This is a thesis on the right to repair I wrote during my senior year of high school at Veritas Academy.

Proper citations are on google docs

Owning the Things We Buy

The year was 1924. It had been forty-five years since Thomas Edison made the first commercially viable electric bulb, but now lightbulb manufacturers had a new problem—their bulbs were too good. For decades manufacturers competed to make the best light bulb, but producing a better, longer-lasting light bulb had an unintended consequence: consumers were buying fewer bulbs. The average light bulb lasted 2500 hours and the technology was only getting better. This was good for consumers but bad for the light bulb manufacturers, so a group called the Phoebus Cartel was formed to stop this. Eight of the largest companies met together to form this cartel, including some companies still around today, such as Philips, General Electric, Tokyo Electric, and Osram. Companies in the cartel were required to send samples of their bulbs to a laboratory in Switzerland, and hefty fines were issued to any company producing a bulb that was “too good.” Together, the cartel worked against consumers to lower the average lightbulb lifespan to only 1000 hours. While the start of World War Two broke up the cartel, its legacy lives on to this day in form of planned obsolescence.

Planned obsolescence is when products are deliberately designed to become unusable so that the consumer needs to purchase another one in the future. It can come in many forms, but the most egregious is deliberately designing products that are impossible to repair. This can come in the form of patronizing manuals that say, “Repairs performed by untrained individuals or using non-genuine Apple parts may affect the safety and functionality of the device,” or special “tamper-resistant” proprietary screws that even the handiest of dads don’t have bits for. Additionally, these companies fight back against laws that protect consumers’ right to repair their own goods and products. In 2021, Washington State passed a pro right to repair bill. It made many of these practices illegal. In the end, every single one of the citizens voting supported the Bill, while Microsoft-backed lobbyists opposed it.

The government has also noticed In May of 2021, the FTC released a report titled “Nixing the Fix” that spoke directly to many of these issues. They found that, “many consumer products have become harder to maintain. Repairs today often require specialized tools, difficult-to-obtain parts, and access to proprietary diagnostic software. Consumers whose products break then have limited choices.” Additionally, John Deer is currently fighting lawsuits from more than 17 farmers claiming they have a monopoly on repair.

A common misconception is that lack of repair comes from the advances of software. This is partially true—as technology improves, modern software requires more advanced hardware. But for most people, their digital life consists of web applications, email, and texting, all of which can be done within web browsers that support decades old hardware. The main reason computers get slower over time isn’t due to any degradation of the hardware, but due to user installed programs wasting resources as well as manufacturer mandated software updates that sometimes intentionally slow down the hardware.

Consumers have continued to voice their desire for repair as well. In 2013, 8403 consumers were surveyed on this very issue. They reported that while they prefer more repairable products, they lack knowledge of what products are repairable. However, this desired repairability has major barriers to it, including a lack of access to parts, tools, and manuals. A Pew Research study showed that minorities and lower-income families are more likely to be smartphone-dependent. This means if their smartphone breaks, they are completely disconnected from our software dependent life. This lack of access is mostly artificial. Companies would rather see you throw away your old product and buy a new one than repair your current one. If you do choose to repair, they want to make sure they are the only ones making a profit from it.

Support for the right to repair has been on the rise. Colorado, California, New York, and Minnesota have all passed right to repair laws for consumer electronics, but since most of these laws went into effect in January,there isn’t any data on their impact on consumers or manufacturers. Outside of the United States, France implemented a repairability index on January 1, 2021. This index measures the repairability and longevity of a product on a 1-10 scale, and is based on a variety of factors, including the availability of documentation, the types of tools needed, and the availability of spare parts. They state that the goal is to combat waste and to “raise consumer’s awareness of the possibility of extending the lifespan and use of their devices, in particular by directing their purchase behavior towards products that are more easily repairable and by encouraging them to resort more to repairs in the event of a breakdown.” The iPhone 13 Pro has a 6.2/10 rating, while the MacBook Pro 13 has a 5.6/10 rating. A report by Halt Obsolescence showed that 55% of people are familiar with the index, and three fourths of consumers in contact with the index used it to make a purchasing decision. This shows that consumers want to repair their products when given the information.

To increase repairability, we need two things: legislation that guarantees access to parts, tools, and documentation at a “fair and reasonable” price as well as a repairability index so consumers know how long their products will last. The legislation would be covered by laws such as Texas’ HB515 and HB1616. First, the legislation would support small businesses by allowing them to gain access to the parts and tools they need. Second, the repairability index will give consumers insight into how repairable their products are, while the legislation would allow them greater freedom to repair. Finally, these efforts will combine to help fight greater environmental issues.

