Transcription
Take a look at this Oculus Quest. Like so many modern devices, it's designed to be unfixable. You can't even replace the battery. And just a few years, this will become an overpriced paperweight, forcing you to buy a new one while the company rakes in more profit.
But here's the twist: Oculus actually loses money on every Quest they sell. Their business model isn't about profiting from the hardware. They only make money when you buy software for the device. The headset itself is just a vessel for buying apps. So it would make sense for the company to build a longer-lasting, repairable device. It would be better for their profits, better for the customers, and better for the environment. But that didn't happen.
Why is that? There are five main reasons for why companies can't design products that are easy to repair. The first one is corporate greed, and that's the one everybody knows about, right? Right to repair advocates, like Lewis Rossman and others, constantly expose corporate greed and how brands make things impossible for us to fix. We have to go out and buy a new device rather than repair what we have.
But that's not even close to telling the whole story of why repairability is so difficult to achieve. Even when companies genuinely want to make a product that's repairable, the truth is, it's a nightmare of disorganization, consumer habits, and bad incentives. Take the Oculus headset, for example. I spoke with someone who worked on the design. His team wanted the battery to be replaceable, like I said, it would have been better for the company and the customers. But a replaceable battery would have required several rounds of reviews with a legal team, and that team was already overloaded with other projects. So upper management decided to scrap the idea and focus on easier things.
This is a textbook example of corporate dysfunction. If you've ever worked in a corporate office, you've seen this. A project has potential, the solution is right there, but it doesn't happen, usually because of internal politics, competing incentives, or just plain business inertia. The worst part is, nobody can admit this is a big reason why repairable products don't get made. Imagine if Apple held a press conference saying, "Hey, the reason we don't prioritize right to repair is because our company is a disorganized mess. Steve from the supply chain team gets bonuses for how fast he can launch a product, but Curtis and the legal department gets promoted by slowing down the launch to mitigate legal risk." So yeah, they have opposite, competing interests, and they hate each other's guts. And since we only have so many resources, we have to focus on whatever makes the most money and avoids lawsuits. Right to repair is just too much of a hassle. Maybe next quarter. Sorry, guys. Obviously, they can't say that, but it's the reality in many companies. Corporate dysfunction is one of the biggest barriers to right to repair, and if you know what to look for, you can actually see this dysfunction in product launches, oh my god, design decisions, and even their websites.
Let's take a look at Lenovo's website right now. You can technically buy spare parts for your Lenovo laptop, but the experience is awful. First, just finding the right site is a challenge. Eventually, I found their parts lookup page, but navigating it was a nightmare. Identifying your laptop model takes forever, and even when I picked the right computer, I had to know the exact serial number of the part I wanted to replace. Buying anything or figuring out compatibility was nearly impossible. Now, I don't know what's happening internally at these companies. Maybe they're working on fixing this, but compare that experience to buying a new laptop on their websites. It's seamless, intuitive, and easy to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars with basically no effort.
So here's the thing: it's not just that these companies don't care about offering spare parts or good service. The real problem is misaligned incentives, as a result of corporate stupidity. Almost every big company operates with key performance indicators, or KPIs. Employees get promotions and bonuses based on how well they meet these KPIs, which are designed to align with what makes the company the most money. For Lenovo, and Dell, and other companies like that, that means selling new laptops, not spare parts. If spare parts and repair services were profitable for them, these experiences would be just as seamless as buying a new laptop.
Big shout out to Nav Patel, the CEO of Framework laptops, for pointing this one out to me. He has a company that puts repairability at the center of their business, so we'll be hearing from him later on in the video. I like their product, which I bought with my own money. This video is not sponsored by Framework. They haven't given me anything, but it is sponsored by Storyblocks. This is a service I've actually paid for and used for this channel long before they ever reached out to me for the sponsorship. I use Storyblocks to help me make my videos, and it's been a game-changer. With Storyblocks, you pay one flat subscription price and get unlimited access to a massive library of 2.6 million assets. They've got video clips, sound effects, music, video filters, and my personal favorite, pre-made motion graphics templates. If you're an editor, you know how difficult it can be to create motion graphics from scratch. With Storyblocks, it's plug-and-play, and it saves so much time. So if you're in a creative field and need to produce or edit video, Storyblocks is a fantastic tool to help you create high-quality content quickly. Most importantly, you don't have to worry about copyright claims or licensing headaches. Everything you download from Storyblocks is 100% royalty-free. No pay-per-click pricing, no legal trouble, just clean, straightforward licensing. If you want to get started with unlimited stock media downloads for one set price, head to storyblocks.com/designtheory or click the link in the description.
