The Right to Repair Movement, Explained

When a tire on your car bursts, do you buy a new car? No, you buy some new tires.

Having the right to repair the products that you own seems like it should be obviously true. We own the products, so we should be able to do what we want with them—including taking apart and repairing them. But it’s not possible for all devices, including many cell phones and laptops, because companies maintain the right to their own designs and products. This means that, in certain instances, it might actually be illegal for you to fix something you own.

The Right to Repair is a debate that is raging on. Why do consumers not have the right to access parts and guides to the devices that they own?

The Right to Repair can apply to any industry. Much like the 2012 vote in Massachusetts which allowed car owners to access parts and guides, people today want to get the right to fix devices like laptops, cell phones, and other electronics.

(This article is part of our Sustainable IT Guide. Use the right-hand menu to explore topics related to sustainable technology efforts.)

What is planned obsolescence?

When a company creates a product, they can plan for it to become obsolete after a certain point. Manufacturers and service vendors force updates that cause older models to become slow or unusable or stop producing the associated support. At some point, the products will stop working optimally and customers get waning support for these products (and eventually no support at all).

Common reasons for planned obsolescence include:

• Ending support for legacy systems
• Encouraging consumers to buy replacement products

Planned obsolescence isn’t inherently bad news. In fact, it’s part of a natural process for a company—any asset management practice will account for end-of-lifing a product. There is no point providing continuing support for an outdated operating system that hardly anyone uses. In the case of IT, software would be made obsolete and its users would be eventually move onto a new version.

But sometimes companies plan to force users to move onto new hardware and software without a good reason, at least from consumers’ point of view. Green organizations and watchdogs criticize this move as creating waste without need.

This failure to give consumers the ability to ensure the continued use of their products has led to the Right to Repair debate.

What is the Right to Repair?

Instead of being forced to buy entirely new products, some users want to be able to purchase devices that can be upgraded over their lifespan. This would include being able to upgrade all aspects of the device, including the processing power, memory, and batteries.

This concept is known as the Right to Repair, and it’s something that people in many countries are demanding legislation supporting. Depending on the products you want to repair, you may or may not actually have that right.

Some companies refuse to release the parts necessary to perform repairs and upgrades. (An oft-cited example is Apple.) That means consumers simply can’t fix a product they own. Instead, they need to turn to the company itself or to third-party vendors that can work on devices.

The Right to Repair movement demands that all companies provide:

• Repair information, including manuals or guides which can help
• Products that can be repaired
• Parts that can be used to repair the products

The Right to Repair debate isn’t limited to technology.

John Deere, an American manufacturer of agricultural products, was in the news for facing backlash from farmers. The farmers were technically breaking the law when they attempted to repair their own equipment unless they had official authorization from John Deere. Pushing for the right to fix their machinery and continue to use repaired equipment was the core of their protests.

These protests spread into the technology sector quickly, with The Repair Association (TRA), a coalition of repair professionals pushing for a bill that would make it illegal for companies to withhold this information. Where the biggest names once had a monopoly on repairs, now independent repair shops and other repair enthusiasts were challenging the status quo.