A nice watch indeed...Thanks for it.
One more read -
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...apple-wage-war-on-gadget-right-to-repair-laws
So, basically as if non-removable battery, hard to replace display, hard to access components, omitting 3.5mm jack, locked bootloader were not enough for these manufacturers, they have now got new ways to coerce people to buy new phones. Sadly, the computer systems which were more or less upgradeable are going the same route.
As the phones got powerful thanks to the ARM arch, I used to think in my college times in 2017 that maybe in future they would be equipped with a display output port with the ability to easily hook input output devices like keyboard,mouse etc. but alas here we are, even the laptops except the professional ranges are now built like consumer disposables.
Not just hardware, on the software part, the OS are also increasingly being designed with bloatware which are gonna make any system slow over a period of time.
Look at the fate of Windows 10 where users don't have control over as simple thing as updates which very often break things, install adware, change user preferences, etc. all the while Microsoft claims that it's empowering users which in actual is taking control of system away from users.
Even Android, just changing the UI every now and then which is most of the time done just for the sake of changing and marketing the next version as revolutionary.
In the end, the pertinent question is who is going to stop these practices?
a. Consumers - Most of them don't even know about these practices and unfortunately they don't wanna know as they don't care which is a win-win situation for these companies.
b. Companies - No expectations from them. Even if there are some initiatives like Samsung Upcycling, they are going to be scuttled by top management as they go against their profitability.
iFixit was Samsung's upcycling partner in 2017 but says Samsung never delivered.
arstechnica.com
c. Governments - Yeah. We can hope as it's the governments that have to mediate when consumers as a group are not powerful to force companies to alter their practices..
The recent law which forces manufacturers to clearly mention the repairability scores of their devices in France is one such example.
The EU law, which is still in process, mandating universal power supplies for different devices is another welcoming step.
More than 10 years after first announcing a common charger for phones, internal documents reveal the European Commission mulls changes to unify power supply for many appliances
netzpolitik.org
But, we need more laws worldwide that make it mandatory on the part of these companies to design devices that are easily repairable, use parts and connecting interfaces that are not proprietary, release
schematics to aid repairs by third parties, and so on.