I wonder how much deflation in prices there would've been if Right to Repair was nationalized and enforced against every single company in the USA as well as globally.
What is Right to Repair? Requires manufacturers to supply necessary parts, tools and documentation for repairs to both independent repair shops and product owners
Why the hell are manufacturers allowed to stifle right to repair even those it provably harms you the taxpayer, the consumer, the subsidizer?
Healthcare Right To Repair
Let's talk about Healhcare right to repair for medical devices. Why can't hospitals rely on repair companies to handle repairing medical devices instead of a manufacturer. Manufacturer's would have to open repair staging stations to host their repairmen in every state they sell devices and that would be cost prohibitive for a capitalist company.
Take this one company Terumo Cardiovascular. They sell a medical device that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars some probably millions of dollars for SURGERY, for f**k sake. Source Article
The company, Terumo Cardiovascular, makes a device called the Advanced Perfusion System 1 Heart Lung Machine, which is used to reroute blood during open-heart surgeries and essentially keeps a patient alive during the surgery. Last month, the company sent hospitals a letter alerting them to the “discontinuation of certification classes,” meaning it “will no longer offer certification classes for the repair and/or preventative maintenance of the System 1 and its components.”
They desire to cut off training for repair staff at hospitals. Why are they doing this? Profit? What happens if another epidemic or pandemic occurs and their own limited repair staff is tied up? It happened during COVID. Why the hell should any manufacturer of critical life saving equipment be allowed to restrict repair training only to their own technicians? It's greed, it's criminal. I would serve to jail and execute those who feed into this greed. It's unneeded unchecked greed. They'll hike prices can that cost burden is shoved to patients.
Agriculture Right To Repair
Let's talk Agriculture right to repair, a farmer can learn to repair their critical machines like tractors and harvesting tools. Harvesting season comes, tools break down, farmer has to call the manufacturer for repair technician, it takes 5 days. That's 5 days loss of revenue for the farmer, higher cost for the consumer. Farmer has to pay for exorbitant costs of servicing labor and parts, again higher costs roll over to consumers.
How many manufacturers are going to keep repair staging stations in rural areas? It's cost prohibitive limited the amount of technicians that will be around a given area of land. It takes a long time to drive out and it may require multiple drives outs too. A waste of time, a waste of energy, a waste of human life.
Appliance Right to Repair
You have a refrigerator, washing machine, dishwasher, microwave, TV and you'd like for them never to break. Unfortunately they do. Manufacturers such as Samsung, LG and many others desire to restrict you to their own repair technicians. You won't have a working fridge for say 3-5 days or longer. I guess you will just order out food for the next few days. Just another cost of doing business and not having an INDEPENDENT REPAIR SHOP near you who could fix these basic appliances for you with the necessary manuals and parts available to them. Not only that, cost less for you with faster repair time.
What the hell man, Right to Repair is not controversial, it's special interests that lobby for this clearly destructive system. Some states are doing something about it, but it's not enough when these special interests can still lob in grenades into the law to screw with you. They, in my opinion, should not even be in the repair business only training other technicians to do the job. It create jobs and increases overall satisfaction even with the product itself.
These manufacturers play a dangerous game and I say the maximum number of stars in any review to any manufacturer regardless of any good product they may have should be limited to 3 stars until they fully support right to repair. Stop this self inflicted nonsense and end this charade.