I know EU has the Right to Repair initiative and that’s a step to the right direction. Still I’m left to wonder, how did we end up in a situation where it’s often cheaper to just buy a new item than fix the old?
What can individuals, communities, countries and organizations do to encourage people to repair rather than replace with a new?
This really depends on what you’re fixing. My laptop has a crap battery. To buy a new one is a few hundred quid. Plus various proprietary/niche screw bits. Plus the time to actually do it.
An equivalent new laptop is fractionally more expensive, and I can have it delivered to my home, freeing up the time element.
Tomfix my bicycle? I might need some internal components for my brifters; cheap AF and I know what I’m doing (and where to buy from). New shifters several orders of magnitude more expensive.
Not sure where you’re finding this battery price but I’m guessing it’s much cheaper than that.
I repair just about anything. Sometimes just for the challenge. Electronics are much easier than most realize.
The one thing that causes a barrier for most is the proper tools. “Proprietary” screws are a small toolkit away from just being a regular screw…
You could give the make and model of your laptop and I could send you links to buy anything and everything you need. I’d be willing to bet that tools and parts would be substantially less than buying a new laptop.
Caveat being if it’s a budget bin low spec laptop from a non reputable brand. If it was extremely cheap and cheaply made brand new, I’ll concede your point. Will say it’s still cheaper to fix, but at a certain point it doesn’t make sense to fix something that’s borderline unusable even new (outdated). That is assuming you don’t want to install Linux lol.