this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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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?

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[–] ALiteralCabbage@feddit.uk 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Fixing things is nearly always cheaper than buying 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.

[–] PagPag@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

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cheaper to fix, but at a certain point it doesn’t make sense to fix something that’s borderline unusable even new (outdated).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.