I’ve been stock-piling electronics that either people throw away, or things I bought 2nd-hand only to find they are broken.
Looks like the right to repair law is in very slow motion. Not yet enacted be the European Commission. And once it is, member states have like 2 years to actually enact it in their law. Probably even more time before consumers begin to see results.
(edit) I think some US states were the first to enact right to repair laws. So some consumers could perhaps pretend to be from one of those states to demand things like service manuals. But parts and repair is likely more out of reach ATM.
Right to repair means the parts can’t be drm’d to legally prevent you from repair, not that all out of warranty products must be cheap to repair.
Again, not part of right to repair. The parts are expensive because you are buying a single out of production Dcd. The projector manufacturer doesn’t control those costs. The Dcd isn’t drm’d. It’s not covered by right to repair.
Right to repair is about DRM. The reason some repairs are unnecessarily expensive is because the manufacturer prevents repairs using DRM. A vacuum manufacturer will not be required to sell you cheap parts. They will only be unable to stop you from repairing it yourself.
You may be confusing US variations of right to repair, or perhaps you are just judging by the “right to repair” title. US states are ahead of the EU and have different motivations. The EU goes much further than mere new design requirements. It is not doing this to be nice to consumers. It’s part of the “green transition”. If parts prices are priced out of the market, it defeats the purpose of the right to repair. The EU is actively trying to reduce unsustainable consumption of new products and prevention of e-waste.
Here is a jan.2022 clip from the EU Parliament briefing:
The Right to Repair is not limited to DRM issues. From the briefing:
I have yet to see a DRMd washing machine.
Of course manufactures can control the costs by shifting the cost onto the purchase price. If they must offer reasonably priced spare parts for ten years, then they might have to factor that cost into the sales pricing. And fair enough, because consumers should be discouraged from buying new stuff anyway.
That’s interesting! But none of it covers making manufacturers out of warranty warranty parts cheap. Everything in those paragraphs are directed towards future products. Some aren’t even required but “urge”, which means nothing.
It has not been established on when the law will take effect. If it takes effect the day before the last sale of a dishwasher, then they could have a ten year obligation starting instantly. Or not. Those points have not been pinned down in anything I’ve seen. This law has been discussed in the EU for the past 10 years now. It could be retroactive, if lawmakers decide to do that. If the last dishwasher was sold 5 years ago, they could have a sudden obligation to provide parts for the next 5 years forward.
The wording of the quotes above only say future designs. They say nothing about past products. It would be an extremely radical change in the law system to enact a retroactive law.
Of course when talking about designs, that’s about the future. After a design has been implemented, it’s too late. You can change a past design but it would only be for a future production because a design has already served its purpose after implementation. Apart from that, you would need a time machine.
But the right to repair in the EU is not just about designs. Design is only a small part of it. If a dishwasher were to end production 1 year before the right to repair law is enacted, that last dishwasher is already under a statutory warranty for another year, and likely under a commercial warranty for a year or three more. So spare parts would already be in production just to satisfy warranty obligations. There would be nothing radical about extending that since it would not have stopped production anyway. It would be foolish not to take that opportunity. And with manuals… who loses manuals? Consumers do, but not likely producers. Mandating that literature be made available for old appliances would be reasonable, at least in electronic form. The EU would be foolish not to make literature disclosure retroactive. Some EU countries will even enact retroactive taxation. If they will do that, anything is possible.
Sorry, I thought we were talking about the broken stuff you bought under the assumption the manufacturers would retroactively be forced to sell cheap replacement parts.