The Right to Repair: Why It Matters
Especially where tech = a month's salary
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We’ve hit an exciting milestone this month - SK NEXUS just crossed 250 subs, and it’s all thanks to readers like you who want sharp, locally relevant takes on tech. From breaking down tech bans to uncovering Pakistan’s industry shifts, we’ve been building a space where global trends meet local realities - and it’s working.
This week, we’re diving into something that affects every one of us who owns a phone, laptop, or even a washing machine: the fight for the Right to Repair. While the EU and the US are shaping the conversation, countries like Pakistan could feel the biggest impact.
Let’s break it down.
Did you know that nearly 80% of e-waste worldwide could be avoided if companies made their products easier to repair? Yet, tech giants like Apple and Samsung spend billions designing devices that break faster and cost more to fix.
This global debate over Right to Repair isn’t just about the EU or Silicon Valley. It affects countries like Pakistan even more - where most people rely on second-hand phones, imported laptops, and local repair shops to keep their gadgets alive.
But here’s the catch: as manufacturers push harder for anti-repair designs, we’re losing the freedom to fix what we own. It’s not just a tech issue - it’s about consumer rights, local jobs, and the skyrocketing cost of staying connected in a country where official service centers barely exist.
In this article, I’ll break down:
What the Right to Repair movement is and why it matters.
How global tech giants like Apple and John Deere became central to this fight.
Why Pakistan’s repair culture is at risk, and what it means for our wallets and e-waste problem.
The road ahead for a repair-friendly future.
What is the Right to Repair?
The concept of Right to Repair is as simple as it sounds. It says that a consumer should be able to repair the devices they purchase. It advocates that consumers and third-party repairmen should have access to the necessary information and tools to be able to repair the products they own.
Right to Repair is a movement of proposals and laws that largely advocate for these things:
Products should be repairable by design
Repair manuals and schematics that are necessary for repairs should be available to repairmen and consumers
If some products require specialized tools to open up and repair, those too should be made available along with the genuine parts that may need replacement in repairs
Vendor locks shouldn't exist on products so consumers can choose if they want to remove the vendor-installed software or replace it with something else
The Right to Repair concept isn't too surprising as we all take our products to third-party repairmen, especially older products, but Right to Repair mostly focuses on tech products or products with chips inside them since these are generally pretty complex devices.
It's easy to go to a mechanic and get your CD-70 fixed up even if he's not an official service person. It's easier to call your local electrician to fix up your washing machine but doing that for tech products like phones, computers and similar devices is a bit tricky for a number of reasons.
In developed countries like the US, people are legally allowed to take apart the devices they own and repair them. They are also allowed to take them to their local repairmen but there are practical limitations imposed largely by manufacturers that we'll explore later in this article.
Some Background to Right to Repair
To present some background to Right to Repair, I'm discussing some of the major events that intensified the Right to Repair movements down below:
Apple
Apple is among the largest tech manufacturers in the world. Their iPhones and Macbooks are famous across the world and the company is known for their ecosystem that they vertically control from the software all the way to the hardware stack.
Apple's brand image is a major asset to the company. Their 'just works' approach to products is largely popular among consumers. Apple's tightly integrated devices often make use of proprietary technologies, protocols to make their products work together while at the same time less repairable.
Apple products are known to be some of the hardest to repair. The company has a tight control over their hardware supply chain all the way down to individual components.
Repairing Apple products without official support has always been a challenge, from a simple battery replacement to screen or other complex component. Local repair professionals report that critical features like True Tone and Touch ID fail to work when repaired by non-authorized service centers.
When Norwegian repairman Henrik Huseby imported refurbished iPhone screens, Apple sued him for trademark infringement and won the case which didn’t sit well with Right to Repair advocates.
After pressure from the FTC report and multiple state bills, Apple launched their Self-Service Repair program but advocates of Right to Repair still highlight the limitations of the program. Apple has originally opposed Right to Repair movements but surprisingly accepted the recent California law on repair back in 2023.
Apple's support for California's Right to Repair law means that their next devices could be more repair-friendly, at least more than before. That's a positive thing for us consumers!
