Technology

I wonder why the US doesn’t have this law.

Hmmmm. 🤔

I wonder if this will mean screwed split-half washing machine drums, for example.

One of the most common failure points in washing machines is the drum bearing. Nowadays almost all makes are using drums where the halves of the drum are plastic, welded together, where they used to be screwed together. The welds prevent opening the drum, and make bearing replacement basically impossible. The makes will sell you a replacement of the whole assembly, but it will often cost like 2/3 of a new machine. This means that a bearing failure often results in chucking a machine that used to be repaired for a cost under a 100 € if done professionally, or tens if DIY.

I imagine the "whole assembly" concept will be used as one of the loopholes.

Great in theory until companies start charging 80% of the product price for a single spare part so you'd rather buy a new product than try to repair your existing one.

Good start I guess but missing plenty of things that others have already pointed out. This list only covers like half of devices in a household. Also, what is stopping companies from pricing replacement parts way out of proportion because of this? Even more than they already do now to prevent repairs

WHY CAN'T WE GET THIS IN AMERICA I FUCKING HATE OUR POLITICIANS

But not games...

So what exactly does this entail? Is Bosch going to make their dishwashers less awful to repair? Or are they going to say "well it's possible to repair it, and it's not glued shut like a phone, so we're good."

can we have this in America? Answer: No! in fact in America everything popular in other countries is banned unless it's used in federal buildings because "security concerns". yeah... sure... so very worried about "national security" that security risks can only be used in government buildings and not in private homes... yeah sure... that's secure.

Also, more and more products will let you know until when they guarantee production of spare parts (it's also driven by regulation of course).

wake me up when German cars are on the list. Until then I'll regard this as purely performative and will be overturned in some months.

Also: making repairable the very cell phones on which they require constant monitoring of private communications reeks of hypocrisy.

Yes I'm skeptical about all this.

If only they could have done this with games.

Pleeeeeeeease, European companies sell your products that comply with this in Australia!