The most obvious benefactor of these laws will be the US consumer. The average US household spends almost $2000 on electronics per year. According to a report by PIRG, if we extend the lifespan of these products by using repair, families could reduce their electronic spend by 23%, which turns out to be a little under $400 per year for the average family. Across the 129 million households in the US, this adds up to around $50 billion dollars—enough to buy 100 million pounds of bananas—that could be put to use stimulating the local economy, rather than lining the pockets of already large companies. Repair is an economic win for the consumer.

Another large benefit will be lower repair costs. The cost of replacement parts are inflating, and GM is reporting a 30% profit margin on aftermarket parts. Companies like GE and Apple certainly have the right to charge whatever they please, but deliberately inhibiting the ability of other companies to compete is monopolistic.

The worst offender is John Deere. John Deere makes 5 times more from repairs than they do from sales. They also use artificial software locks to prevent repair, causing farmers to use hacked Ukrainian software to be able to use their tractors. When a company makes more from broken products than they make from working ones, they are directly incentivized to make lower-quality products that break more often and are more difficult to repair. Right to repair laws give the companies that make the best products the greatest chance of success.

A common counterpoint to the idea of repairable products is the theory that if the company doesn’t make as much from repair, the up front price will go up. This will be true on the frontend: for people buying new products straight off of the shelf, you can expect to see a price increase. However, the secondhand market will see a huge gain, similar to the way cars work. For example, a report from the department of energy showed that in 2018, 40.2 million new cars were sold, while only 17.2 million used cars were sold. People who can afford it and want to can still buy a new iPhone every year, just the old one will continue to live a long second life on the secondhand market. With greater repairability our electronic equipment can go from disposable and consumable to having the longevity we see in cars.

While the economic benefits to consumers are the main benefit, it’s important not to forget the cultural ones. As Aaron Perzanowski says in his book The Right to Repair, “Once you understand how a technology works, why it fails, and how it can be repaired, the leap to developing an improvement is a small one.” A culture of builders rather than buyers will lead to a new age of American innovation. Today’s fixers are tomorrow’s innovators.

The consumers aren’t the only ones struggling—the small businesses that try to offer repair are too. In a survey of independent repair shops by Pirg, about half of the participants said they frequently have to turn away customers due to manufacturers refusing to sell parts to them, while the other half said they occasionally have to. Just a mere 9 shops out of the 253 surveyed said that they are always able to get the parts they need. Continuing with that line of reasoning, nearly every one of the shops surveyed said they strongly support the right to repair laws, and said their business might be in danger without them. The proposed legislation would give these businesses access to the parts and documentation they need, and a repairability index would allow consumers to be more mindful of repairing rather than replacing.

Some companies offer what they call “authorized repair programs” that market themselves as allowing the shops to gain access to the parts and documentation they need. However, these often act less like symbiotic relationships and more like shackles on the repair shop. The Guardian spoke to several independent repair shops from the US and Australia who were in this program and wished to remain anonymous. They mentioned that Apple can take up to six months to process your application, despite the eight weeks they promise. Additionally, the price of the replacement parts is often too high for the shops to stay afloat. One owner said, “After you take off labor and rent, what is left? We are losing money.” None of this is an accident—manufacturers aren’t going to willingly support their own competition. Currently, these businesses have no choice but to pledge fealty to the original manufacturer and suffer the consequences. However, if businesses can access the parts they need and compete fairly with the manufacturers, the death grip on repair shops will be released.

Due to the artificial restrictions on repair, employment has been dwindling as well. For example, from the 1960s to today we have lost nearly 80% of all repair jobs. All of this occurred while the US population increased from about 190 million to 340 million. Additionally, these aren’t low skilled manufacturing jobs, but highly skilled and difficult to automate trades. Repair jobs are also more local than the overseas manufacturing jobs they would replace. The reason repair shops are struggling is because they can’t get access to the parts they need to compete fairly. Since companies are not incentivized to allow this, legislation is needed.

The only reasonable explanation for the decline in repair shops is a decline in repair. If we don’t break less stuff and haven’t figured out a way to automate repair, the only cause left is deliberate hindrance from manufacturers. This makes sense, because manufacturers are directly incentivised to do so. Legislation that allows the repair shops access to the tools and parts they need is the only way we can guarantee a truly free market.

The environment is another crucial aspect of repair. While e-waste only makes up 2% of all trash dumped, it accounts for 70% of all toxic waste. And the problem is only getting worse. Currently, the world disposes of around 150 million mobile phones every year. To put this number into perspective, these phones stacked on top of each other would make a stack 1000 miles long, or about the distance from Houston to Phoenix. By 2030, the amount of e-waste is projected to grow from 50 million tons in 2019 to 75 million tons.

This toxic waste poisons communities. For example, a study by the New Delhi Department of Civil Engineering found the concentration of metals such as lead is 24 times higher in the topsoil, and 427 times higher just below ground. The full effects of this contamination are still being researched, but the consensus is that it is harmful to both children and adults. Studies have shown that it can be linked to abnormal reproductive development, premature births and stillbirths, as well as child developmental issues. Additionally, the e-waste is typically dumped in still developing and poorer countries. This is exploitation.