John Deere
John Deere is a famous US tractor company known for their green and yellow color tractors. Since the 2010s, their tractors have come with an encrypted control software which means that even if something as small as a sensor fails, the farmers couldn’t fully diagnose it on their own.
The company had a proprietary suite that only its dealerships had access to. This meant that farmers couldn't identify or fix common issues with their tractors and they had to spend large sums of money for smaller repairs too. Advocacy groups spoke against the hundreds of millions of dollars that were billed to farmers.
Angry farmers took to their local representatives and pressured them to pursue their case against the tractor manufacturer. Robb Greene, the State Representative, called for farmers to be able to access diagnosing tools, software keys and manuals.
The company signed an MOU but advocacy groups still had their reservations. Moving on, the FTC and five other states sued John Deere accusing it of illegal repair monopoly. This was a pretty impactful case that highlighted the need for Right to Repair and access to repair manuals and tools.
The John Deere anti-trust lawsuit moved multiple states to push for regulations around Right to Repair.
Why Don't Manufacturers Want Us Repairing Our Devices?
Naturally, most manufacturers are incentivized to make products that aren't repairable. Less-repairable products mean that they don't last as long and consumers come back to buy new products which directly grows their revenues.
Official repair centers are another lucrative business avenue for tech manufacturers. After they've sold you phones and laptops you still rely on those devices being brought into official support centers for expensive repairs.
Take Apple products for example. Their products are notorious for their anti-repair design. Apple, like many other companies, intentionally invests a lot of time and effort in developing proprietary solutions so their products aren't easily repairable by individuals.
Repairs that could be done for cheap are made expensive by companies for more money just because it's the "official" way of fixing stuff. Most device manufacturers discourage people from using local repair services or trying repairs themselves on their devices.
Although corporate greed is one of the biggest reasons for anti-repair behavior, some companies have argued that if they make their devices repair-friendly, there is a risk of their products losing the brand value because of unofficial repairs.
How Do Manufacturers Make Repairs Hard For Us?
In most of the developed world, manufacturers can't legally stop consumers from repairing their devices. The warranty-void-if-removed stickers are routinely used across a range of devices but usually they can't be enforced in countries like the US.
But most device manufacturers still do their best to ensure it's hard to repair their products, especially by individuals and third-party repairmen.
Below are some of the ways repairs are made harder by device manufacturers:
Schematics & Repair Instructions
When you are repairing complex devices such as phones and laptops, you as an individual or a local repair professional must have access to the repair manual and schematics to understand the inner workings of the devices you're dealing with.
Most companies straight up refuse to make these instructions widely available. This makes the repairs challenging since individuals have to themselves reverse engineer the products they're working on spending their own time and effort.
Genuine Parts
Finding genuine repair parts is a big concern and that's where device manufacturers are the most controlling. The device manufacturers have great control over their component supply chain and they refuse to share that with individuals or other repair professionals.
When genuine parts aren't available, individuals and repair professionals have to resort to Chinese alternatives that are mostly low-quality than the ones that come originally with the device. Many times they also have compatibility issues after repair.
Specialized Repair Tools
As time passes, consumers want thinner and more tightly integrated devices. They want their batteries to take up less space and last longer, They want their laptops to weigh less but perform better.
These consumer requirements lead to complex designs. These designs are hard to repair and require specialized tools that only the original manufacturers have access to. As with schematics, manufacturers just refuse to share them with individuals or non-authorized service centers.
Anti-repair design
Big companies invest a lot of time and energy into making their hardware design harder to repair. They'll sometimes introduce proprietary connectors, protocols and hardware designs to make repairs harder.
For Example, Instead of screws, companies have started using special adhesives that hold your laptop and phones in place. This although helps in tight integrations but also makes it harder to repair such devices.
Removing and re-applying those special adhesives usually require specialized tools that many manufacturers are not ready to make available to the general public.
Vendor Locks
Even after you somehow fix your device by opening it up, replacing the faulty components, there still is a chance that you may not be able to boot the device after you’re done with the repair.
