Steve Wozniak has issued an outspoken call to arms with regard to the “right to repair” your own technological appliances, including those from Apple.
Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple back in 1976 with Steve Jobs, has issued a heartfelt message about the importance of the right to repair your own electronics, mentioning how doing so in childhood helped to lead him on his influential career path in the technology industry.
The concept of a “right to repair” generally dictates that as far as possible, consumers should be able to fix the products they buy rather than having to replace them or being obliged to send them back to the manufacturer for official repairs (potentially at some expense). However, many manufacturers — with Apple chief among them — have made this seemingly simple task all but impossible due to selling hermetically sealed units that can’t be opened with, say, a standard screwdriver.
In a nine-minute video published to Cameo as a response to YouTuber Louis Rossman, Steve Wozniak spoke passionately in favour of this proposed consumer right, even going so far as to bluntly say “We wouldn’t have had an Apple had I not grown up in a very open technology world”. He explains that as a child he learned how devices worked by building them and modifying them himself, a gift of insight that he considers even more valuable than the potential money saved by making repairs yourself.
So why does Woz believe that major corporations, including Apple, have made it harder and harder for customers to fix their own goods? Simply put: “I believe that companies inhibit it because it gives the companies power, control over everything”. Ouch. Apple might just be in need of a right to repair their own reputation after that stinging critique.
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