We aren’t just consuming electronics inefficiently, but producing them inefficiently as well. The iPhone, a device that has about the same shape and weight of a deck of cards, demands an entire 75 lbs of ore to be processed when manufacturing. And in addition to the massive amount of material that goes into each device,100 liters of water is also used during the production process for each and every iPhone. To put that into perspective, 100 liters is the amount of water the average person uses over a 20 day period. It’s also important to note that the production of a single laptop produces 1000 lbs of CO2. As Aaron Perzanowski said in his book The Right to Repair, “When you buy a new laptop, the sticker price doesn’t fully account for the rivers poisoned by rare-earth mining, the health hazards of air pollution from gold and nickel mining, and the exploitation of workers.”.

The city of Baotou in Chinese inner Mongolia is a depressing example of this. It has recently exploded as demand for rare earth metals has gone up. These are elements such as Yttrium, Cerium, Dysprosium, and Neodymium which are crucial to the inner workings of our favorite technology devices. The area around Baotou is very rich and is estimated to contain 70% of the world’s rare earth reserves, but these valuable minerals are mined at a great cost to humans and the environment. The production of these metals decimates the surrounding area—leaving an alien-like toxic lake filled with the byproduct of all of the metal extraction. This lake seeps into the local groundwater, poisoning nearby cities, towns, and villages. By keeping our products for longer we can help end the terrible abuse that happens in these developing cities

Cobalt is another example of a natural resource that’s being overproduced. The Democratic Republic of the Congo contains around 60% of the earth’s supply of this resource, which is used in the lithium-ion batteries that power our laptops, phones, and even cars. It is also used in the production of gas turbines, jet engines, and magnetic steel. However, the price we pay for these products is not just monetary. Take Elodie for example. She’s a 15 year old teen mom who has to carry her two month old son every day through the cobalt mines. She spends all day bent over inhaling the toxic fumes, trying to dig up enough cobalt to fill her sack. In one day, she only makes about 65 cents. Stories like hers are not uncommon. These are complex problems that require complex solutions, but every time we choose to replace instead of repair we are forcing more orphan children into toxic and grueling work.

Of course, none of this would matter if repair can’t actually help. However, a study from Oakdene Hollins on how Microsoft devices could reduce emissions showed ”repairing the product instead of device replacement can yield up to a 92% reduction in potential waste generations and GHG emissions”. This would not be a silver bullet to instantly solve all of the environmental and humanitarian problems, but a 92% reduction in e-waste is not insignificant and would create cascading results throughout these exploited areas. By seeking to repair rather than replace, and by passing laws that make that easier and incentivize companies to do so, we can take better care of the world God has given us.

Corporations point to recycling as the solution to this issue, but this is still far from effective. In Apple’s 2019 recycling report, they claim that with the use of their cutting edge Daisy recycling robot, they were able to recycle 48,000 metric tons of e-waste. While this may seem like an impressive number, it only accounts for a tenth of a percent of the e-waste produced by Apple. Similarly, in their 2019 Environmental Responsibility Report, Apple says that they were able to recycle one million iPhones. Again, this seems impressive, but only represents half of a percent of the phones they sold this year. The steps Apple is taking to make recycling more efficient are admirable, but recycling shouldn’t be an alternative to repair. Recycling should happen when a product is truly at the end of its life, not just after one year of use.

Manufacturers have worked hard and invested enormous amounts of capital to create these products, so another common argument is that their “unfair” advantage in the repair section is actually their just compensation for creating a useful product. The reality is that this law doesn’t take away their advantage, it just forces them to compete fairly. When your iPhone breaks, the first place you’ll think to go to is the Apple store. That will still be the case after this law has passed, there will just be other alternatives. However, consumers will never look at those alternatives if Apple provides a good service at a reasonable price. They still have the advantage, they just need to compete fairly.

As consumers and citizens of Texas, we have multiple paths to getting the repair we deserve. First, we can support HB515 and HB1616 in the Texas House of Representatives. These laws would ensure that consumers of both small electronic devices and heavy equipment, such as farm equipment, would have access to the parts, tools, and documentation they need to repair their own property. Additionally, we also need a repairability index to allow consumers to make informed decisions before they make a purchase..

Legislation can make repair possible, but it is ultimately up to the consumer to capitalize on this gift. For us, this means seeking to repair our products rather than replace them. When we do repair, we should seek to use highly skilled local workers, rather than going straight to the manufacturer. When we eventually have to purchase new products, we should ensure that the product is repairable. Repairability has been a corollary of property ownership since the concept has existed. We cannot let manufacturers redefine what ownership means, nor can we let them tell us what we can and can’t do with our own property. Let’s choose to be a nation of builders rather than a nation of buyers.