Right to repair movement

Right to repair movement

Subject: Science and Tech

Right to repair movement:

Context: The average consumer purchases an electronic gadget, knowing that it will very quickly become obsolete as its manufacturer releases newer, shinier, and more amped up versions of the same device.

Concept:

As your device grows older, it needs to be repaired by new parts, however the repairs inaccessible for most, by dictating who can fix your device and making it an inordinately expensive affair.

Right to repair movement:

• Activists and organisations have been advocating for the right of consumers to be able to repair their own electronics and other products as part of the ‘right to repair’ movement.
• The movement traces its roots back to the very dawn of the computer era in the 1950s.
• The goal of the movement is to get companies to make spare parts, tools and information on how to repair devices available to customers and repair shops to increase the lifespan of products and to keep them from ending up in landfills.

Need for right to repair

• Electronic manufacturers are encouraging a culture of ‘planned obsolescence’ — which means that devices are designed specifically to last a limited amount of time and to be replaced., leads to immense pressure on the environment and wasted natural resources.
• It makes use of polluting sources of energy, such as fossil fuel, which has an adverse impact on the environment.
• Right to repair advocates also argue that this will help boost business for small repair shops, which are an important part of local economies.
• If a manufacturer has monopoly on repairs, then prices rise exponentially and quality tends to drop

Arguments against:

• Their argument is that opening up their intellectual property to third party repair services or amateur repairers could lead to exploitation and impact the safety and security of their devices.
• Threaten data security and cyber security.

Steps taken

• US President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling on the Federal Trade Commission to curb restrictions imposed by manufacturers that limit consumers’ ability to repair their gadgets on their own terms
• the UK government introduced right-to-repair rules with the aim of extending the lifespan of products by up to 10 years. The new legislation gives manufacturers a two-year window to make the necessary changes to abide by the new legislation.