 Talk about the right to repair. There's a bunch of laws being proposed at the state level. There is the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, which is responsible for a lot of the antitrust issues, a lot of regulation of business goes through the FTC, has, as recommended to Congress, that Congress do something about these issues related to the right to repair. It is an issue that I think a lot of people in tech, a lot of producers of things like the iPhone, but also Caterpillar, a lot of auto manufacturers. So it's tech, auto manufacturers, equipment manufacturers. There's quite a large segment of the US economy that relates to this issue of repair. And what does right to repair relate to? So, for example, it used to be, I think Apple recently changed the rule, but it used to be that if you took an Apple product and you opened it up and did certain things to it, you would void the warranty. Apple only provides Apple-certified parts, Apple-certified codes, Apple-certified instructions to Apple-certified repair shops. So if you want to repair your Mac, you can just take it to anybody. You can just take it to any person. And again, I think Apple might have changed this recently, but this is the principle. So I'm just using Apple as an example. You can just take it to anybody and they, I don't know, have an inventory of Apple parts or contact Apple and ask to have the parts and know it and get the specs. And no, Apple just won't give it to them. Apple will only sell to the people that they certified as legit replacement parts. So you can, like I took my IWatch, my Apple Watch, not IWatch, my Apple Watch, the screen broke. And I took it to a place here, another place here had an Apple-certified, whatever sign on it, I don't know where they got it, they might have bought it in eBay or something. I don't know, but they had it there. And I said, you know, you're getting Apple content materials and everything, oh yeah, no, I was completely compatible, everything's fine, everything's great. So they replaced the glass on the phone. And I got it back and like the phone, I mean the watch, and the watch was like crap. Battery life was 25% of what it used to be. Some of the features didn't work. It just didn't work right. So I went back and I said, you know, what the hell? He said, no, no, this is legit. And I said, it can't be legit. Is this Apple? He said, well, it's not Apple. It's a company from China, but it's the same thing. I said, but it doesn't work. Well, yes, I mean, it has a little bit of problems. So you can, so Apple and these companies can't stop you from trying to repair the thing, but for example, you wanna repair your Caterpillar tractor. Well, Caterpillar is not gonna sell parts to Caterpillar tractors, except to Caterpillar authorized repairmen. And they're not that many of them. So they're the only ones who can repair parts and it used to be the same for automobiles. You had to go, you know, there was a big push to try to get you to go to the dealer because only the dealer could sell you Toyota parts or GM parts or whatever. Everybody else that you got out of market parts and whether they fit or when they didn't, you weren't never sure. And then of course, there is the issue of warranty, although there is a law that says that a company cannot, it's a 40 year old law that says that a company cannot restrict the warranty to only getting fixed with them or only getting their parts, and otherwise you lose the warranty. So there's a lot of regulation, but not enough according to those who want a right to repair. So the idea is this, customers are inconvenienced by the fact that they have to only be able to use repair shops that are authorized and permitted by the manufacturer. They can just go to any repair shop they want, they can just go anywhere. They have to use the authorized dealers, if you will. That means there are fewer in a particular city, any particular town, there are fewer people doing repairs for the particular product, which means there's less competition, which means prices are higher. These people also, their repair places are also buying original parts, original parts tend to be more expensive. They also often have to use particular tools. Regular tools might not be sufficient, they might even need guidelines on how to do it. Other repair shops just can't do it. And if they do do it, the likelihood that their repair socks is very, very high. So consumers are complaining that, wait a minute, why can't we have real competition in repair? Why can't we go out there and basically get our iPhones repaired anywhere? Why can't we go out there and do what we want? I mean, I bought the iPhone, it's mine. Why are you telling me now that it's mine, that it's my product, I have a property right over this? Why are you telling me, for example, that I have to go to an Apple store or I have to go to an Apple certified repair place? I want to take it to my local electronics guy. We have a long-term relationship, he gives me a good price, why can't I just do that? And so a lot of consumers are complaining because they're saying, wait a minute, there's a property right here, this is mine. Apple's responses, again, I'm picking an Apple, I don't know if this is related to Apple, but we'll just assume that this is an Apple thing. Apple response would be, well, you can take it anyway. You're just gonna lose your warranty or you're not gonna get our parts and you're not gonna get, we're not gonna help these other places repair the phone and the consumers are saying, well, that's not fair. Wait a minute, that's unfair. It's unfair competition. It's you're limiting my access to markets and you're taking away my ability. Now, Apple also says, trade organizations that represent people who have this also say, look, we don't want just anybody repairing our products because these are complicated products, complex