Back to the video. So look, it's not necessarily some evil scheme to sabotage repairability. It's just bad corporate incentive structures. And until companies align their incentives with repairability, experiences like this will continue to be the norm.
You might be thinking, "Why can't the CEO fix this? He's the big boss, after all, and he must be able to make the decision to prioritize repairability, right?" Wrong. Businesses operate on product road maps that stretch years into the future. These plans are deeply entrenched. Pretty much all businesses operate on a model where they release new products every year, they hype up a few small, incremental changes, and try to convince the public that these tiny changes are revolutionary enough to get you to buy next year's model. Deviating from this plan could literally destroy the company. Even if you wanted to change course, it would require the CEO, the board of directors, and the major shareholders to agree on a very risky new business model. So the status quo persists. They're trapped in a system that doesn't allow for this kind of innovation.
It's easy to imagine shadowy boardroom meetings where executives scheme up ways to screw over their customers. And sure, that does happen sometimes, but it's more often just corporate bureaucracy and bad incentives. It's just the banality of evil.
But corporate dysfunction isn't the only thing stopping us from getting repairable products. The real problem isn't just with the companies, it's us. People are obsessed with having the shiny new thing. Every single thing we own is a symbol of our status. Even sexual attractiveness is tied to what device we own. According to one 2017 study run by Match.com, owning an older phone hurt your chance of finding love. People with old flip phones were 56% less likely to go on a date in the preceding year, and women were 92% more likely to judge a potential match for using an older phone. Having the newest product is directly tied to being a successful and desirable person. Why repair an old device when you can just buy a new one and impress everyone around you?
Even in design-conscious circles, where people care a lot about sustainability and right to repair, this still happens. In one of my other videos, I talked about how I didn't own a smartphone until 2019, and people couldn't believe it. They thought I was lying. Here's the proof, by the way. Now, today, a flip phone is sort of a novel, quirky throwback, but back when I had one in the mid-2010s, it was extremely, deeply uncool. There's nothing quite like flirting with a girl and watching her excitement shift to disappointment when you flip out this bad boy to get her number. They probably just assumed I was a drug dealer, or poor, or both. But it was also a good test to see if you were talking to someone real. Leave a like and subscribe for the fact that I still kept this old flip phone around. I'm glad it still came in handy as a prop all these years later.
So anyway, I tend to keep things I own for a while. I'm even wearing the same jacket in that photo all these years later. But most people are a lot more susceptible to social pressure. This obsession with newness and status is hardwired into consumer culture. One UK study concluded that people replace devices sooner than they might otherwise, simply because they don't want to seem old-fashioned. These are all examples of social norms, which is the third thing that makes it so hard for repairable products to become mainstream.
And if it's not social pressure or status driving our urge to replace, it's convenience. Most of us don't want to worry about repairability. We want reliability. We just want the thing to work without adding more stress to our lives. Companies have learned to make the most profitable option for them, the most easy and convenient option for you. They know you're busy and overwhelmed, so they make buying something new very, very convenient and fast, while repairing is a slow, uphill battle. And let's face it, we're okay with this. As soon as something breaks, it becomes a problem we aren't prepared to deal with. Think about the last time you turn the key to your car's ignition and your engine wouldn't start. Suddenly, you're facing a problem you weren't ready for. That sinking feeling of helplessness is universal. You just want it to work, no questions asked. So until we break free from the cycle of convenience and status-driven consumption, repairability and right to repair legislation will always be an uphill battle.
This obsession with newness goes back to the 1920s and '30s, when the concept of planned obsolescence took root. During the Great Depression, economists like Victor Lebow argued that Americans were holding on to their old cars, radios, and clothes for too long, slowing down economic growth. His solution was to convince people to buy new products as often as possible. Lebow famously said, "Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever-increasing rate." He even suggested a government program to destroy old products just to make room for new ones.
Companies have become experts at making unrepairable products seem cool. For decades, marketing has conditioned us to equate thin, sleek, and seamless designs with premium products. Apple has mastered this aesthetic. I'm an industrial designer, and let me tell you, these things are absolute marbles of precision. They have tiny parting lines, perfectly manicured surface finishes, and monolithic, perfectly controlled surfaces with not even a hint of manufacturing imperfection. But here's the problem: everything that makes Apple and other high-quality products look and feel premium is completely at odds with repairability. The internal components are so tightly packed and glued together that even replacing a battery is a huge pain. And it's not just about aesthetics. Apple actively designs their products to be difficult to repair. It's no secret.
