The tech industry is one of the biggest and fastest growing sectors in the world. In the UK in 2018, it was growing 2.6 times faster than the rest of the UK economy; and in the US, the tech industry market is worth almost $5 trillion. We have seen tech giants rise over the past decade, and establish themselves as some of the most commercially popular companies among consumers.
However, there is one important issue that many tech giants are not addressing, and which has special relevance in today’s time – the right to repair technology, colloquially known as ‘Right to Repair’.
What is Right to Repair?
The Right to Repair movement is all about making sure consumers have options for the lifecycle of the tech they have bought.
The trouble with a lot of tech manufacturers is that they often charge consumers a premium to get their products repaired. Your Outsourced IT Support Provider should be able to help you with finding out what you need to know. This can create significant barriers for some people who may not be able to afford that inflated prices for repairs; in some cases, the price for repair is close to that of a brand new device. This results in a lot of electronic devices, when malfunctioning, to simply be thrown out and replaced with a brand-new device – this is an incredibly wasteful practice. When looking at London IT Services Providers, we can see how the trend of providing stronger and more reliable – as well as energy saving – devices is now growing and becoming more popular.
The barriers to the right to repair include repair complexity – either the devices are complicated to repair because little information on its manufacture is released outside of the parent company; or, the parent company wants to limit access to parts, in order to discourage third-party repairs.
Why is Right to Repair important?
In the 20th century, manufacturers took pride in producing products that would have a long life. Consumers had options to prolong the lifecycle of a product, and third-party repairs were more accessible.
There is also a major sustainability incentive to enacting Right to Repair laws. Many IT Support for Central London Companies are providing free audits and help to repair devices. To start with, manufacturers will often refuse to perform certain types of repairs – for instance, Apple will not perform board level repairs on their products, even though these types of repairs can definitely be performed by third party professionals. With tech manufacturers refusing to repair certain issues, consumers are forced to throw out devices, producing more waste.
What is more, for the repairs that tech companies will perform, they often cannot be performed in-store, so devices have to be shipped off for repairs – and transportation has a carbon footprint. So, if consumers were able to have their devices repaired by third parties that are local to them, less waste and less carbon emissions would be created.