products, and they're likely that these people will break something, will screw it up as high and we don't want to be associated with them, we have a reputation to uphold. And on top of that, when we certify somebody to fix your product, we wanna make sure that they're not going to, once they're in your product, then I'm gonna steal your information. And also, because when we certify somebody, we have to give them all kinds of information about how to repair, then that means that they have trade secrets and we don't want everybody to have our trade secrets, right? So we have a vested interest in protecting you, the customer, from shoddy work, so we certify only good repair people. That's on the one hand. And we also wanna protect our own trade secrets and we wanna protect, by the way, your data because they will have access to your iPhone and if we give them too many tools, they'll be able to crack it and go in and steal your data. And this is true of Caterpillar, that is worried that third-party repair people won't repair it, right? Caterpillar will get a bad reputation. It'll destroy the reputation they have for excellent product, but wait a minute, people say, but, but, but, but, but, but, but. So you've got two claims. You've got the customer saying, but wait a minute, I want convenience and I wanna be able to repair this to the level that I get it back and isn't that my right to get my stuff repaired wherever I want to repair it? And Apple's saying, well, maybe you have that right, but there were these other considerations, there's privacy, there's our reputation, there's our trade secrets. And the question is, well, how do you balance these things? How do you make a decision? Who is more important? By what standard do you determine what's right and what's wrong here? Who do you believe? You know, how do you weigh the arguments? Well, I'll give you some examples. The FCC basically clearly comes out on the side of consumers. And not just on the side of consumers, but it also comes down on the side of repair shops that have not been certified. And the reason they come out on the side of consumers and repair shops that have not been certified is that they have an interest in competition and consumer protection. And that to them trumps anything else. But of course, it goes beyond that because the FTC, its government, and we have a Biden, a leftist administration right now, so there are other things that come into the equation. So for example, here's a paragraph from the FTC report on this. He says, they write, Furthermore, the burden of repair restrictions may fall more heavily on communities of color and lower income communities. Many black-owned small businesses are in repair and maintenance industries. And difficulties facing small businesses can disproportionately affect small businesses owned by people of color. The fact has not been lost on supporters of prior right-to-repair legislation who have highlighted the impact repair restrictions have on repair shops that are independent and owned by entrepreneurs from underserved communities. Repair restrictions on some products, such as smartphones, also may place a greater financial burden on communities of color and lower income Americans. According to the Pew Research, black and Hispanic Americans are about twice as likely as white Americans that have smartphones, but no broadband access at home, so they're very dependent on the smartphone. Similarly, low-income Americans are more likely to be smartphone dependent. Smartphone dependent. We're now smartphone dependent. This smartphone dependency makes repair restrictions on smartphones more likely to affect these communities adversely. Like, if one of you who's not smartphone dependent, I don't know how many of you are smartphone dependent, but if you're not smartphone dependent and you can go home and you can use the computer, you have access to other forms of internet access. But if you're smartphone dependent, that's your only accent. And if it breaks, oh my God, life has ended because you can't access the internet. So where do we put the considerations of altruism, for example? So this is pure altruism, right? I mean, it's racist and all kinds of other stuff, but it's pure altruism. There are people out there that need, altruism is when you make an argument based on need, there are people out there who need to have their iPhones repaired. They need to have it repaired quickly. And the people who own repair shops tend to be people who need the business. And you're hurting them by not providing them the business. And you know, they go on and say, the pandemic has made this worse because we now have a huge shortage of new laptops. We need laptops. And so part of the solution to that shortage of laptops might be that we, oops, what happened to this document? It didn't actually, it didn't actually copy out the whole, oh, there it is, okay. People need laptops on the solution to laptop, since we fix old ones and then we can get them. So there's a need to have them fixed. There's a shortage of semiconductors now, so we gotta fix them. Now, this goes back a long time, 40 years ago, there was a law called Magneson Moss Warranty Act, which says that you can't restrict warranties to only repairs by your people and so on. I don't know exactly how that applies to like Apple that has restricted it, but this has been around for a long time. And again, the question is, how do you balance all these considerations? What's the determinant? Is this kind of a utility function? Well, whose utility do you value consumers more than manufacturers, manufacturers, more than consumers? Because production is the most important thing. You know, we're objectivists, we value production, we value businessmen, so therefore, they're the most important ones. So it just goes on and on. And then, you know, the manufacturers say, but look, you