Originally published at: Biden Executive Order Could Significantly Impact Big Tech - TidBITS
President Joe Biden has signed a far-reaching executive order that calls for right-to-repair regulations, rules on surveillance and accumulation of data, a ban on early termination fees, and more.
« The economy is booming under President Biden’s leadership.» First line made me feel like I was looking at an east block or Chinese statement from my youth back in 1970. 
Since I am a DIY guy I applause this.
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PR is PR everywhere and across all time. 
But please, let’s keep the discussion focused on the meat of the executive order and what effects it may or may not have. If the discussion devolves into politics, I’ll cut hard.
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Then there will be a lawsuit over it…because anybody with 3 functioning brain cells knows what that means. No privacy period as a law enforcement back door will be cracked within days.
Woz and Jobs did quite well with the little homegrown computer company they started in Steve’s parents’ garage. IIRC, HP, Google and Amazon started out as garage tech companies. And Zuckerberg in his dorm room. They did, and continue to do, great damage to the bottom lines of what was then considered to be untouchable competitors.
One of those “proprietary diagnostic and repair tools” that Apple has includes mother board serializers, basically letting people change the serial number on their motherboard. Repair shops use this if they have to replace the motherboard in the computer. The new motherboard doesn’t have a serial number so they set it to the original SN. I can’t imagine it’s a good idea to provide those to anyone.
Memories of the screws falling out the back of my old Sony Clié…
I am glad right-to-repair is getting its long overdue time in the sun. For some time now it appeared that Apple has finely honed the lifespan-of-product : customer-desire-building ratio to perfection (from their bottom line’s pov). Where the kind of end of life, rejuvenation repairs/replacement seemed unnecessary or at least easy to ignore when for a few dollars more…
TIme was (and not so long ago and I suspect still does for many folks) the parent’s devices moved down the family line but for many in the West, those tiers are well populated at this point. I’ve at least three old iPhones and one iPad awaiting the next time I get to drop them off at an Apple Store for Liam to disassemble. My last time doing that, the process was no more than a sales clerk handing me a form to fill in for each device. Which was, eh, annoying.
I wonder if there’ll be some creative interpretations here, some upgrade paths or recycle paths that reward more heavily, this move by the WH might prompt that.