Texas made the right move

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Photo by Vitalijus on Unsplash

I was too long in coming around on right-to-repair laws, such as the one that just went into effect in Texas yesterday. Why? Because I don’t like the government telling private businesses what they have to do.

But the problem here is that private businesses are crossing a line and telling customers what they have to do, namely when it comes to dealing with broken equipment.

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As things have long stood, these companies made it so you had to use their people and their parts to fix your devices. Even if you were tech-savvy, or knew someone who was, you couldn’t do it. You couldn’t because you couldn’t get the parts. They wouldn’t sell them to you.

Right-to-repair laws basically force the company’s hand, but they do it so that people can decide what the hell to do with the product they bought.

Bought.

They didn’t rent it. They didn’t lease it. They bought it. They purchased it with their own money with the understanding that the device was now theirs. That means they can do what they want with it, within the confines of the law.

But companies decided that didn’t include repair.

Now, I don’t trust the government. I don’t like the idea of them telling private enterprises what they have to do, but the idea of telling people their choices are that the company does the repair themselves, even outside of the warranty period, or you have to buy a whole new device.

That shouldn’t be your choices.

When I wrote about the repair cafe in Peoria, one of you rightly argued that not everyone wants to repair their stuff. There are tool costs, training costs, and it can just be a massive pain in the ass. This was in response to me telling people to repair things.

Fair enough. I didn’t mean it to come across like some kind of mandate from on high, though I do think we’d be better off repairing things than tossing them and buying new.

Still, not everyone wants to repair things.

What matters, though, is having the choice.

Many tech companies have locked up the system so that even knowledgeable people can’t get the parts to repair things, not because they didn’t want to, but because the companies figured they had control and you didn’t.

That’s the wrong configuration in a free market.

The official technicians are always more expensive than the guy in a strip mall with a simple sign out front; they kind of technician who can fix anything and fixes just about everything. He’s going to be cheaper because he has to be fast, compete with the manufacturers, and he’ll get it back to you quicker, if for no other reason than he’s local and Samsung will want to ship it to Tumbuktu.

The point is that it should be our, the consumers’, choice. We’re the ones who should hold the power in a case like this, and when we don’t, the government steps in and starts smacking heads.

I may not like it, but I dislike the necessity of it even more.

No, no one should be required to repair their own stuff if they don’t want to. Not everyone is tech-savvy enough to try, and not everyone who is actually wants to screw around with it.

But it’s a choice. It’s a choice people get to make, just like they should be able to choose between the manufacturer and the guy in the strip mall, or even a sketchy guy with a van at the flea market, if that’s what they want.

After all, who do you trust to look out for your interests better on something you’re not well-versed enough on to know if you’re being lied to, the guy who says, “No, I can’t fix it,” when it’s in his interests to say otherwise, or the manufacturer who says, “No, we can’t fix it,” when they figure you’ll just buy their latest offering?

Kind of a no-brainer, if you ask me.

Right-to-repair is something I should have been on board with a lot sooner than I was, but I’m there now.

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