> no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole
I think that's a dangerous route to follow. I completely agree with right to repair legislation, but I can also imagine a situation where a company makes ten thousand of something and sells it in a year through a retailer, and then keeps replacement parts available for a long time. Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs could easily make parts cost more than the original item.
I once went to a lecture given by someone from Boeing. He said that when they use an obscure electronic part in their aircraft, and it reaches End of Life, they buy all the stock they can get hold of, store it in a very secure location, and charge a lot for it. The real value of this part is way larger than the original manufacturing costs would imply. It doesn't cost as much as a plane, but if your plane cannot fly without it, then it's pretty darn close.
> Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs could easily make parts cost more than the original item.
Leave delivery costs out for a second; all that you're really arguing for is that instead of warehousing/inventorying old parts, it should be much easier to order individual parts on-demand from local boutique fabrication suppliers. Sure, that costs more per-part than the original (which benefited from the cost reduction of mass production), but as much as the whole? My gut is pretty doubtful on that.
> (...) when they use an obscure electronic part (...) it reaches End of Life, they buy all the stock (...) and charge a lot for it.
But in this case there were other suppliers and they buy all those parts to be exclusive sellers, and for a thing (a plane) that is expected to have a long life.
And still it's much more easy on the client than having a propertary chip with planned obsolescence (print 2,000 pages, or be cycled on-off 200 times, or wait 497 days, or be moved to another table 7 times, whatever happens first) and then fail without any trace on where was the wrongdoing of the costumer.
And then have no third-party suppliers. And then charge 80% of the equipament for just one part that was made to be replaceable.
I'm not talking for how long should HP, in my case, should store replacement parts, and I know that it implies some costs.
What I consider the giant problem is that we complain that the environment is getting polluted but companies are allowed to sell things that will last just some choosen time. That we buy something but we don't own it since nobody knows when or why it will fail. I'm ok with a plastic breaking, with a chip releasing the magic smoke.
I'm mad with a chip stop working for unknown reasons because it was designed to. I'm mad that I (or anybody else) can't fix it because programing it to fail after x pages is even copyrighted and the pokerfaced company says it is to protect me from hackers, from printing bad-looking pages, from spitting some ink in my desk...
When I pay for something I'm giving my money so that the company uses it as they wish. But in return I'm just getting that I don't own, that I can't use as I want, and even is against the law if I try, because I'll be breaking some IP if I make my own chip.
Anyone following the future of Java and how using the same method/signature/name for functions/API calling (whatever the name it takes) knows how it affects us, and can imagine how this can extends to the same reasoning when one company began claiming that "I have rights on the specific sequence of voltages that are applied to each pins of this print head, so anyone else can't make the same thing".
> I'm mad with a chip stop working for unknown reasons because it was designed to.
I understand that you're angry about your HP printer not working, I also agree that the 'protection' measures in printers are ridiculous, especially on ink cartridges. I also agree that planned obsolescence is terrible for the environment, as are business models like those for inkjet printers, where the device is given away for nothing just so they can sell you overpriced ink refills.
I was just pointing out that sometimes it makes sense for replacement parts to be really expensive, even more than the original product, and that enforcing a law that would prohibit such practices would be counterproductive, not to mention that it would be very hard to implement in practice.
For one, how do you even calculate the real value? If you'd have a device that is intended to last a long time (as we would all like), say 20 years you can't just take the amount of dollars you paid originally. You'd have to take into account inflation, changing plant and labour costs etc. This would quickly get messy, and, IMO, would not produce much final benefit.
Having said that, I think we're on the same page, I would also love to criminalise making products that are designed to fail after a certain amount of time.
But this is also super hard to legislate. For example, how do you tell malicious intent from bad design? If my car becomes uneconomical to repair after 100,000 miles because the chassis starts to rust, how do you know whether the manufacturer designed it that way to sell me a new one quicker, or because they made a mistake?
It's easy to tell when they specifically program a microcontroller to stop working after a certain date, and I think that such obviously bad practices should be outlawed. But as a design engineer, I can tell you that it's super easy to design things to fail in much subtler ways, so that it looks like it's a simple mistake. Especially since making your design last longer usually involves adding features like strain relievers on cords etc. This costs money, and you can easily pretend that you're "saving costs for the end consumer".
I think that, after the most basic right to repair legislation is in place, "soft" practices, like encouraging people to buy stuff from companies that have real warranty programs, and which advertise their "built to last" business models would be much more effective than trying to legislate away every aspect of repair.
