As its the EU and regulation, its time to trott out your hobby horse.
So let me trot out mine: regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions.
the Online safety act is a good example of a bad law, which is enforced badly. The first big test (X producing industrial quantities of minors engaging in sexual activity) was failed. Had a small company produced a service that did they same thing, they would have been fined, servers ceased and owners thrown in jail. X got a letter saying they should stop.
An example of good enforcement is the UK's scores on the doors, where the public can see what the standard is, and if they fall below a certain level, the food place is fined/shutdown/other until it improves.
Old school methods like what McDonald's use, literally allow the customer to see in to the kitchen are very effective.
Not always ideal for every type establishment but I've seen high end Indian restaurants even do it by having the POS at the back where you can see the kitchen when paying which keeps the noise separate for the desired quiet atmosphere of a fine dining restaurant
I'm not sure how to translate this to the smartphone market though. Fairphone and LaJolla seem to do well in this regard though so back to brand reputation for a lot of this.
I am unfamiliar with these matters and I am also unsure what specifically you are referring to.
But in general, if big companies get away with wrongdoings by receiving a gentle slap on their fingers, figuratively speaking, it will, in my opinion, lead to no change whatsoever.
Because if there are no material consequences for wrongdoings, they probably would not care. And there are very few kinds of actually material consequences for big companies. One of them being a really hefty fine.
> An example of good enforcement is the UK's scores on the doors, where the public can see what the standard is, and if they fall below a certain level, the food place is fined/shutdown/other until it improves.
> Another good example is NCAP ratings.
Worth noting that NCAP and Scores on the Doors are not regulators. NCAP is an industry body; SotDs is run by TripAdvisor.
Sadly that mess had a political component, any attempt to regulate US big tech results in howls from over the Atlantic.
Frankly, I'd prefer it if we just let them howl and said fuck it more but it's probably a good job I'm not making those decisions (and in honesty the picture is complex for companies that size/the politics).
> regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions
Source for this claim? How can you say regulation is good without even defining what the regulation is? Or do you just believe that all regulation no matter what is always good?
Yes, Twitter frontpage should include a little counter with how much child exploitation it has facilitated today.
I don't think there's a single politician in Bruxelles that wouldn't love to come down hard on X. There is no love for Elon in those circles anymore. The problem is that he's attached himself to international politics through his daddy. Trump has threatened the EU with strict sanctions if they levy any sort of proportional fine to US tech companies.
The problem is no longer capitalist liberalism. The new challenge is American Fascism.
Enforcement can be better, but I'm gonna give grace given how recently it was imposed. It's easy to point at extreme levels of enforcement being a key part of any regulation, but I have seen the breadth of the EU's scope and what needs to be balanced. Quite often I find that nonaction against compliance violations falls into the following:
- Lack of resources
- Lack of real consumer impact
- Awaiting legislation meant to clarify or strengthen impact of enforcement.
The article to me doesn't offer enough to justify any shout of doing anything different at the moment, rather it's just that they failed an audit. If they failed an audit and coupled this to swaths of consumer complaints, sure, but every EU member has a clear agency for consumer complaint, and I don't buy it that it is hard for consumers to report violations, it is far more likely in this case that they just don't care for the violations this particular group cares more about (like the links to Temu. I suspect a consumer doesn't care if it actually works still in practice, but we'd need surveys to confirm).
Consumer-replaceable batteries will be one area that WILL be a hot issue for consumers, so I would bet we will see much stronger reaction once that rule comes into effect.
> but every EU member has a clear agency for consumer complaint, and I don't buy it that it is hard for consumers to report violations,
The problem is the response is toothless. I reported Amazon for a violation to ICO in February 2019, received an automated email a month later asking for a swathe of information, replied to that, and 3 months later got an update that it would be assigned a Case Officer. That was the last time I heard from them on that matter.
Meanwhile, my local council will respond to pretty much _everything_ within 24-48 hours. I’ve reported all sorts of “small” things and when it comes up naturally friends are surprised that the council did anything. They’ve never actually tried reporting the issues, and assume it’s all fruitless.
