<story><title>The FTC Votes Unanimously to Enforce Right to Repair</title><url>https://www.wired.com/story/ftc-votes-to-enforce-right-to-repair/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gchamonlive</author><text>&amp;gt; Short of warranty stickers, what are Microsoft to do?&lt;p&gt;Make opening their products accessible so that people can do it without damaging what they own. PCs are like that. Car parts have no such warranty stickers (that I am aware of).&lt;p&gt;Stickers are much more cultural than actually preventing damage. Furthermore, you can have stickers that decay over time and void your warranty without you even touching them (those nefarious apple humidity stickers for instance). It is entertaining to see Steve from gamer&amp;#x27;s nexus bashing warranty stickers at every opportunity.</text></item><item><author>AussieWog93</author><text>&amp;gt;I am absolutely going to report Microsoft’s Xbox to the FTC for their egregious Magnuson-Moss violations. Maybe that stupid sticker will finally disappear&lt;p&gt;I sell video games and consoles for a living, and probably repair about 20-30 of them each month.&lt;p&gt;Based on my experience, the reasons that Microsoft don&amp;#x27;t want you poking around in your Xbox when it&amp;#x27;s under warranty are completely valid.&lt;p&gt;For any console that hasn&amp;#x27;t been tampered with, the fault is almost always one of only two or three things that can be diagnosed nearly instantly and repaired in around 15-30 minutes with a near-100% success rate.&lt;p&gt;For a console that has been tampered with by an end-user, suddenly the list of things that could have gone wrong multiplies by an order of magnitude.  The diagnostic procedure goes from a simple 1:1 mapping of symptom to fix to a broad tree of debugging steps.  The total process can easily take multiple hours and end up nowhere, depending on how many YouTube videos and Reddit threads the previous owner followed blindly.&lt;p&gt;Of course, the consumer is not going to admit that they&amp;#x27;re an idiot who transformed their console from a simple fix to something that&amp;#x27;s beyond economic repair, so either Microsoft has to provide them with a brand new machine or they will face legal action&amp;#x2F;scathing reviews online.&lt;p&gt;Short of warranty stickers, what are Microsoft to do?</text></item><item><author>elliekelly</author><text>See the section titled “What the Magnuson-Moss Act Does Not Require” of the FTC’s “Businessperson’s Guide to Federal Warranty Law”[1] to understand why this is not even &lt;i&gt;close&lt;/i&gt; to “enforcing right to repair”. Aside from the fact that the FTC can’t enforce a right to repair law that doesn’t exist, the promise to enforce the Magnuson-Moss Act doesn’t even scratch the surface of what right to repair aims to accomplish. For example, farmers who have famously campaigned for right to repair for years (decades?) aren’t covered by the Act because their equipment is for commercial, not consumer, use.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Even though I think it’s beyond ridiculous to paint this as “right to repair” I am &lt;i&gt;absolutely&lt;/i&gt; going to report Microsoft’s Xbox to the FTC for their egregious Magnuson-Moss violations. Maybe that stupid sticker will finally disappear.&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ftc.gov&amp;#x2F;tips-advice&amp;#x2F;business-center&amp;#x2F;guidance&amp;#x2F;businesspersons-guide-federal-warranty-law&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ftc.gov&amp;#x2F;tips-advice&amp;#x2F;business-center&amp;#x2F;guidance&amp;#x2F;bus...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dint</author><text>Further, provide documentation and support for, and sell spare parts to, users who want to fix their consoles (at least, in the case of procedures that a user could reasonably perform)&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m a home bicycle mechanic, and all manufacturers of bike components do this.</text></comment>
<story><title>The FTC Votes Unanimously to Enforce Right to Repair</title><url>https://www.wired.com/story/ftc-votes-to-enforce-right-to-repair/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gchamonlive</author><text>&amp;gt; Short of warranty stickers, what are Microsoft to do?&lt;p&gt;Make opening their products accessible so that people can do it without damaging what they own. PCs are like that. Car parts have no such warranty stickers (that I am aware of).&lt;p&gt;Stickers are much more cultural than actually preventing damage. Furthermore, you can have stickers that decay over time and void your warranty without you even touching them (those nefarious apple humidity stickers for instance). It is entertaining to see Steve from gamer&amp;#x27;s nexus bashing warranty stickers at every opportunity.</text></item><item><author>AussieWog93</author><text>&amp;gt;I am absolutely going to report Microsoft’s Xbox to the FTC for their egregious Magnuson-Moss violations. Maybe that stupid sticker will finally disappear&lt;p&gt;I sell video games and consoles for a living, and probably repair about 20-30 of them each month.&lt;p&gt;Based on my experience, the reasons that Microsoft don&amp;#x27;t want you poking around in your Xbox when it&amp;#x27;s under warranty are completely valid.&lt;p&gt;For any console that hasn&amp;#x27;t been tampered with, the fault is almost always one of only two or three things that can be diagnosed nearly instantly and repaired in around 15-30 minutes with a near-100% success rate.&lt;p&gt;For a console that has been tampered with by an end-user, suddenly the list of things that could have gone wrong multiplies by an order of magnitude.  The diagnostic procedure goes from a simple 1:1 mapping of symptom to fix to a broad tree of debugging steps.  The total process can easily take multiple hours and end up nowhere, depending on how many YouTube videos and Reddit threads the previous owner followed blindly.&lt;p&gt;Of course, the consumer is not going to admit that they&amp;#x27;re an idiot who transformed their console from a simple fix to something that&amp;#x27;s beyond economic repair, so either Microsoft has to provide them with a brand new machine or they will face legal action&amp;#x2F;scathing reviews online.&lt;p&gt;Short of warranty stickers, what are Microsoft to do?</text></item><item><author>elliekelly</author><text>See the section titled “What the Magnuson-Moss Act Does Not Require” of the FTC’s “Businessperson’s Guide to Federal Warranty Law”[1] to understand why this is not even &lt;i&gt;close&lt;/i&gt; to “enforcing right to repair”. Aside from the fact that the FTC can’t enforce a right to repair law that doesn’t exist, the promise to enforce the Magnuson-Moss Act doesn’t even scratch the surface of what right to repair aims to accomplish. For example, farmers who have famously campaigned for right to repair for years (decades?) aren’t covered by the Act because their equipment is for commercial, not consumer, use.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Even though I think it’s beyond ridiculous to paint this as “right to repair” I am &lt;i&gt;absolutely&lt;/i&gt; going to report Microsoft’s Xbox to the FTC for their egregious Magnuson-Moss violations. Maybe that stupid sticker will finally disappear.&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ftc.gov&amp;#x2F;tips-advice&amp;#x2F;business-center&amp;#x2F;guidance&amp;#x2F;businesspersons-guide-federal-warranty-law&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ftc.gov&amp;#x2F;tips-advice&amp;#x2F;business-center&amp;#x2F;guidance&amp;#x2F;bus...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>AussieWog93</author><text>Fair point with the car example.
I guess Microsoft could just suck it up and refuse to repair consoles under warranty if the user FUBARs them through bad repairs.  They wouldn&amp;#x27;t be happy, but car people seem to be able to live with it.</text></comment>