I love how some outdoor equipment companies (Osprey, MSR, Cumulus) handle this. They sell really expensive stuff, but with excellent after-sales support, and openly encourage people to send products in for repair. Of course this would be very hard to implement in a "tech" environment, where the USP is usually "newer, faster, better". Although, as Bunnie Huang said, with the slow-down of Moore's law, we may slowly be reaching the point of a "heirloom" laptop. I'd love to see that one day.
I don't think it is dangerous. If manufacturers were required to sell parts at price loser than the whole they would have to adapt. Worst case, they can disassemble whole products back to spare parts!
"Providing open access to the technical specifications of consumer electronics would enable criminals to “more easily circumvent security protections, harming not only the product owner but also everyone who shares their network,” and
"On the other end, John Deere argues that access to the company’s proprietary software could be used to bypass emissions controls or safety measures"
Of course they're doing it all for our own safety. It makes me mad when people bring up security through obscurity as a reason for locking down devices. It's such a blatant lie.
Yeah, it's absolutely infuriating, especially when you know how most businesses tend to ignore any and all security measures not forced by law, or widespread customer revolt.
One of the worst arguments imo is that argument about emission control circumvention. It's so disingenuous it makes me almost sick.
Sure, protecting the environment is critically important - at least in my opinion - but it's certainly not this supposed mass of people circumventing emission controls that are the real criminals when it comes to environmental damage.
Businesses seems to proudly, and continually, carry that torch by themselves. As long as not laws or widespread public outcry makes it impossible for them to make business, environmental damage is a absolutely ignored by all but a very few.
> "On the other end, John Deere argues that access to the company’s proprietary software could be used to bypass emissions controls or safety measures"
They do have a point on emission controls, though. Pretty much every person I know that owns a diesel car has either ripped out or plans to rip out the particulate filter. Doesn't matter that it's illegal, doesn't matter that it hurts everyone around. People just don't care.
I'm all for the right to inspect and mod electronics, hardware and software alike, but we also need alternative ways to stop socially irresponsible people.
Do you only know car enthusiasts? Most regular people probably don't even know diesels have an extra particulate filter, yet care enough to actively modify their car to circumvent it; it's hard enough convincing them that their oil needs to be changed more than once a decade. There's no point beyond regular vehicle inspections to go after the 0.01% of the population that are car enthusiasts willing to modify their vehicle and bribe their way past inspections
No, I know regular people - some of which don't know the first thing about car internals, except the concept that if you have a diesel, there are people who will remove some component from it that will lower your total cost of ownership. Two weeks ago, I had a rideshare driver brag to me about how he knows a guy who knows a guy who could do this for him.
I have no first clue how these people get around yearly inspections; I've assumed that particulate filters must not be covered by inspections, though it wouldn't surprise me at all if it turned out people bribe their way through. While the overall levels of corruption in Poland aren't high, the levels of respect for car safety regulations and traffic rules seem pretty low in this country.
Ah Poland, I thought you were talking about the US where a lot of the population is absolutely useless in terms of car mechanics; but yeah on the car forums I frequent tossing the mechanic a Benjamin is the usual tactic to have a tuned car in places that have inspections like California.
I guess it's a symptom of the only people willing to be learn to be a car mechanic and do inspections being part of the same group which generally see emission/safety regulations as being overburdening
The information I read[0] says that a non compliant car emits about as much NOx as 4 complaint cars. I would be shocked if your figure was anywhere remotely close to true.
> What happens in 15 years when that particulate filter wears out and nobody can fix it but the rest of the car is fine?
If it weren't so easy to get away with not having that filter, then what would happen is a secondary market that sells replacement filters for old cars, just like it happens for every other car part.
In my state any vehicle under 25 years old must go in for emission testing every few years or the tabs can't be renewed.
> If it weren't so easy to get away with not having that filter, then what would happen is a secondary market that sells replacement filters for old cars, just like it happens for every other car part.
Many states have gotten away from tailpipe sniffer inspections (more expensive and less convenient) and gone to visual and car ECU inspections (hook up the scanner, if there are no emission related codes and the car reports “ready”, you’re good).
The rideshare driver I mentioned elsewhere in this thread[0] also told me that he knows people who tune engine firmware for diesels, and that they do disable error codes related to their tuning and the missing filter - and that it's important to be aware of this when getting the car repaired for unrelated issues, because the tuning hacks may mask problems in diagnostics and confuse the repair people.
That definitely happens. My prior car was ECU modded by the prior owner to eliminate EGR which was a maintenance hog on the turbo diesels. Many aftermarket ECU flash programs can be undone if diagnostics are required.
And you're spending most of your money fixing all the expensive computers and sensors in your car instead of cleaning dirty fuel injectors and the like.
