This is why we need right to repair laws. If the manufacturer's still making a part, you should be able to order it straight from them.
there's a hell of a jump between "right to repair" and "manufacturer has to have SKUs for every subassembly in all of their products, stock them and ship them to random internet people for a price that won't cause the same people to post articles about how $company doesn't really want their stuff to be repaired"
(let's be real, that's the implied expectation)
> end users and independent repair providers should be able to access original spare parts and necessary tools (software as well as physical tools) at fair market conditions
It doesn't necessarily have to be every subassembly. Make the schematics and chips available and repair shops can take it from there.
But stocking subassemblies is indeed my expectation from a well-behaved manufacturer, whether they provide the parts themselves or partner with someone else to. Some examples:
https://shop.fairphone.com/en/spare-parts
https://frame.work/marketplace/parts
https://www.ifixit.com/Parts/Steam_Deck
Clearly this is doable. And let's be real, manufacturers that do warranty repairs already have SKUs for each subassembly, assuming they actually repair the devices and don't just replace the whole thing. They just won't sell them to you, they'll only ship them to their own service centers.
If you don't stock them anymore, sure, you don't stock them anymore. (I would also like to see requirements for longer product support cycles, which would go along with this but is somewhat orthogonal to the part availability concern.)
I don't see people scalping Framework parts for example. They all seem to be available on their site. You seem confident that this is impossible, but it's been done.
Imagine if that was the law. Apple could buy all of one kind of Framework's spare parts. Maybe Framework wants to reserve some so they can continue providing service themselves. Are they allowed to do that?
What does the law say about replenishing stock? Is there a time limit or a minimum quantity? Parts are made in huge production runs with long lead times. Are they going to have to pay for a rush order to comply with the law? Can they afford to have only a few thousand made instead of a million? Can they afford a million?
If such a law existed, there would be scalpers because there would be adversarial artificial scarcity. Either there's a steep penalty that's worth exploiting, or it's unenforceable. So no, it hasn't been done.
> Maybe Framework wants to reserve some so they can continue providing service themselves. Are they allowed to do that?
Yes.
> What does the law say about replenishing stock? Is there a time limit or a minimum quantity?
No. Make a good-faith attempt. The courts can decide what that means in practice. Exempt manufacturers below a certain revenue threshold, to discourage targeting them with spurious lawsuits. Likewise you could define generous thresholds of availability that, if met, can be used to quickly throw out a lawsuit. And:
> Apple could buy all of one kind of Framework's spare parts.
Ban this. It's clearly anticompetitive.
If we wanted to start small, mandate a new conspicuous product label that indicates how long the manufacturer will make replacement parts available. That'd at least raise awareness.
Nobody ever makes it through this line of questioning. Right to Repair has options, but mandating sales isn't one of them.
I'm going to skip over the boring legal questions and ask something that I find more interesting.
Let's say you get your dream bill passed tomorrow. What will happen when products are a single integrated part? Does right to repair fizzle out, or does it force companies to make antiquated shit?
A single integrated part that literally can't be repaired in any way? I find that unlikely. Like I said at the start of the thread, make the chips, schematics, and required software available. Repair shops will figure it out. MacBooks have been trending towards integrated boards for years but they're still what e.g. Louis Rossmann's company works on. Even if repairing it involves SMD rework, it's still possible! Maybe not by a layman, but people specialize.
I do think products shouldn't be made intentionally difficult to open nondestructively though. Think screws rather than glue wherever possible. (Thankfully several companies do seem to be trending back in this direction nowadays.)
Consider chiplets. The initial impetus for them was to improve yields. With lithography development becoming increasingly expensive, packaging is looking like a much better target. This further unlocks options to integrate memory and accelerators like GPUs as chiplets on silicon.
At the same time, the high-speed digital world is bending over backwards to overcome the challenges of woven PCBs. Between chiplets and hand-solderable PCBs are some more attractive options to integrate bare dies on different substrates at smaller scales.
Power modules have completely eliminated packaging altogether. The outsides are ferrite material, which also serves as the substrate, heat spreader, and EMI shield. The only thing holding them back is the PCB. The polymer matrix is a heat insulator, and the distance to the next part requires many capacitors. Even logic chip makers are doing thin-film deposition of ferrites on chips.
For a relatively low-spec gadget like a phone, why wouldn't you integrate all the electronics into one component? It's the economically viable thing to do for now. Then there's only one more step before the whole product is fused.
People take PCBs for granted, but they only exist to connect components that people wish were already connected.
And let's say we do get to the point where the electronics in every single device being sold are one single completely inseparable unit. Fine. Sell whatever the components are! If that means selling the electronics as one part separately from the case, do that. Most manufacturers aren't even doing that. The electronics are going to break in some devices while the case is still perfectly fine, and vice-versa. There will always be a place for repairs.