> Right to repair bills, which are currently making their way through eight states (Nebraska, New York, Tennessee, Wyoming, Minnesota, Kansas, Illinois, and Massachusetts), would require electronics manufacturers to make repair parts and diagnostic and repair manuals available to independent repair professionals and consumers, not just "authorized" repair companies.
This seems like forcing Apple rather than releasing consumers. Just another example of over interfering Govts.
It's an abuse of HN to use the site primarily for political or ideological battle. That's destructive of what HN is for. Since you've done nothing else even after we warned you about this, we've banned this account.
IMO it's a very good law for the population/nation/citizens. Ignoring that it will help small businesses, being able to do what you want with the things you bought should be a right, not a privilege. The government exists for stuff like this. If they don't interfere, then what?
Your car stops working because you haven't made your mandatory overpriced yearly checkup? Sounds neat
Also having access to at least service manuals (if not complete schematics) can help repair and reuse electronics, which is great for the environment, low wage workers/families and developing nations in general.
> IMO it's a very good law for the population/nation/citizens.
But this is how Govts make enemies in business communities. Actions like these what made China 2nd most wealthy nation in record time.
> Ignoring that it will help small businesses.
How ? Common sense tell me this will put more legal requirements; those are never fun.
> being able to do what you want with the things you bought should be a right, not a privilege
Absolutely. But this forces Apple/others. It does not release customers from restrictions. If there are such any restrictions, Govts would be with in their rights to make such user/customer agreements unenforcable. But again, thats what not happening here.
> Your car stops working because you haven't made your mandatory overpriced yearly checkup? Sounds neat
How about you look for more favourable company ? But you know thats what people do. Such anti-customer corporations you are describing does not last for long in the market unless ofcourse Govts are helping them in someway, as the history shows.
> Also having access to at least service manuals (if not complete schematics) can help repair and reuse electronics, which is great for the environment, low wage workers/families and developing nations in general
Irrelevent. You are curbing liberties. Thats the argument against the law.
The government is for all people not only businesses.
Small businesses providing repair services is what I meant, but it could also help businesses keep costs low by repairing stuff themselves.
BTW, I'm not only talking about Apple with this right to repair stuff, I'm talking about every company. Companies that make devices everyone lives with and depends on, and they want to retain control of them even though people pay the full price not for renting, but owning.
Yeah you can look for another company. Do it before they're driven out of business or acquired by the established ones. Or you can force corporations to do something that will benefit the population.
Liberties of the corporations. Well, companies really need some restrictions right now. The chase for growth and profits is insane and will fuck up the majority of people and this planet pretty soon.
You sound either like a multi-millionaire CEO or a brainwashed person who believes he's gonna be a millionaire someday.
Well, guess what, if you're middle to low class, the odds you'll strike it big are quite low (and they're getting lower every year).
Rich is relative. Sure, China has the second largest GDP but on a per capita basis it's not even in the top 50 (regardless of purchasing power parity or straight up wealth).
Doesn't seem like it. Repair manuals don't cost anything to release, and it's not like the innovation today is at the PCB level; it's interference if the state forces someone to support outdated products by ensuring the availability of ICs and stuff... but the firms in the supply chain should only be too happy to supply if there is demand (ebay is chock full of every imaginable parts peddled by Chinese traders).
Frankly these corporations way too much power, from planned obsolescence to bad hardware. I for one would welcome the right to defend against these giants.
or perhaps it means just not making them impossible or certainly very difficult to repair, requiring a costly replacement or ending up in landfill. The only reason apple do this is to keep people buying new devices, they repair the broken ones and resell them. If the govt didnt mandate then apple have no reason to change their behaviour even though it is to the detriment of everyone except apple.
To say the only reason Apple makes products that are hard to repair so that they can force consumers to buy more new products is disingenuous. Could it not be that they are trying to make the most efficient use of space to make products smaller thereby having a second order effect of being less repairable? I am not saying this is the entire justification or that what you are saying isn't factored into their decision making process. What I am trying to say is that asserting they ARE doing something with the only reason being x, is wrong unless you have explicit knowledge of their internal thought process.
The trick here is Apple does NOT provide "repair parts, diagnostic and repair manuals" to their Authorized Certified repair shops. What they provide is a mail address and $17 per one mail in, all his while Apple charges $150-299.