> Sometimes, this situation is slyly camouflaged: Ulefone information sheets list a link that looks genuine (https://www.ulefone.com/pages/support-centers), but if you click the ‘parts store button’ on that page, it takes you to Aliexpress. When ordering parts from non-EU web stores, you as a consumer would be the importer and as such, responsible for paying import duties as well as ensuring compliance with all regulations.
But if you actually click through to that page, it is very specifically _their_ AliExpress store, not just any old random page on AliExpress. It's not clear to me that that's actually non-compliant with the Ecodesign regulation, even if it's not ideal that the consumer is the importer of record.
EDIT: Actually, on reflection, the importer thing might be more meaningful than I first thought. While the Regulation doesn't say so explicitly, it must mean that the spare parts be available for sale in the Union, and if the consumer is acting as the importer, then the parts are potentially not on sale in the Union. But the fact it is the manufacturer's store on a marketplace and not the manufacturer's branded subdomain is as far as I can see, neither here nor there.
What I expect from this is rather that at least a few producers get more repair friendly so I as consumer have the choice again. (Writing this on my first phone without easily changeable battery, I've tried for very long)
So I as my families tech guru can give the right signals to my family and in a few years we see the actual change happen. Slowly but steadily
Companies don't really care about rules per se. They care about their risk appetite, and whether the consequences of their actions create risk above that appetite level.
The simple calculus is: will it cost me more to comply, or more to ignore? If a company chooses the more costly option, they are betraying their shareholders and being managed poorly.
If you do not fine early and often, you are almost mandating that companies ignore the legislation. If this continues for several years, then you almost make it impossible to turn around later and fine, as businesses will want to know what's changed now. You will create an impression of uncertainty and instability, which is the last thing businesses want, and the last thing you want to do to encourage investment.
If you just set and enforce the rules from the start, then everyone can relax, do the right thing and be happy about it. It's funny how rarely this actually seems to happen.
Contrary to popular belief, the EU is not very fast when it comes to enforcement on requirements like these. We already saw this with the ePrivacy Directive and GDPR: those scary hundreds-of-millions-of-euros fines are only handed out after ongoing and deliberate violation, where you've already received plenty of warnings and smaller fines.
18% compliance after one year with zero enforcement is not great, but it's already a massive increase over the near-zero repairable products we had only a few years ago. On top of that it is 18% of models, so there's a decent chance that a huge chunk of the noncompliant ones are obscure brands with near-zero sales: a handful of models by Apple and Samsung already add up to over 60% market share. And the report was literally written by iFixit, so there's a rather clear commercial incentive to underrepresent it and push for the strongest enforcement possible.
You can see the GDPR stats on https://www.enforcementtracker.com/statistics (scroll to “Enforcement over time” and click on “Total €”). 2018–2020 was effectively nothing compared to later.
It's going to be cool to get user-replaceable batteries back in new phone releases.
Depending how it goes I can see myself keeping a spare instead of a powerbank
The whole discussion on what the EU is doing has devolved into this idea that everyone will be forced to offer a backplate that pops out and a battery you can remove with your fingers.
The directive is far more complicated, and you will not see that at all.
It is not going to happen, because pretty much all major phone makers have exemption since their battery has still enough capacity after 2 years of use to be eligible for exemption.
In Germany both Shift and Gigaset have had user replaceable batteries for over a decade. The rebrands like Volla and rePhone, obviously. The Finish Jolla has a new phone with battery, camera lenses, etc. Typing on a GS5 with Sailfish. Repair of display was easy to perform.
And the only part that an average user can hope to replace. I tried to replace a cracked sceen once, and ruined the phone. And I consider myself pretty handy, I do all my own car repairs, household plumbing, etc.
> All you really need are easy to replace batteries.
They are easy _enough_ to replace already. Is it as easy as 20 years ago? Surely not. It also seems reasonable that something you're going to be realistically doing once per 3-4 years would require 1 or 2 hours.
Moreover, the regulation doesn't affect this process, apart from "no proprietary tools".
