Right To Repair

We go through a lot of equipment in our practices and industry. I think most of us try to hold onto our gear as long as possible because it becomes such an important part of our workflow. We're excited to upgrade, but there is integration time, environmental costs, and actual costs to upgrading equipment. The choice to upgrade should be ours, and how we upgrade should also be up to us.

In tech, this idea is known as the Right To Repair movement. It rejects the idea of built in obsolescence, of the inability to swap out parts as needed, and affirms that consumers have the right to repair their own equipment should they want to, but that it is fundamentally up to us. The farming community in the US recently won a court case arguing this.

Many of the products we buy have a built in shelf life, and repair costs incentivize upgrading, BUT there are a small number of tech companies making products that allow end-user repairability, and in a way that isn't too hard!

Enter the Framework laptop. I recently purchased one as a DIY kit for VP's education department. You pick your parts, they get shipped to you, and you put it together. I was surprised to find though that it came mostly built! I was a little disappointed, TBH. We're moving away from Apple products in our production facilities in favour of custom built PC's that are cheaper, repairable, and run all the same software (mostly) as Macs.

Highly recommended. Looking forward to moving away from Apple products. If you want to take on repairing your own device, iFixit is a great place to start.

Should you want to chat about this further, or if you have any questions, reach out to us at production@videopool.org.