<story><title>An e-waste dumping ground</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/10/05/g-s1-6411/electronics-public-health-waste-ghana-phones-computers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>agentultra</author><text>This is one reason I believe &amp;quot;right to repair&amp;quot; laws are so important. The environmental damage of producing the device is already done. Make it last as long as possible. Reduce, &lt;i&gt;reuse&lt;/i&gt;... then recycle.&lt;p&gt;Re-using devices helps us also &lt;i&gt;reduce&lt;/i&gt; the number of new devices needed... which is what probably scares the corporate oligarchy. If we&amp;#x27;re not buying new phones every couple of years how will the stock prices keep going up?&lt;p&gt;Never the less, the devices we make these days can last a long, long time. I&amp;#x27;ve been repairing and maintaining iPhone 5&amp;#x27;s, 7&amp;#x27;s, and 8&amp;#x27;s that are no where near their end of life. The iPhone has a couple of small electrolytic capacitors which should have a useful life of at least 20 years. And can be replaced! The batteries and screens can replaced. These devices can last much longer than we give them credit for.&lt;p&gt;But tech companies have been struggling to make it illegal or difficult to repair for a long time. I&amp;#x27;ve been seeing photojournalist projects such as this since the late 90s at least (longer perhaps). In North America we had a culture that valued repairing and building things that lasted. It&amp;#x27;s as good a time as any to push for this to return! Support policy makers that are pushing for right-to-repair and environmental protection!&lt;p&gt;And pick up a new hobby if you are able. Support your local tech geeks if you can!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>burningChrome</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt; Re-using devices helps us also reduce the number of new devices needed.&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t just the hardware makers, its also software makers.&lt;p&gt;A ton of the software gets sunset on older versions of Android. Older OnePlus phones, Sony and Google phones are being repurposed for Ubuntu Touch or Sailfish OS because many apps will only work on a specific Android version and up. Same thing with the Google Play store. If you have an older phone that works fine - that&amp;#x27;s great, too bad none of the software can run on it because modern apps are bloated, you need 12GB of RAM on your phone now. Oh sure you can &lt;i&gt;technically&lt;/i&gt; run it, but it won&amp;#x27;t rune &lt;i&gt;well&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;I have three or four Windows phones that still run, but are completely worthless because the software can&amp;#x27;t be updated because the only browser that you could use was Explorer. Now that MS upgraded to Edge, these phones are worthless. Same thing with the Windows apps. I was able to use One Note on my Lumia 950 just as a stand alone note taker, but now it won&amp;#x27;t update because MS says it doesn&amp;#x27;t support that older version and I can&amp;#x27;t update it.&lt;p&gt;I agree 100% hardware makers are one of the reasons, but there&amp;#x27;s a massive issue with the software makers who do the same thing and essentially stop supporting older versions of their software that run fine on these older devices.</text></comment>
<story><title>An e-waste dumping ground</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/10/05/g-s1-6411/electronics-public-health-waste-ghana-phones-computers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>agentultra</author><text>This is one reason I believe &amp;quot;right to repair&amp;quot; laws are so important. The environmental damage of producing the device is already done. Make it last as long as possible. Reduce, &lt;i&gt;reuse&lt;/i&gt;... then recycle.&lt;p&gt;Re-using devices helps us also &lt;i&gt;reduce&lt;/i&gt; the number of new devices needed... which is what probably scares the corporate oligarchy. If we&amp;#x27;re not buying new phones every couple of years how will the stock prices keep going up?&lt;p&gt;Never the less, the devices we make these days can last a long, long time. I&amp;#x27;ve been repairing and maintaining iPhone 5&amp;#x27;s, 7&amp;#x27;s, and 8&amp;#x27;s that are no where near their end of life. The iPhone has a couple of small electrolytic capacitors which should have a useful life of at least 20 years. And can be replaced! The batteries and screens can replaced. These devices can last much longer than we give them credit for.&lt;p&gt;But tech companies have been struggling to make it illegal or difficult to repair for a long time. I&amp;#x27;ve been seeing photojournalist projects such as this since the late 90s at least (longer perhaps). In North America we had a culture that valued repairing and building things that lasted. It&amp;#x27;s as good a time as any to push for this to return! Support policy makers that are pushing for right-to-repair and environmental protection!&lt;p&gt;And pick up a new hobby if you are able. Support your local tech geeks if you can!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>yndoendo</author><text>Refurbish and repairing viable electronics does not help keep Apple&amp;#x27;s, Google&amp;#x27;s or any manufacturer&amp;#x27;s stock high. Stock spikes high when the news organizations can talk about all the latest hardware and how sales doing well. Why would those companies CEOs want to hurt their golden package before exiting the industry?&lt;p&gt;One way to start penetrating right-to-repair would be to force device unlocking after ownership, device payed off, and end-of-life classification by the manufacture.&lt;p&gt;Next step would be for the manufacturers to require publishing open documents for 3rd party support without having to sign a NDA.&lt;p&gt;Both of those require reverse engineering. With camera technology being so complex, this is the feature that limits alternative OS usage with continual security updates after the manufactures give up.&lt;p&gt;Maybe rephrasing right-to-repair as &amp;quot;consumer protection&amp;quot; could help push it through better with less tech savvy consumers.</text></comment>