can use it anyway. So FCC says, well, wait a minute, that's not true. The fact is that in order for a repair shop to be to repair anything, they have to be able to get parts from the manufacturer. They have to get schematics from the manufacturer. They sometimes have to get codes from the manufacturer to get into the chip or to replace the chip or to fix the chip or whatever. They have to get tools. Some manufacturers, you know, you need specific tools that only the manufacturer can provide in order to fix the thing. So again, so the manufacturers, by not providing these things, are hampering the ability of these other people to fix whatever needs fixing. They've hampered their livelihood. So how do you decide on an issue like this? What is the principle? Do we just weigh pluses and minuses? You don't put a big whiteboard. This is the pluses of the law, these are the minuses of the law, and then we add it up and we look at what outweighs the other. What is the principle that should guide us, at least? Me, I don't know about you guys, in deciding about an idea like the way to repair. And in politics, there really is only one criteria, one standard, and that is rights. In this context, property rights, individual rights, it's not who's perceived to be getting hurt, who is suffering more, who feels deprived. It's not about the benefits and the losses, the economic consequences, the competitive landscape, nothing, none of that. It's about rights. Now, how does rights apply here? Well, do I have a right to get my stuff fixed anywhere that I want? Yes. Nobody can borrow me from going to my local electronic store and handing them the product and saying, fix this. So I have a right, it's my property. But under those conditions, the people who gave me the warranty have every right in the world to exclude certain actions that I take from the warranty. They can tell me, yes, you have a right to go into any store that you want, but we will only provide you a warranty if you get it fixed in authorized places. That's their right. And we have a contract, a warranty is a contract. And the fine print is very clear about these things. And then, and this is what, it really gets mind boggling to me in terms of the rights violation. So I have a right to go into the repair shop and give them the phone. But then the question is, did that repair shop have a right to demand from Apple, to demand from whoever the manufacturer is, Caterpillar, whoever, the parts, the schematics, the codes, the chips, whatever it is, the tools, whatever it is to, I mean, by what? What standard do they have a right? They take a gun out and force them to do it? So the repair shop has no right to demand that the manufacturer provide all of that. And I have no right to demand from Apple that they provide all of that. If I'm unhappy with the terms and conditions under which Apple facilitates repair of their products, I can buy a different product. But how can I have a right to dictate to Apple, to dictate a private business, to dictate to a free private business that as property rights over its intellectual property, its business model, its organization, its product, its parts, how can I dictate to them who they can or cannot sell that to? I can't. So this whole approach to law, this utilitarian approach is balancing the pluses and the minuses, looking at the economic effects, looking at who's harmed and who's not and who benefits and who suffers. And all of that is an anti-rights approach. And therefore any immoral approach to legislation. It's a violation of the fundamental role of government, which is to protect our rights, not to violate them. And it's not the case that, well, manufacturers have rights and consumers have rights and we have to balance the rights. No, there's only rights do not conflict. Rights are not balanced. One has to clearly see where the rights lie. And there's no way that it can be appropriate to say that a manufacturer, Caterpillar, let's say, has to provide parts to anybody that demands them. Well, that is willing to pay for them. Where does that come from? That's force, that's coercion. Caterpillar should be allowed to sell to whoever it wants to sell and not sell to whoever doesn't want to sell. So the only standard is rights and you don't have a right to do whatever the hell you want to do. You just don't. If doing whatever the hell you want to do involves violating somebody else's rights, you don't have a right to do that. You can't have a right to do that. Rights do not conflict, rights are, you have a right to act, but you cannot use that action to impose an obligation on somebody else. You cannot have a right to other people's stuff. Even if you pay for it. Apple could decide tomorrow. Let's make it more controversial. YouTube could decide tomorrow, not to trade with me, to borrow me from their platform. Okay, they have every right in the world to do that. It might not be rational. It might not be moral. It might not be legitimate. It might be stupid of them or whatever, but they certainly have a right to do it. Apple has a right to sell products to whoever it wants. And certainly when it comes to repair, when Apple has a stake in how a product of theirs is repaired, or Caterpillar has a stake in how their product is repaired, well, of course they have an interest in who does the repairing and who doesn't. And the more complex the product, the more important that becomes. Now, I'm not saying it's good business practices. I don't know what the right business practice is. That's the beauty of markets. Let's check them out. Let's test them out so we can have companies that let people repair their stuff anyway, and they'll provide the parts anyway, and we can have companies that don't, and we'll see, we'll see how it goes. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. 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