But remember, there's absolutely no objective reason to believe that something with tiny parting lines and thinness and fragility is equated with quality. We've been trained to think this way with most mass-market product verticals like electronics and home devices. But the idea of quality varies quite a bit from culture to culture, and even subculture to subculture. If we want people to adopt repairability in the mass market, we're going to have to work against the paradigm that slim, monolithic, and sleek means quality in many product verticals.
Luckily, there are companies that are fighting for this. I actually spoke with Nav Patel, the CEO of Framework, and he was really helpful in providing insights for this video. Their laptops are designed to be easy to repair and upgrade, and they've built their entire business around this idea. The Framework laptop is solid and functional, but it doesn't have the polished, ultra-premium feel of other laptops in its price range. The hinge for the screen doesn't feel perfect, the keyboard feels a little bit soft, and the surface finish is nice, but not exceptional. It's a very generic design. This isn't because he has bad designers and engineers. It's because making a device durable, repairable, and modular often means sacrificing some of the things we've been trained to see as quality.
Take the screen and the hinge, for instance. In order to make it feel completely solid, it might require glued-in components or extra mechanical rigidity, making it harder to take apart and fix. Framework had to prioritize durability and ease of repair over the sleekness and tactile refinement you might see in other laptops. It's a trade-off. And for customers comparing shiny, trendy designs with something more utilitarian like the Framework, it can be a tough sell. But if both of these laptops break six months down the road, the Framework will show its value.
Now, here's the problem: most people only repair or upgrade a laptop once every few years. Meanwhile, they use the keyboard, trackpad, and screen every single day. They pick it up and feel the finish every time they use it. The Framework laptop requires customers to think ahead, which isn't always easy. We tend to focus on what's immediately in front of us. So when you're comparing a shiny, polished, and trendy design to something a bit more utilitarian and slightly creaky, it's easy to see why Framework and other repairable device companies are fighting an uphill battle. Repairable products are just perceived as being lower quality. We've been taught to value sleek, fragile, and perfect over durable and repairable.
But Framework is proof that repairability can work as a business model. They've shown it's possible to align repairability with customer needs, if you're willing to challenge how people think about quality. And their products will continue to improve with time. And that's the uphill battle: changing not only how companies design products, but how we as customers think about quality and value. It's not impossible, but it's going to take a cultural shift.
Now, of course, not everything is disposable. There's so many products that are designed to be repaired right from the start. 3D printers are a great example. The Creality Ender 3 Pro and many Prusa 3D printers can be endlessly modified. Both brands are almost entirely open source, acting as a stock platform that you can use as a starting point for modifications and upgrades. You can tweak the hardware and software however you like, with a huge range of third-party modifications available, like stiffer springs and more precise gears for leveling the print bed. There are plenty of other examples too. Desktop PCs and electric guitars are also very modifiable.
But this is hard for companies to achieve. Managing all these replaceable parts is expensive and complicated. Companies need warehouses, inventory systems, and employees to manage it all, and the ability to ship parts to customers. These costs add up. That's why companies that do offer spare parts charge a premium for them. It's the only way to make the system viable. But there are ways around this. For example, you don't necessarily need to have every part of every single model. Here's what Nav Patel of Framework had to say about it: "We don't have to stock every module and every part we've ever made. We only have to make sure that they're compatible parts that are available. As long as that new module is cross-compatible to, let's say, the previous generation main boards, previous generation systems, then we can end-of-life that original or that earlier generation module in terms of backwards compatibility."
Cameras and their lenses are an incredible success story. There are Leica lenses from the 1930s that you can fit onto a modern-day Leica camera body from today. You can fit Nikon F-mount lenses from the 1960s onto many modern camera bodies. All you need is an adapter. So why have camera companies made their camera bodies compatible with lenses that are almost a hundred years old, while other companies abandoned backwards compatibility after only a few years? It's because a serious photographer's lens collection is usually worth thousands of dollars, usually far more than a new camera body. If camera companies made new camera bodies that didn't fit older lenses, customers would have no incentive to buy new bodies. And even worse for the company, what's keeping the customers loyal if they can't use their existing lens collection? Just a few years ago, Canon created a new mirrorless mounting system called the RF lens mount. In order to keep old customers happy, Canon rewarded early adopters of the RF cameras by giving them a free adapter so they could fit their old lenses on the new bodies.
