Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
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E-waste will continue to be a problem until companies are forced to make products that are designed to be repaired and upgraded without replacing them.
We have certification for safety and compliance, why not one that guarantees that an electronic product can be fully repaired by the end user using readily available (and affordable!) parts? It can be on a scale from 1 to 10, and the less repairable the item, the more restricted its distribution should be.
Every laptop should be made like a Framework laptop; every phone like a Fairphone. Every electronic product should certified to have long life.
Hardware is not even the biggest issue imho. Software/firmware is even much worse. How is it possible to sell a phone that does not even get updates for 5 years. And why is Fairphone, Google Pixel and iPhone standing out with only 5 ish years.
Luckily the EU is currently working on that.
IMO its fine for vendors to abandon their products but they should be required to release all technical documentation and software used with the device into the public domain so enthusiasts can continue where companies stopped.
I'm continually mystified as to why companies don't want to release the old technical documentation and software. Is it all so bad that they are THAT embarrassed to show it?
The changes for the company in releasing old software is minor, the vast majority of users don't have the skill to deploy it and people who do have the skill can earn enough money doing a variety of technical work that repairing old phones isn't going to be an attractive option.
What portion of phones capable of running LineageOS etc end up being used in that way? 1%?