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Right to repair has no cannier, more dedicated adversary than Apple, a company whose most innovative work is dreaming up new ways to sneakily sabotage electronics repair while claiming to be a caring environmental steward, a lie that covers up the mountains of e-waste that Apple dooms our descendants to wade through.
I mean, there we go. For anyone wondering. Capitalism can’t be green.
edit: thanks for pointing out that the article said it but doesn’t back it up, leaving my comment up regardless
Except Tim Cook never said that and the source linked to in this article even shows that he didn’t say that.
I mean they could instead realise the market for replacement parts…
I get what you’re saying, but what is the return on those, though? Does it compare to the returns selling a phone? I mean, it could be better returns selling parts, but companies as big as Apple tend to get moribund in their view of the revenue stream. The current model works, so why mess with it?
It can - they may produce long-living tank-solid devices and sell for the price that would make it worth remaining in business.
We can lease them for a fixed amount of time, which would be cheaper. Or we can buy them, but much more expensive. Or, as it already often happens, we can buy them with some contract with a mobile operator attached.
There are lots of business models.
Hate to sound statist, but if you somehow account for externalities here, these can become more common.
Ah, also they may consider producing upgradeable modular things, so that you wouldn’t have to change or recycle the box or the touchscreen, but you could replace the motherboard or the antenna, which are goods that can be sold …
Situation would be better with better school education informing children what a fucking portable computer is and why it’s not cool to buy a new one every two years and why these companies are bullshit.
Now, coming to the bullshit part - the incentive to buy a new thing every could become less if patent and IP laws were relaxed to some Wild West level. There would be plenty of companies and over time those with the business models I describe would gain reputation and faithful customer base, and eventually press out bullshitters.
Its all part of the newest trend, Techno Feudalism. Look it up. The elite are still trying to implement the subscription model wherever possible.
Maybe updated because it currently cites this article about a shareholder letter. https://www.inverse.com/article/52189-tim-cook-says-apple-faces-2-key-problems-in-surprising-shareholder-letter
Its implication right after this about them using the repair shop to boost sales however is unsupported speculation. A reasonable guess based on what we see from people like Rossman but still unsupported by this piece.