Maybe, though the total amount I've spent in the last decade across two daily drivers on sensors/computers was $12 for a knock sensor, $9 for a can of MAP sensor cleaner, and $78 for an O2 sensor, so it's far from prohibitive and that computerization of fuel and ignition makes the cars much more efficient, powerful, and easier to start as compared to the carbureted or pure mechanically injected predecessors.
Replacement parts aren't an issue for motor vehicles. In 2013 when I was still driving a 1995 GMC 1500 I could still easily source replacement parts for it, including replacement headlight trim rings, replacement fuel injectors, replacement fuel pumps, replacement throttle bodies, etc. etc.. So that's not an argument that holds any water whatsoever with me.
Worst case in 15 years there will be a few shops around the country who specialize in rebuilding/remanufacturing the part and will sell you a remanufactured part for a set price plus a refundable core fee. This was the case for my throttle body, and for the fuel pressure regulator there were rebuild kits available from Napa.
I'd like to see a class-action lawsuit against the people who rip them out as they're personally making it harder to breathe where I live. Your right to do whatever you want ends at my nose.
This is true of old John Deere equipment too. The point is manufacturers (like John Deere, or Apple) are trying to make this kind of repair impossible.
I'm not advocating for people breaking emission laws. I'm saying you don't prevent that by revoking the right to repair.
"but we also need alternative ways to stop socially irresponsible people"
How about regular car inspections? And if you say they don't work because of bribery, then that is a different problem, which can be solved by inspections of car inspections and fines that do hurt.
But I suppose the real problem is that many people does not really believe, that it is really a problem, so no political support then to stop this behavior.
Deere could make the emission control system separate from everything else instead of tightly integrated to help make that harder but that method would not increase service revenue.
Would love to see that happening. Wonder what tech satellites use to identify atmospheric composition from orbit, and whether it couldn't be used in traffic cams?
yes and no. Most today's CE devices lose 3/4 of their utility when disconnected from their shared medium. People running such mediums usually require some sort of certification from the participant devices, and in case the device has been modified, a re-certification after modifications is usually required.
Even replacing a couple of diodes by a looking-close-on-paper analogue might harm performance for neighboring participants in the communication. I let you imagine what one could do with arbitrary firmware images on a fully unlocked device.
I'd be curious to see what solutions to that the infrastructure people work out when these laws are eventually adopted.
Firstly, one wouldn't have to use the "close on paper" if spare parts, or real specs, were actually available.
Secondly, as analog electronics, where the non-compliance argument might matter, are generally built of devices with 5-20% tolerances. Close enough is usually close enough, if you can get the right specs to start with.
Thirdly, the parts of modern communication networks that can actually be affected by component choice is a miniscule part, of the complete systems. Sincr almost no modern communication device is built with more than a few discreet devices around a special RF chip, you really can only repair it with the same chip, and trivially replaceable components.
I can go on. Yes, there are certifications, sometimes they are important and necessary, but usually they are there for business reasons. To create lock-in, or otherwise increase revenue, or to avoid blame by making it look like you care.
I have yet to see an industry certification which has not clearly put in place for a business reason.
For non-industry certifications, there would be no difference in who does the repair, re-certification would be necessary, and society aldready handles this in areas where it's actually needed for safety reasons.
I'll skip that too. I have a counter argument literally for every your affirmation. Big part of modern CE devices do not fit into your description (or at least, we clearly have in mind very different ones). The more expensive a device, the more complex it generally is, and the higher is the motivation to repair it. I don't think we need the law only to repair car fobs and wireless door keys.
> I have yet to see an industry certification which has not clearly put in place for a business reason.
Since when business reasons became intrinsically bad? Aren't we on HN?
If you design a system where remote users are impacted by other remote users' malicious actions, you've just created a bad system. "Criminals" can still do anything they want to the firmware of a JD, it's just illegal. Nothing actually stops them. But if JD designed a system that prevented local modification from affecting others, then they wouldn't have this problem.
Absolutely agree! Also in that world, all engineers would be smart, given all the necessary information, all equipped with all expensive measurement tools, and be given enough time to do good work (and motivated to do that). After coming back home at 5pm, they would grab the same expensive measurement equipment and start hacking on their devices, putting in the same high quality and knowledge and high conscience.
Illegal? Criminal? Mind you, a noob replacing a diode without knowing better, like I said.
> let you imagine what one could do with arbitrary firmware images on a fully unlocked device.
You could .. avoid paying the manufacturer's fees for re-enabling features that the firmware has disabled? You could refill your ink cartridges?
Bad actors at this layer seem to be quite rare. And the whole reason everyone uses the unlicensed bands is the freedom to transmit (and expectation of recieving) arbitrary signals.