> That’s the only part that will wear out within a reasonable lifecycle.
Millions of broken screens and back glass/plastic panels beg to differ.
I'm wondering whether it is now time for regulators to pressure mobile phone companies to install longer life batteries. There is not really an incentive to prolong device life for manufacturers and when I look at recent progress on the car industry and utility battery side there is imho. potential.
Are there battery chemistries available which would allow for significantly longer life without sacrificing cost, power capacity, size, or safety? Generally the best way to prolong battery life is for the consumer to never fully charge or discharge.
"back in the day" we had waterproof phones with user replacable batteries, you could just buy another battery and replace it yourself. I have no idea why we can't do this now.
Why would they? The worst thing that can realistically happen is a $1-$5 billion fine a few years from now, which they only need to pay a few years after that when they have exhausted their legal remedies.
That’s easy to calculate with, and almost certainly cheaper than compliance.
With the thru the roof cost of smartphones and many other computer hardware products because of the current memory crisis I believe the EU should concentrate on making sure customers get satisfaction when something goes wrong from the seller.
I’m not interested in fixing the device myself. I’m taking it back to the company Apple, Sony, Nvidia or Audio-Engine and have them fix it, a third-party chop shop or me involved trying to fix it myself is unacceptable.
Most of the items sold today-simply cost too much to try a tinker with it myself. That’s utterly ridiculous. I hope the EU or any country for that matter concentrate on making sure companies with strong laws, honor/standby and fix the problem with their product. I have little faith that they will.
The notable weak spot for this regulation (like some others) is that the member countries agreed to execute it NATIONALLY, so EU member states had to turn the directive into national law and begin enforcement in 2026.
Now the EU is already quite challenged to stand up against US, China (and Korea) when it comes to enforcing such regulation and dealing with accusations from US/China/Korea of "sanctioning sales of their products"...
...so how would one expect the government of an individual country to fare in this, in times of Russia/Ukraine war, energy crisis, Strait-of-Hormuz-crisis...?
I think with many of the recent regulations, they could verify and find many of the egregious cases to be violating today.
The EU is just extremely worried about US tariffs and retracting support to Ukraine.
IMO they should just bite the bullet and do what they need to do. In a world of bullies those that are willing to show their teeth win. But instead we have a lot of politicians without a spine.
A huge part of that was fearmongering by people selling compliance consultancy services and people trying to find loopholes allowing them to keep abusing their users' data. For a lot of companies it really wasn't that big of a deal in practice.
I appreciate the intent to hold large corporations accountable, but I've lost faith in the EU being competent at doing so. Not as if I see anyone doing it better, but at least others aren't doing it so poorly.
As its the EU and regulation, its time to trott out your hobby horse.
So let me trot out mine: regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions.
the Online safety act is a good example of a bad law, which is enforced badly. The first big test (X producing industrial quantities of minors engaging in sexual activity) was failed. Had a small company produced a service that did they same thing, they would have been fined, servers ceased and owners thrown in jail. X got a letter saying they should stop.
An example of good enforcement is the UK's scores on the doors, where the public can see what the standard is, and if they fall below a certain level, the food place is fined/shutdown/other until it improves.
Another good example is NCAP ratings.
A lot of scores on the doors are often faked defeating their purpose. Helpful but not bullet proof.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SO8KcfhJmc
Old school methods like what McDonald's use, literally allow the customer to see in to the kitchen are very effective.
Not always ideal for every type establishment but I've seen high end Indian restaurants even do it by having the POS at the back where you can see the kitchen when paying which keeps the noise separate for the desired quiet atmosphere of a fine dining restaurant
I'm not sure how to translate this to the smartphone market though. Fairphone and LaJolla seem to do well in this regard though so back to brand reputation for a lot of this.
> Another good example is NCAP ratings.
Ironically it's a very bad example: EuroNCAP is an independent organization and has nothing to do with the EU and legislation/regulations as such.
> X got a letter saying they should stop.
I am unfamiliar with these matters and I am also unsure what specifically you are referring to.
