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Ownership isn't quite what it used to be. Many a company, having sold you an physical object, would like you to keep on paying in order to keep using it. When your iPhone stops working, Apple makes it nearly impossible to get it fixed by anyone but Apple. John Deere puts firmware in its tractors that won't let farmers repair them until John Deere gets paid again. Peloton and Cricut both recently tried to strong-arm their customers into signing up for subscription services by essentially threatening to brick their devices. As with e-books, you may think you're buying something, but sometimes you're actually just renting it.
Makers have long argued that you should have the right to repair what you buy. Companies like Microsoft and Apple have lobbied hard against right-to-repair laws in more than two dozen states. They argue that letting third parties fix tech products would lead to devaluation of their intellectual property, fraud, weakened consumer safety...
Enter noted tech expert...Joe Biden?
The chief executive is about to order the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to draft some new right-to-repair rules. The Biden Administration apparently sees this cause as both just and a political winner. A Biden advisor said the new rules are meant to spur “greater competition in the economy, in service of lower prices for American families and higher wages for American workers."
If the FTC makes the rules broad enough, you probably won't have to pay as much to get your MacBook fixed, and some extremely rich companies will just have to...
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