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Comment by reilly3000 | Hacker News Reader

This is an awesome resource, but I'm left wondering how to interpret the data. For instance I see that Microsoft paid for a bunch of lobbying for a bunch of things, and it's clear they had 2 meetings with NY Senators and Executive staff about S 4104. What I don't see is what they were advocating for. Are they for or against it? Did they push some language that would benefit them in the long run? All I can see so far is that they were at the table. I haven't seen the video just yet but I'm sure Louis will break it down.

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Yes, my friend, we ought to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt, since they gave us VSCode and GitHub. Why would they lobby for such an evil thing? Surely, this must be some grave misunderstanding!

That's a piss poor take. I see the "DIGITAL RIGHT TO REPAIR COALITION" on the list, shall we assume they were also against the right to repair?

Monopolies give things away to destroy competition, not to warm the hearts of consumers.

Seems to me like the parent comment was being sarcastic, though in fairness you never know on the internet.

I think in this case it's fair to assume all the donors here are against right to repair.

That’s a bad assumption. The “DIGITAL RIGHT TO REPAIR COALITION” and “ AGRIBUSINESS ASSOCIATION (NYS)“ were on that list. I’d find it hard to believe they were involved with neutering this bill.

I would still agree with you though, most of the orgs on that list were likely at the table attempting to ruin the bill.

Can confirm DIGITAL RIGHT TO REPAIR COALITION is Repair.org and was the opposition to TechNet and all the OEMs lobbying against this bill.

That's a good confirmation because misleadingly named organisations (and bills) have been a norm in politics for a long time.

Spectacular. Doing government as if it was a Sotheby’s auction. The law goes to the highest bidder.

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