[throwaway0a5e]

>No new market rule but a more informed consumer. I thought you guys would like this "free-market makes-best-decisions" gov lobbying.

I love "give the consumer the tools to make their own decision" solution.

The little bit of .gov lobbying that inevitably sneaks in anyway will create an opening for savvy consumers to save money by buying things that punch above their score (we already have this kind of thing for appliance energy ratings) or by researching scores and figuring out that something is actually highly repairable if you don't mind buying the service literature off some sketchy site you had to use Google Translate on.

[Wowfunhappy]

The only problem is, this only works if there's enough competition for consumers to have a real choice. If Apple and the 4 (?) largest Android manufacturers all decide they're content with a repairability score of 2, there isn't a whole lot consumers could do, regardless of whether they'd like more repairable devices.

[kilotaras]

That state is not stable (in game theory sense) though.

At least on Android there's no real vendor lock-in so defecting from "unrepairable" phones will let you eat some portion of competition sales.

[lotsofpulp]

And since that doesn’t happen, it means the economics of a repairable phone don’t make any sense.

[jka]

Another (unlikely, but possible) market exploit is that a large enough supplier could intentionally encourage the existence of lower-quality manufacturers, allowing them to gain trust from consumers who wish to buy (what they believe should be) quality, durable products.

[google234123]

I like the new phones, they pack more tech/power/screen into a nicer package every year. Remember when phones weren't water proof?

[modo_mario]

Yeah because the majority today isn't.