But in general, if big companies get away with wrongdoings by receiving a gentle slap on their fingers, figuratively speaking, it will, in my opinion, lead to no change whatsoever.
Because if there are no material consequences for wrongdoings, they probably would not care. And there are very few kinds of actually material consequences for big companies. One of them being a really hefty fine.
> An example of good enforcement is the UK's scores on the doors, where the public can see what the standard is, and if they fall below a certain level, the food place is fined/shutdown/other until it improves.
> Another good example is NCAP ratings.
Worth noting that NCAP and Scores on the Doors are not regulators. NCAP is an industry body; SotDs is run by TripAdvisor.
Sadly that mess had a political component, any attempt to regulate US big tech results in howls from over the Atlantic.
Frankly, I'd prefer it if we just let them howl and said fuck it more but it's probably a good job I'm not making those decisions (and in honesty the picture is complex for companies that size/the politics).
> So let me trot out mine: regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions.
The issue is that people want quick sanctions until they wind up on the wrong end of the pointy spear--at which point they want accurate sanctions.
The problem is that quick and accurate are opposing forces when it comes to sanctions.
> regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions
Source for this claim? How can you say regulation is good without even defining what the regulation is? Or do you just believe that all regulation no matter what is always good?
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Yes, Twitter frontpage should include a little counter with how much child exploitation it has facilitated today.
I don't think there's a single politician in Bruxelles that wouldn't love to come down hard on X. There is no love for Elon in those circles anymore. The problem is that he's attached himself to international politics through his daddy. Trump has threatened the EU with strict sanctions if they levy any sort of proportional fine to US tech companies.
The problem is no longer capitalist liberalism. The new challenge is American Fascism.
I've no doubt the EU will take action on this... sometime over the next 15 years
Enforcement can be better, but I'm gonna give grace given how recently it was imposed. It's easy to point at extreme levels of enforcement being a key part of any regulation, but I have seen the breadth of the EU's scope and what needs to be balanced. Quite often I find that nonaction against compliance violations falls into the following:
- Lack of resources
- Lack of real consumer impact
- Awaiting legislation meant to clarify or strengthen impact of enforcement.
The article to me doesn't offer enough to justify any shout of doing anything different at the moment, rather it's just that they failed an audit. If they failed an audit and coupled this to swaths of consumer complaints, sure, but every EU member has a clear agency for consumer complaint, and I don't buy it that it is hard for consumers to report violations, it is far more likely in this case that they just don't care for the violations this particular group cares more about (like the links to Temu. I suspect a consumer doesn't care if it actually works still in practice, but we'd need surveys to confirm).
Consumer-replaceable batteries will be one area that WILL be a hot issue for consumers, so I would bet we will see much stronger reaction once that rule comes into effect.
> but every EU member has a clear agency for consumer complaint, and I don't buy it that it is hard for consumers to report violations,
The problem is the response is toothless. I reported Amazon for a violation to ICO in February 2019, received an automated email a month later asking for a swathe of information, replied to that, and 3 months later got an update that it would be assigned a Case Officer. That was the last time I heard from them on that matter.
Meanwhile, my local council will respond to pretty much _everything_ within 24-48 hours. I’ve reported all sorts of “small” things and when it comes up naturally friends are surprised that the council did anything. They’ve never actually tried reporting the issues, and assume it’s all fruitless.
> Some records even refer customers to Temu or AliExpress for spare parts and repair instructions.
And if we go to Footnote 5 of the campaign's press release (https://repair.eu/news/one-year-into-eu-ecodesign-rules-80-o...):
> Sometimes, this situation is slyly camouflaged: Ulefone information sheets list a link that looks genuine (https://www.ulefone.com/pages/support-centers), but if you click the ‘parts store button’ on that page, it takes you to Aliexpress. When ordering parts from non-EU web stores, you as a consumer would be the importer and as such, responsible for paying import duties as well as ensuring compliance with all regulations.
