Fix, or Toss? The ‘Right to Repair’ Movement Gains Ground
Great recent piece on the ‘right to repair’ movement from The New York Times.
If you buy a product — a car, a smartphone, or even a tractor — and it breaks, should it be easier for you to fix it yourself?
Manufacturers of a wide range of products have made it increasingly difficult over the years to repair things, for instance by limiting availability of parts or by putting prohibitions on who gets to tinker with them. It affects not only game consoles or farm equipment, but cellphones, military gear, refrigerators, automobiles and even hospital ventilators, the lifesaving devices that have proven crucial this year in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.
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