What happened to DIY
Thu 14 November 2024
DIWhat?
If you are reading this you might be one who is interested in DIY, or you may be a seasoned DIYer yourself wherever you fall, you probably understand the value of being able to repair something you use, need, and own. You might think that it takes a fair amount of skill and training, or you might think that only certified individuals should be conducting repairs (to an extent you have a point) but it has been taken way to far, to an extreme.
Apple
We have Apple, many vehicle manufacturers, phone makers, and many others all pouring money into engineering from the ground up products that are unserviceable, unmaintainable, and un repairable by the end user.
Apple has gone as far as to design their phones to recognize when the screen has been replaced and to make the phone unusable for the user, giving warnings that the screen is bad. Apple makes it so you have to spend hundreds sometimes thousands of dollars on an "Apple Certified" technician to replace something as simple as a battery. These companies claim that they want to cut down on pollution and help the planet, but they put policies like this, and implement designs like this and often times the user is forced to trash their old machine for a new one, the old device still usually has a lot of life left as far as it's other parts. I don't have to just pick on Apple. There are many other companies who are guilty of this trend, but Apple is one of the worst offenders.
Auto and farm equipment Manufacturers
Automotive manufacturers can be bad with this as well as farm equipmentmanufacturers, obstructing vehicle owners from working on their vehicles by requiring special tools or software to access their vehicles. As well as just generally implementing "Repair Un-friendly designs." They can make something as simple charging an AC or changing a battery so complicated, but it's complicated by design. It's wasteful and offensive to purposely design a product that is hard for a user to repair.
PNM and solar
So I recently just found out that even if I were to go full solar, I would still need to be connected to our ridiculous city power company. And here scientifically, there's absolutely no reason to require such a thing other than control. I should be able to install solar, generator, and wind people who are smart enough to figure this stuff out on their own and are shot down by governments and HOAs, its honestly disgusting. Then, in my state, in a lot of the state, you only have access to one power company, one choice, one monopoly. We are required to pay this private company for a service i want to get away from. And because they know we don't have any other choice they screw us over, and any form of decent customer service goes out the window, because they have no competition, no pressure to offer anything better so we get screwed over at the bottom. And if I want to leave PNM and install off grid solar, well, guess what you can't. PNM forces you to let them monitor your usage on your own solar system, and you are forced to give your own power back into the grid.
Solutions?
We all want to be safe, and we all want quality work. But not everyone can afford to have someone do that work for us, and as a result people like me have learned how to repair, install, and maintain our own systems and equipment, without the need for "Certified Technicians" and while a certified technician certainly has their place, forcing people to purchase services for something as simple as say installing an outlet, or ceiling fan is where I have a problem.
Service-friendly designs
So let's talk about the term service-friendly design. What is "service-friendly design"? We can think of service friendly design in terms of a machine designed to perform a task, but during the service life of that machine, it requires several maintenance tasks to be performed.
Ease of maintainability
Each of those tasks should be engineered to be as easy and hassle free to perform as possible.
Available Documentation
There should be clear, in depth, and available documentation to support maintenance and repair efforts
Fear of scrutiny and loss of warranty
The user should be able to perform maintenance and repair on their own property and equipment without fear of losing warranty
Access to documentation otherwise guarded for those certified techs
I want to touch on this subject a bit more, because as someone who had been a technician in different fields, I have learned that some manufacturers won't give documentation or repair guides, and this leads to many resorting to repairing their stuff by the seat of their pants, just because lack of documentation.
Companies who are more for DIY
There's no shortage of companies who don't want you to be able to work on your own stuff, but there's light at the end of the tunnel, some good news. And that's that there are also many companies for DIY.
My Two Beans
🫘🫘 So we have many options when it comes to buying products and technology to make our lives easier (for now), and we should vote with our wallet and support open source technology, and companies who implement service-friendly designs, companies who allow us unempeded to repair the product we pay our hard-earned money to buy, and on that note if I decide to smash my phone with a hammer, its my phone and I should be able to do that too.