Companies make use of anti-tamper technologies to protect against repairs that weren't performed through authorized repair centers. Many companies are known to lockout devices when unofficial repairs are performed on them.
Why does the Right to Repair matter?
The short answer is that Right to Repair matters and it directly impacts us - the end-users.
Recent EU laws regulating device manufacturers to design devices like smartphones and tablets to resist accidental drops, water & dust damage along with meeting at-least 800 discharge cycles will have global impact.
In addition, the EU also mandated that the manufacturers must make critical components and the repair information for smartphones and tablets available to repair professionals for 7 years after the product is no longer on sale.
Repairable products also mean more jobs for the local repair industry. In addition to more jobs, it would create more competition in repair services which would result in a better experience for the end-user.
How Does Right to Repair Affect Pakistan?
Pakistan’s tech market is built on repair and reuse. Walk through Lahore’s Hall Road, Karachi’s Saddar, or Rawalpindi’s College Road, and you’ll see the country’s real tech economy at work - rows of small shops breathing life into second-hand phones, laptops, and gaming consoles.
Most of us rely on these informal repair hubs because official service centers are rare and overpriced. Apple, for instance, has fewer than five authorized repair centers nationwide, and even those are limited to big cities.
If you own an iPhone and the screen cracks, your options are either a pricey repair (often more expensive than the phone’s resale value) or trusting a local shop to fix it with third-party parts.
The problem is that as global manufacturers push for anti-repair designs - glued components, proprietary screws, or software locks - local repair shops struggle. They lack access to official manuals, diagnostic tools, and genuine parts.
A simple battery replacement for a modern iPhone, which should cost a few thousand rupees, can easily double if third-party parts fail or cause errors like “Battery health not supported.”
This affects consumers the most. In a country where refurbished and used imports dominate sales, repairability isn’t just a convenience - it’s survival.
People buy phones and laptops here because they know a local ustaad can fix them for a fraction of the cost. If anti-repair trends continue, the cost of owning tech will shoot up, creating an even wider digital divide between those who can afford new gadgets and those who can’t.
Right to Repair laws, if embraced globally, would empower Pakistan’s local repair economy. Easier access to manuals and affordable genuine parts could turn places like Saddar into even stronger tech ecosystems - creating jobs and cutting down on e-waste, which often ends up in our landfills or exported illegally.
My Thoughts
As someone who loves computers and enjoys tinkering with electronics I am all for repairable products and widely available schematics. I'm happy to see that the EU is taking a stand for Right to Repair.
I think the trend has started to shift. The Right to Repair has only started and has a long way to go but I think that things are moving in the right direction.
We have small companies making big dents. I really admire companies like Framework who've shown big manufacturers that there is another way. These companies could start a trickle-down effect that may reach larger manufacturers.
The Road Ahead
The Right to Repair movement has already proven that public pressure works. Just a few years ago, companies like Apple fiercely opposed any talk of open repairs. Now, under mounting consumer demand and legal scrutiny, they’ve started loosening their grip - from self-service repair kits to supporting California’s landmark repair law.
But let’s be real: we’re still in the early innings. Most laws are half-measures, designed to look good on paper while leaving loopholes for manufacturers. Genuine spare parts remain overpriced or locked behind corporate gates, and repair manuals are still treated like trade secrets.
The real change will come when repairability becomes a default design philosophy, not just a legal requirement. We’re talking about devices built with modular parts, open schematics, and repair-friendly hardware - the kind of vision smaller companies like Framework are already pioneering.
Until then, progress depends on us - the consumers, advocates, and local repair communities - to keep the pressure on. Every petition, every viral teardown, every push for repair laws forces the industry to shift, even if slowly.
The good news? The momentum is here, and the days of disposable tech are numbered if we stay on the offensive.
What do you think - should Pakistan push for its own Right to Repair laws, or are we comfortable letting global tech giants decide how long our devices last?
Further Learning
Deere must face FTC’s antitrust lawsuit over repair costs, US judge rules
Apple crushes one-man repair shop in Norway’s Supreme Court, after three-year battle
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