So why hasn't this ethos made it into more mainstream, mass-market products? I think it's because they're catering to an audience who's likely to have at least one or both of these qualities: number one is a strong affinity for fixing and building things, and number two is a passion for customizing and fine-tuning their devices to meet their exact needs. This DIY culture is embedded in these product categories, but it's not a natural fit for broader markets. Until we overcome social norms and stigmas, our right to repair things won't catch on.
And repairability isn't just a business and a cultural problem for some product categories. It's nearly impossible to make devices repairable because of how quickly they evolve. VR headsets are a great example of this. Compare the Quest 2 to the Quest 3. The camera placement, overall form factor, and ergonomics have changed significantly. The same goes for smart wearables like health trackers. These devices are still evolving fast, and we don't know what they'll look like in five years. Any future replacement parts would need to fit the old product architecture, which can severely limit innovation. That's why a stagnated product category is an extremely important aspect of repairability. It's why Framework chose laptops as their first product. It's a form factor that really hasn't changed very much in the last 10 years, and it probably won't change in the next 10 years. Just look at MacBooks from 2016 until today. By focusing on a stable, standardized form factor, Framework can prioritize repairability without worrying about the constant reinvention that comes with newer tech categories. "Because that, like the entire industry broadly, um, is mature and stable enough that allowed us to go and talk to the five keyboard suppliers and five display suppliers and five battery suppliers and so on. We can leverage enough knowledge from those suppliers because it's so stable that it's easy for them to support us and relatively inexpensive for us to go and be able to do that activity."
Product architecture is one of the biggest blockers to achieving repairability, and it's the fourth on our list of why right to repair is so hard to achieve. This is a problem that I face all the time in industrial design. One example that comes to mind is when I was designing the Daylight tablet. We needed to figure out where to place magnets inside the tablet so accessories like cases, stands, and a stylus could snap on. This would normally be pretty straightforward, except we hadn't finished designing those accessories yet. We were essentially guessing where magnets and connectors might need to go for accessories that didn't even exist yet. If I remember correctly, and it's been a couple years, I think we ended up adding a series of slots along the internal edges of the tablet. The idea was that magnets could be added to those slots during production if necessary. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it gave us some flexibility. We could move the magnets around later on. But keep in mind, this was for a tablet, which is relatively simple from an industrial design perspective. It's just a big screen with really no moving parts except for the buttons. I've worked on more complex products like AR headsets, and these kinds of decisions become exponentially more difficult. The added complexity makes future-proofing an even bigger challenge. It's problems like these that highlight how difficult it is to design for the unknown and why repairability and modularity are so hard to achieve.
But there are other technical barriers too. This is a circuit board from the 1970s. A few simple transistors, resistors, maybe a capacitor here or there. And this is one from today. It's way more complex. There's almost no space to make adjustments. Now, if something breaks, you could replace the entire board, sure, but it's not remotely reasonable for even a skilled technician to service a problem on a board that's intricate. I have friends who make electronics for a living, and they admitted they'd be way out of their depth on repairing this. I know right to repair guys like Lewis Rossman are probably screaming at their computer screens. To be clear, I'm not saying that these things are impossible to repair. I'm also not saying it's okay for companies to block qualified technicians from repairing their products, which is where Rossman really gets angry, and I agree with him. I'm just saying that these products are a lot more complex than they were several years ago, and expecting an untrained customer to be able to do this is not always realistic. Even if you have the skills and knowledge to make a repair on a board like this, you need extremely specialized equipment that costs thousands of dollars, and you still risk damaging the components you're trying to fix. Bottom line, the product architecture of everyday objects has gotten so much more complex over the decades. It's like a tiny micro-city. Every single one of these components needs to be designed. And it's not just the circuit board, either. Designing modern products is incredibly complex, even before you add repairability into the mix.
Here's an example: I have a friend who spent months redesigning the feet of a mid-2010s MacBook Pro. Her job was to make them more durable. That's it. Just make the feet more durable. That's all she did for 50 to 60 hours a week. Even a seemingly small task like this becomes exponentially harder when you add new constraints like making those feet repairable. Now imagine applying that constraint to an entire device, ensuring repairs are possible with someone with no engineering knowledge and only basic tools. Adding even one extra constraint like repairability multiplies the complexity of the project exponentially. The design process is a delicate balancing act, and solving all of the problems simultaneously while meeting customer expectations, staying on budget, and hitting deadlines is really difficult. It's no wonder so many companies stick to the status quo.
This doesn't mean making repairable devices is impossible. Companies have shown that it's doable, but only by prioritizing repairability and often sacrificing other features customers might value. And to be clear, there are some companies capable of making their products more repairable right now and just as good. Apple, for example, has the resources to offer diagnostic software, training, and parts, and internal documents show they've had this capability since at least 2018. But Apple's an anomaly. Most companies could only dream of having those resources. And even for Apple, having the ability doesn't mean they'll prioritize it.