But if you actually click through to that page, it is very specifically _their_ AliExpress store, not just any old random page on AliExpress. It's not clear to me that that's actually non-compliant with the Ecodesign regulation, even if it's not ideal that the consumer is the importer of record.
EDIT: Actually, on reflection, the importer thing might be more meaningful than I first thought. While the Regulation doesn't say so explicitly, it must mean that the spare parts be available for sale in the Union, and if the consumer is acting as the importer, then the parts are potentially not on sale in the Union. But the fact it is the manufacturer's store on a marketplace and not the manufacturer's branded subdomain is as far as I can see, neither here nor there.
Does it really matter this early?
What I expect from this is rather that at least a few producers get more repair friendly so I as consumer have the choice again. (Writing this on my first phone without easily changeable battery, I've tried for very long)
So I as my families tech guru can give the right signals to my family and in a few years we see the actual change happen. Slowly but steadily
Companies don't really care about rules per se. They care about their risk appetite, and whether the consequences of their actions create risk above that appetite level.
The simple calculus is: will it cost me more to comply, or more to ignore? If a company chooses the more costly option, they are betraying their shareholders and being managed poorly.
If you do not fine early and often, you are almost mandating that companies ignore the legislation. If this continues for several years, then you almost make it impossible to turn around later and fine, as businesses will want to know what's changed now. You will create an impression of uncertainty and instability, which is the last thing businesses want, and the last thing you want to do to encourage investment.
If you just set and enforce the rules from the start, then everyone can relax, do the right thing and be happy about it. It's funny how rarely this actually seems to happen.
It does matter, yes. Because it won’t lead to the outcome you want until someone actually gets a painful fine.
I think it matters especially this early, to demonstrate that the legislation is a serious matter, not to be taken lightly and ignored.
Contrary to popular belief, the EU is not very fast when it comes to enforcement on requirements like these. We already saw this with the ePrivacy Directive and GDPR: those scary hundreds-of-millions-of-euros fines are only handed out after ongoing and deliberate violation, where you've already received plenty of warnings and smaller fines.
18% compliance after one year with zero enforcement is not great, but it's already a massive increase over the near-zero repairable products we had only a few years ago. On top of that it is 18% of models, so there's a decent chance that a huge chunk of the noncompliant ones are obscure brands with near-zero sales: a handful of models by Apple and Samsung already add up to over 60% market share. And the report was literally written by iFixit, so there's a rather clear commercial incentive to underrepresent it and push for the strongest enforcement possible.
You can see the GDPR stats on https://www.enforcementtracker.com/statistics (scroll to “Enforcement over time” and click on “Total €”). 2018–2020 was effectively nothing compared to later.
[flagged]
It's going to be cool to get user-replaceable batteries back in new phone releases. Depending how it goes I can see myself keeping a spare instead of a powerbank
The whole discussion on what the EU is doing has devolved into this idea that everyone will be forced to offer a backplate that pops out and a battery you can remove with your fingers.
The directive is far more complicated, and you will not see that at all.
It is not going to happen, because pretty much all major phone makers have exemption since their battery has still enough capacity after 2 years of use to be eligible for exemption.
Powerbank: Works with all phones, Doesn't require you to shut down and take your phone apart, Can be charged with a regular phone charger.
Spare battery: ???
I don't want to get down-voted but I like this regulation, good job EU!
Do you like the intent, or the implementation and enforcement?
Politicians have a tendency to think that passing legislation fixes problems, where is its only the start of the process.
Being in favor of right-to-repair is generally popular on HN, for obvious reasons.
All you really need are easy to replace batteries. That’s the only part that will wear out within a reasonable lifecycle.
Aside from FairPhone no one offers that
In Germany both Shift and Gigaset have had user replaceable batteries for over a decade. The rebrands like Volla and rePhone, obviously. The Finish Jolla has a new phone with battery, camera lenses, etc. Typing on a GS5 with Sailfish. Repair of display was easy to perform.
And the only part that an average user can hope to replace. I tried to replace a cracked sceen once, and ruined the phone. And I consider myself pretty handy, I do all my own car repairs, household plumbing, etc.
