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Comment by nonethewiser | Hacker News Reader

> Here's my take: you don't really own something if you can't repair it

What if the bottleneck is the "owner's" repair skills? See cars.

I wonder if this might be closer to what you mean "You dont really own something if it's not repairable." Of course, "repairable" has a lot of gray area but that's a separate issue.

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I think the ability to take it to an independent repair facility almost as important as being able to repair something with your own hands.

Sometimes there are specially pieces of equipment required in order to service something. Not to be confused with deliberate sabotage by a manufacturer hiding reset functionality behind undocumented interfaces, cables and unbelievably expensive software.

1) Good design can - to a certain degree - allow most people to replace parts. E.g. headlight bulbs or modules, which are held in place by 0-3 screws and a simple electrical connection. Similar things with door seals or floor mats. Many parts can be made repairable by low-skill users if they are just accessible and not glued in. Unfortunately many designs work against that, perhaps on purpose. This is also a massive accessibility issue for disabled and elderly people. Think lower grip strength.

2) Anti-repair design stops people from developing skills in the first place, similar to how kids who grow up on fixed-software devices often cannot hack the devices to develop technical understanding.

I think it's a matter of substituting "you" with "any person competent with the necessary non-specialized tooling", where competent means "able to follow a service manual", and obviously "non-specialized" excludes expensive brand-specific one-off tools.

Cars are a mixed bag, because on one hand you have OBD2 and lots of parts can be easily ordered, and on the other hand you have un-obtainable parts, manufacturer-specific code and special tooling (even when there is no business putting custom stuff). And they are also becoming less repairable and have a lot of mechanic-hostile design (it's a meme in the industry).

I have some insight in that because I have actually started repairing cars as a hobby, including non-trivial stuff.

I think "can" is being used in the sense of "may". "You don't own something if you may not repair it". I don't possess the skills to work on my house's circuit box, but the only thing stopping me from trying is that knowledge.

Poor example! In my country (UK) only a qualified electrician with up-to-date certifications is permitted to work on my house fuze-box.

Not even the homeowner? I can understand requiring a certification to do paid electrician work, but it seems a bit unreasonable to say you can't do work on your own home.

There are limits to what a homeowner can do without having their work signed off. For example adding a whole new circuit to their fuse box wouldn't be allowed. However, it is possible to have your work signed off by the building regulations authority. Even a full rewire could be done this way, obviously it needs to be compliant to be signed off though.

It’s not a separate issue. I’d sacrifice my right to repair if that makes stealing less profitable.

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