So product architecture and the design process play a role, but it goes even beyond that. In the late 1990s, companies began embedding microchips into everything from coffee makers to tractors, claiming the software on those chips was their intellectual property. They justified it by talking about security and customer experience. Practically every electrical device you own has a microchip in it: your coffee maker, TV, and even your refrigerator. These chips are everywhere, and when they fail, you're often forced to replace the entire product. Fixing the microchip can be so technically complex and expensive that replacing the entire product is sometimes cheaper.
Now, in some cases, repairing or replacement of just the chip can make sense, but there's another hurdle: proprietary software. Many chips run locked-down, encrypted firmware that only the manufacturer can access. Tesla, for instance, restricts firmware access to control who can repair their car. Even HP blocks third-party printer cartridges with chipped firmware, claiming it's for security. It's not. Here's why they can get away with this: Section 121 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, makes it illegal to bypass software locks, even for the sake of repair. This act was originally designed to prevent piracy, but Statute 121 has been weaponized by corporations to control who can fix their devices. As a result, repair becomes inaccessible, and consumers lose control over products that they own. Companies exploit every legal loophole that they can to squeeze out as much profit as possible. Laws like Statute 121 give them the perfect excuse to prioritize control over repairability. While corporate greed drives these decisions, it's only possible because bad legislation allows it to happen.
But there is hope. Advocates like Lewis Rossman, organizations like iFixit, and even farmers are fighting for our right to repair. After 2016, Statute 121 was partially revised to support the right to repair of certain products, and slowly, lawmakers are starting to enact policies that prioritize repairability and put power back into the hands of customers. The fight isn't over, but the tide is turning. Bad laws can screw things up, but good laws can help fix the problem. We just have to be really careful about how we implement them.
Here's one example: When we're buying a new product, we focus on features, thinking about the repairability of a product before you've even bought it feels like planning for a breakup on a first date. But this could change if repairability information were easy to understand and available at the point of purchase. Some governments and organizations are already working to make this happen. France, for example, has introduced a repairability index. This is a step in the right direction, but it has its flaws. The scores are self-reported by manufacturers, and plus, the scoring criteria are very, very lenient. For example, a washing machine with a repairability score of 6.1 out of 10 might sound okay, until you realize it's the worst in its category. But at least it's a start. France's anti-waste law goes even further. It makes repairability a legal requirement. The law classifies repairability as an essential product characteristic, and it bans practices like locking down spare parts, hoarding repair manuals, or using encryption to block third-party repairs. Companies that violate the law face steep fines of up to 5% of their annual revenue, and even jail time. And that is why laws and policies are the fifth reason for why repairability is so hard. Sometimes, on the flip side, it could end up being our greatest ally in achieving right to repair.
At the heart of this issue is information asymmetry. Manufacturers know exactly how repairable or unrepairable their products are, but they don't want to share that information with you. Bridging this gap is essential to empowering us to make better purchasing decisions. One thing is certain: companies will always chase profits. They're going to squeeze as much value out of us as possible. But that doesn't mean we're powerless. We have the tools to push back through our purchasing choices, by demanding laws that protect us, and by fostering a new appreciation for fixing what we already own.
Just like we created a stigma around littering through legislation, public campaigns, and social pressure, we can change how we think about repair and waste. In the last few decades, roadside trash in the US had dropped by 61%. That didn't happen by accident. Campaigns like Woodsy Owl's "Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute," "Keep America Beautiful," and laws penalizing litter created a shift in attitudes. By 2012, a survey showed that 59% of Americans would feel deeply embarrassed if someone they admired saw them littering. Imagine if throwing away a perfectly good product felt as shameful as littering, or if owning something worn and well-loved, like a scratched phone or a pair of patched jeans, wasn't seen as cheap but as a badge of honor. Every time we choose to fix something, we're also repairing a mindset, a culture, and hopefully a future where things we value don't come at the cost of the planet we all share.
Big shout out to the people who helped me with this video, especially Nav Patel, the CEO of Framework. I also spoke with several of my friends and Patreon supporters, and it wouldn't have been possible without them either. If you enjoyed this video, consider supporting me on Patreon. The link is below. There's a ton of bonus content on there that you should check out. One way to help me for free is to just leave a like and subscribe. These videos are really, really hard to make, and your support really does mean a lot to me. Have a great day.