I think our experience is rather limited for the moment to tell (ok, barring refilled cartridges ;-), since bad acting is inhibited by existing mechanisms. (Even with cartridges -- what if your new yellow ink breaks that hidden watermarking that certain people have come to rely on?)
Compliant device receives an accepted designator (certificate), non-compliant device is not expected to have it. This model can easily be broken, unless it is being taken care of somehow in the new model.
Unlicensed bands are a tiny part of the entire aired RF spectrum -- and we didn't even start speaking of devices sharing a wired RF medium.
"For this error to occur, a unique combination of events must take place while the device is processing an atrial-sensed event. If this error occurs, the device will be unable to provide pacing until a ventricular-sensed event (VS) is detected. Once a VS is detected, normal pacing functionality is restored immediately. If a VS is not detected, the device will withhold both atrial and ventricular pacing. In addition, until a VS is detected, the device will be unable to initiate a session with a programmer, initiate a session with a CareLink™ remote monitor, or respond to a magnet. "
Here's what I don't understand - You're taking CO2 out of the atmosphere using renewable energy sources. Thermodynamically, this will take at least as much energy as it took to burn them. You did not mention how energy efficient your energy storage method is right now (50-60% at maturity sounds really optimistic, when plants are only a few %), but, in the short term, while we're still mostly using carbon-based fuels, you're basically diverting renewable energy capacity from consumers. Instead of getting 1kWh of usable energy from a solar panel, they're getting at best 0.5kWh, albeit in a much denser form that's easier to move around for some transportation uses, such as aviation. But, in the short term, you have a net-negative impact.
In the long term, if things keep going where they are going and we end up having to remove carbon from the atmosphere to reverse some effects of global warming, why would we want to convert it into gasoline instead of e.g. just capturing it and storing?
Or is this just a way to generate jet fuel for planes of the future when we'll electrify all of transportation except for flying?
Demonstrated overall conversion efficiencies for CO2 to fuels are already in the 25-50% range, depending on the fuel. We are confident we can get to at least 50% for our process. We will not be taking renewable power away from other uses - in the short term we'll be using marginally useful power (wind at midnight, solar at noon, etc), as we need the power to be low cost, and any time it has higher value uses, it won't be cheap enough. So we are not removing it from other beneficial use. Also, as we scale, we will cause much more solar and wind power to be available as we will be buying a lot of it. In the long term, aviation and shipping are likely to still use liquid fuel, yes.
Thanks for the reply, I get the load balancing part now, I did not think about that.
I was thinking a lot recently about flying and how we could make it work in the (hopefully) greener future. This is definitely a more sensible way of doing it than electric jets, good luck with your company!
One cool thing is that one could build huge power plants in the middle of nowhere, and not worry as much about transmission losses. Oil fields are already typically in the middle of nowhere, and fuel travels and stores easily.
Look at it from an economics standpoint... because of the efficiency loss, energy from this process would always be twice as expensive (or more) than freshly generated renewable electricity. So you'd only want to use it in places where grid electricity is impractical.
Vehicles are the obvious market. It took over a century for electric vehicles to become even remotely practical. But vehicles are necessarily disconnected from the grid.
And even for vehicles, this is only desirable when consumption needs or disconnect times are very high, like aircraft and oceangoing ships. That's because combustion is very wasteful. There are about 33.7 kwh of energy in a gallon of gasoline. A Tesla goes as far on three gallons' worth of energy as a comparable Mercedes goes in ten or more. That's because an electric drivetrain is 3x (or more) more efficient than a combustion one.
So using this process, it could cost 10x as much to operate a fuel-based vehicle as an electric one. You don't want to do that unless you have no other choice.
Probably just the last line? Even still, we can easily build out way more solar than we need so if there remains a need for energy dense carbon fuels then why not?
I'm keeping a close eye on the Golem network (https://golem.network/). However, they mostly concentrate on distributing heavy-weight computing like rendering or ML, not website hosting.
I think that's a dangerous route to follow. I completely agree with right to repair legislation, but I can also imagine a situation where a company makes ten thousand of something and sells it in a year through a retailer, and then keeps replacement parts available for a long time. Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs could easily make parts cost more than the original item.
I once went to a lecture given by someone from Boeing. He said that when they use an obscure electronic part in their aircraft, and it reaches End of Life, they buy all the stock they can get hold of, store it in a very secure location, and charge a lot for it. The real value of this part is way larger than the original manufacturing costs would imply. It doesn't cost as much as a plane, but if your plane cannot fly without it, then it's pretty darn close.