Seriously, when have been repairing been such a issues before. I have been repairing my colored tvs back in 20 years ago, honesty it's not proper repair but just make shifts repairs, as long as theres pictures it works. You basically only need cable ties, dub tapes, multimeters. Untill just recently repairs tends to be harder, instead of screwdrivers or wrench it's all kinds of prying tools. But it's not difficult. But now, it requires hot air guns, alcohol, prying tools and tons of times just to open the freaking covers. With all kinds of proprietary standards that basically serves no purpose. If you think that's hard, not at all. Now it's the standard to own a freaking oca vacuum laminating machine to just close the covers. 2D X-ray inspection machines are also becoming the new normal. So what is really the issues of repairing digital electronics.
If you can repair it, they can't force you to buy a new one or use their repair services. Planned obsolescence.
Thing is, they really don't want you doing it. It is a matter of money, like everything else has become. Every single detail or activity is tied to increasing profit, cutting costs and getting people to buy more. It is why products went from lasting multiple generations or at least a good 10-20 years to crap that expires in a few years or 5 at most. It is why every single device has become an infernal contraption when it comes to opening it and seeing for yourself if you could prolong its lifespan without draining time and money on going to official repairers,...... There's still tools left relatively alone for manual work, but don't hold your hopes up on them remaining untouched. For the bastard bloodsuckers, nothing is off limits and if possible, shit simple and sturdy as hammers would break in a couple months like cheapest flip flops.
because new electronic devices tend to have very small parts (if manufacturers does not make the parts as small as possible, there will be no smartphone, most electronic devices has to be build as compact as possible) that cannot be easily repaired or replaced by average people (try to take a look at a recently released simple electronic device, without a specialized equipment most device cannot be easily repaired. Most PCB will be imposible to repair, because the electronic tracks are so small. even changing a resistor will be imposible in the future, it will become so tiny to hold without seeing it using a big maginifying glass), thus the manufacturer take advantage of that to force people to replace their device instead of the broken parts by making it even harder to do so. There is something called planned obselence, most manufacturer company apply that to their product, not only electronic devices but something as simple as a light bulb too. Even if the right to repair rules/bill/whatever it is called passed, most manufacturers will just add arbitary set of rules for people to be able to buy the parts needed, for example: To buy a camera module for an iphone, you need to have repair certification from apple, which might be so expensive that the repair cost is higher than buying a new device. Or they might just DMCA anyone who hosted any of their product's documentation, because i am pretty sure that schematic and documentation are protected by some law. even if someone able to reverse engineer a schematic, will that schematic broke a copyright/patent? they can also force people to pay a license to force people to rebuy their device when they replace a part of it, just take a look at windows, some version of it are bound to the motherboard, some manufacturers might apply this into their product, well this will also make sure that there are no 'dangerous' modification to their product (for safety/security reason like hacking etc) Dont forget that there are alot of people who do dumb things to their device that might or might not explode because of it, what dumb things will these kind of people do if they know that they can 'repair' their own device by themself? i am pretty sure that there are alot of accident caused by these kind of 'repair' (just take a look at how farmer/miner 'repair' their heavy machinery / vehicle by themself, which i am pretty sure does not met OSHA requirement), that when it does happen they will blame the manufacturers. Right of repair will increase the likehood of that kind of things. i support right of repair, but i also know that it has a lot of problem about it
Its pretty sad to see that many of the enthusiasts are already investing in some sort of SMT devices like XECEN and some sort of miniature reflow oven because the issues and problems you maintained above. Its still entirely possible no matter how small components gets in China, as China is famous for engineering graduates. Unless there are cracks between the PCB layers which requires an X-RAY to properly check or it's guessing game. The states just keep growing, and the cost of repairs just keep adding up. 2 years back it cost about $60usd to change an OLed 2k 90hz phone screen and the touch panel with a glass. Currently the price will jump about $90usd. Cost rise up by 50% as they have to purchase new equipment and increase the profic margin of all services. Its just difficult to repair stuff in free time as keep your wallet safe. Many hardware enthusiasts have been renting werehouse just to house those gigantic equitments. And those equipment cost a dacades to return your investment if you want to keep a resonable profic margin for service.
This is one of the main problem of right of repairs, most electronic parts are supplied by various other manufacturers company. Even if right of repairs somehow pass, the parts needed to repair a device will get more expensive, because not every one can buy the parts in bulk, only big manufacturers can apply the economy of scale thingy when they order parts to assemble their product. Repair shops will charge more for repair because of it, even if they are able to buy in bulk, not to mention for average people who only need 1 of the parts. not to mention the equipment / training needed to do repair. A few decades ago, most devices were easy to repair. But even then, most people choose to replace it, not repair it. Because technology advanced very quickly, sometimes it is not worth it to repair it. Nowadays, if your smartphone broke, it is cheaper to buy a new smartphone. Recently released smartphones, even if it is the cheapest one available, are as powerfull (sometimes even more powerfull) as an average PC, which i am pretty sure fulfill most people needs. in the future it will be more effective to force manufacturers to enable a trade in for a newer device instead of enabling right of repairs
Thats not true, the most powerful smartphones today, example the stepdragon 888 is only a tiny bit faster than intel atom. In cpu bench marks most single core pc cpu can run 680+. A smartphone cpu can run about 200+ with all eight cores. PC cpus are at least 30 times more powerful than the most powerful smartphone cpus. Also smartphones cpu can't do 64bits floating point calculations.
it all heads in the same direction - money - better sell a new one than repair the old one apple might be leading there - making repairs impossible or so expensive that buying a new one might even look smart ... as for most bigger electronics its always the same "cant do it here" transport to the workshop and several weeks later they tell you they cant repair it , they wont get the needed parts or the repair would be more expensive than a new one and you might never know if they were honest or just wanted to make some money on your back