> All you really need are easy to replace batteries.
They are easy _enough_ to replace already. Is it as easy as 20 years ago? Surely not. It also seems reasonable that something you're going to be realistically doing once per 3-4 years would require 1 or 2 hours.
Moreover, the regulation doesn't affect this process, apart from "no proprietary tools".
> That’s the only part that will wear out within a reasonable lifecycle.
Millions of broken screens and back glass/plastic panels beg to differ.
> All you really need are easy to replace batteries. That’s the only part that will wear out within a reasonable lifecycle.
This is far from true. Power connectors.
I'm wondering whether it is now time for regulators to pressure mobile phone companies to install longer life batteries. There is not really an incentive to prolong device life for manufacturers and when I look at recent progress on the car industry and utility battery side there is imho. potential.
Are there battery chemistries available which would allow for significantly longer life without sacrificing cost, power capacity, size, or safety? Generally the best way to prolong battery life is for the consumer to never fully charge or discharge.
This regulation seems to relax the rules a bit for batteries that last longer.
I wonder if it will just lead to using same size batteries more gently.
Batteries always have a limited lifetime.
"back in the day" we had waterproof phones with user replacable batteries, you could just buy another battery and replace it yourself. I have no idea why we can't do this now.
isn't it often like this: the fines escalate if ignored?
- new requirements
- ignored => small fine
- still ignored => large fine
- not ignored anymore
Why would they? The worst thing that can realistically happen is a $1-$5 billion fine a few years from now, which they only need to pay a few years after that when they have exhausted their legal remedies.
That’s easy to calculate with, and almost certainly cheaper than compliance.
Fines like this always come with a legal obligation to adhere to the requirements, it's never just a cost of doing business.
Surely consumers can easily obtain these rights by simply sticking to smartphones manufactured in the EU, right?
They need to start fining.
They don't comply with open source licenses, either.
There seems to be a strong sentiment in a specific direction, with everyone saying more or less the same weird arguments.
Maybe non EU people shouldn't judge this much? Its generally Very welcomed around here
With the thru the roof cost of smartphones and many other computer hardware products because of the current memory crisis I believe the EU should concentrate on making sure customers get satisfaction when something goes wrong from the seller.
I’m not interested in fixing the device myself. I’m taking it back to the company Apple, Sony, Nvidia or Audio-Engine and have them fix it, a third-party chop shop or me involved trying to fix it myself is unacceptable.
Most of the items sold today-simply cost too much to try a tinker with it myself. That’s utterly ridiculous. I hope the EU or any country for that matter concentrate on making sure companies with strong laws, honor/standby and fix the problem with their product. I have little faith that they will.
chill out it has not been a month.
The notable weak spot for this regulation (like some others) is that the member countries agreed to execute it NATIONALLY, so EU member states had to turn the directive into national law and begin enforcement in 2026.
Now the EU is already quite challenged to stand up against US, China (and Korea) when it comes to enforcing such regulation and dealing with accusations from US/China/Korea of "sanctioning sales of their products"...
...so how would one expect the government of an individual country to fare in this, in times of Russia/Ukraine war, energy crisis, Strait-of-Hormuz-crisis...?
That's how all EU regulations work, the EU is not sovereign, it's more like a localised UN
I suspect it’s something similar to the GDPR where the EU passes a law but has very few resources on how to check if you’re actually compliant.
I think with many of the recent regulations, they could verify and find many of the egregious cases to be violating today.
The EU is just extremely worried about US tariffs and retracting support to Ukraine.
IMO they should just bite the bullet and do what they need to do. In a world of bullies those that are willing to show their teeth win. But instead we have a lot of politicians without a spine.
A huge part of that was fearmongering by people selling compliance consultancy services and people trying to find loopholes allowing them to keep abusing their users' data. For a lot of companies it really wasn't that big of a deal in practice.
Cheat until caught then lie.
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I appreciate the intent to hold large corporations accountable, but I've lost faith in the EU being competent at doing so. Not as if I see anyone doing it better, but at least others aren't doing it so poorly.