossman, who I have barely heard of.
That guy is awful. But even a broken clock...