Back in the early days of the Internet, as the world wide web was beginning to take shape and before it was as ubiquitous as it is today, there was an optimism that pervaded tech circles. The general mood was that this rising tech wave would make us all freer, smarter, and happier.
There were catch phrases like “information wants to be free,” associated with hacker conferences of the 1980s and 1990s. The beacon of all things tech, Wired magazine, each month surprised and tantalized readers with stories of nascent technological breakthroughs and novel inventions and uses for the new tech.
Looking back from the perspective of the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, it all seems a bit … cute. Naïve, even. A kind of utopian dream of how technology would set us all free, whatever that meant.
Fast forward to today and that dream seems to have devolved into a still unfolding nightmare. With all we’ve learned and now know about how tech has been used and abused — from the downsides of social media use to privacy violations mass surveillance — there is a growing disillusionment with the direction of technological evolution.
One bright spot has been the growing right-to-repair movement. What is it?
The movement argues for the legal right of owners of electronic equipment, automobiles, and other devices to modify and repair the products they own. The chief obstacle facing the movement has largely been manufacturers themselves, perhaps the most notable being Apple. They do this by using proprietary parts and repair tools, making it difficult if not impossible for anybody but Apple to open their devices and fix or change parts. Proponents of right-to-repair insist that such practices cost consumers more and add to the growing stream of electronic waste because manufacturers would prefer consumers to buy new rather than repair and keep using what they already own.
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
The movement has had some success at the individual state level. Massachusetts, for instance, passed the first automotive right to repair bill in 2012. More recently, in 2023, California passed the Right to Repair Act, guaranteeing access to parts, tools, and manuals so people can repair their electronic devices if they wish to do so. And Colorado passed two bills in 2023 and 2024 for right to repair of electronic devices as well as farm equipment, the latter aimed at John Deere, which had long fought any such measures.
When viewed with a cold-eyed realism, the battle is ultimately over power and control; who has it, who doesn’t, and what a fair and equitable distribution of power and control should ultimately look like. And surely there are ways to take into account legitimate concerns manufacturers have about intellectual property and trade secrets — as well as consumers’ rights to not be the subject of monopolistic practices that seek to maximize revenue at the expense of consumer choice.
Small victories like the ones won by right-to-repair advocates are a good sign that people are fighting the right battle at the right time. If we want to build a world that is closer to that original optimistic vision of yesterday, in the nascent days of the Internet, then this is a good and necessary first step toward wrenching back some individual control.
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