Yes there is a pretty big difference. Its not wealth redistribution. You are just spending the money created by natural resource. Its Govt/Peoples wealth to spend as they see fit.
For 2012-13 FY, 12.5 Million (1%) paid any Income tax, averaging Rs 21,000 ($350). The 3 individuals in the top-bracket of Rs 100-500 crore ($16M-$83M) paid a total tax of Rs 437 crore ($72M) — resulting in an average tax outgo of Rs 145.80 crore ($24M).
Indian statists cant help but screw the country funders even more. Disgustingly inhumane.
> "Open source, but licensed under the AGPL.", says the article. There is no "but" here. The AGPL is the very definition of "open source", because it defends openness. If you have nothing to fear from open source, you have nothing to fear from the AGPL.
If you want the project to be openly collabrative but quasi-free, calling it Open Source would be hijacking the term. Call it Social Justice Licence or something.
And I cant believe I have to type this on HN of all places.
No one denies that monopolies are risky. In fact this is the argument against anti-trust regulations, which is basically a monopoly granted to very few people (which in practice, means a guranteed monopoly to a colluding subgroup of political class). There are probably more cases of harm done by this monopoly than by corporations monopolies.
Also one major difference, Corporations have to earn their monopolies where the political class dont. Only one of these two will not think twice before abusing it.
We already have a protection agaisnt monopolies aka free market.
While government power is the main source of monopolies, the free market is far from perfect protection itself. Natural monopolies really exist.
The best example is anything that requires a wire run to every home. The issue is high fixed costs whether or not someone becomes a customer, with low operational costs after. Therefore if a second company runs wires through the same neighborhood, between them you have large sunk costs which a competitive price that does not let you recoup the costs of infrastructure.
Taking numbers from http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1072/9..., the cost of running a wire by a home in the early 2000s was roughly $750, and the fixed cost of connecting it is about $750 again. The cost to operate that line is under $15/month. Those costs are surprisingly close to constant across a wide variety of kinds of cities. (Dense cities require less distance, have more regulation, and more other things running through the space that you have to worry about not breaking.)
To give a historical example, Bell Telephone ran wires everywhere. They operated under various anti-trust regulations for a long time. They were barred from cable TV and so another set of wires got run. Then Bell was broken up by force, with interoperation rules to prevent monopoly again. Today, with the internet, we have seen a convergence of these two sets of wires. So most of us live in places where we have one or two choices for getting internet over a wire. One possibly from a former cable company like Cox. One possibly from a former telephone company like Verizon. Very few of us have a third option. Without government involvement it is unlikely that 2 options will remain indefinitely viable for most of us.
Thats why most economically obvious thing for a neighbourhood is to own the infrastructure not rent it. If it were not for "i-do-everything" govts, neighbourhoods would have learnt this long ago. Even Govts owning would have been ok, but then we would not have crony capitalism.
jury_of_peers = random12(peers(defendant) + peers(prosecutor)) OR random6(peers(defendant)) + random6(peers(prosecutor));
peers(X) is declared/set by X. num(peers(X)) >= num_citizens/10 so that corrupt X cant set 12 yes men.
This would incentivize X to be good to peers(X).
The worst case is neither worst president nor worst damage possible by a presidential power. But its the worst 51% votes can do. Because there will come someone who will say anything to get these votes and people will vote themselves into dystopia.
It should only be seen as temporary solution though. The permanent solution would be to reclassify passowrds, fingerprints, blood samples etc as testimony.
Making prosecuting the <0.1% easier at the cost of making 99.9%+ vulnerable should always be avoided.
> Trump is a symptom of something that was already there probably decades in the making
And the something is: Democratic entitlement. Larger population is feeling the world owe them happy life, free healthcare and the all the things that successful have "took" from them.
And ofcourse its not sustainable. Democracy is done. I give it at most two more Trumps.
PS: I preassume its ok to talk politics in political threads.
> Right to repair bills, which are currently making their way through eight states (Nebraska, New York, Tennessee, Wyoming, Minnesota, Kansas, Illinois, and Massachusetts), would require electronics manufacturers to make repair parts and diagnostic and repair manuals available to independent repair professionals and consumers, not just "authorized" repair companies.
This seems like forcing Apple rather than releasing consumers. Just another example of over interfering Govts.