[00:56.200 --> 01:02.160]  Whether you're in the theater here in Queens, New York, or watching all over the world, welcome again to A New HOPE.
[01:03.480 --> 01:08.760]  Quick reminder that mask wearing is required indoors and all indoor conference spaces.
[01:08.980 --> 01:11.120]  So we appreciate that you're wearing the mask and thank you.
[01:12.520 --> 01:20.980]  During the question session for this next speaker, we're going to ask that folks, because we anticipate a lot of questions, we're going to ask that folks limit themselves to one question and one follow-up.
[01:22.420 --> 01:24.440]  And what can I say about our next speaker?
[01:24.440 --> 01:28.660]  11 years ago, he started making YouTube videos in his store in Manhattan.
[01:29.580 --> 01:41.380]  3,000 videos and 1.7 million subscribers later, he now crisscrosses the country speaking to legislatures nationwide about the right to repair.
[01:41.800 --> 01:43.260]  Ladies and gentlemen, Louis Rossmann.
[01:43.920 --> 01:44.560]  Thank you.
[01:45.680 --> 01:46.360]  Thank you.
[01:50.250 --> 01:51.230]  Thank you very much.
[01:51.570 --> 01:53.430]  Okay, I have a confession to make here.
[01:53.650 --> 01:55.010]  So I am not a public speaker.
[01:55.130 --> 01:56.150]  I don't know how to fill an hour.
[01:56.150 --> 01:57.230]  And I didn't write a speech.
[01:57.450 --> 02:05.130]  So think of this like having a substitute teacher except without that kick adult mean you get when you realize that your final is not delayed until next week that you didn't study for.
[02:05.290 --> 02:06.250]  But we're still going to have some fun.
[02:07.990 --> 02:13.450]  So, has anybody here had to go to a hospital and lie down on either an operating table or one of those beds that they have?
[02:15.430 --> 02:19.730]  Most of the audience is less careless than I am, I'm guessing by the low show of hands.
[02:20.190 --> 02:25.990]  So, there is a... Now in this bed there's a motor and it's similar to the motor that you have in a car seat where you can adjust it.
[02:26.150 --> 02:30.150]  The doctor can have you go back, forth, forward, back, like up, down.
[02:31.070 --> 02:32.830]  Sometimes this breaks and it stops working.
[02:32.970 --> 02:34.830]  This table is about $35,000.
[02:35.350 --> 02:39.130]  What would you estimate it costs to fix that when that motor dies?
[02:39.350 --> 02:40.510]  You can just toss out any number.
[02:43.610 --> 02:45.470]  You're not supposed to get it right in the first try.
[02:46.530 --> 02:47.730]  It takes away my fun.
[02:48.190 --> 02:52.750]  See, I did an interview on my channel with somebody that fixes medical equipment for a living and it's $35,000.
[02:53.110 --> 02:54.790]  Their answer is you buy a new table.
[02:54.970 --> 03:02.190]  They can't buy that motor because the company has the motor, but the motor manufacturer changed slightly so the motor that's on the market won't fit there.
[03:02.190 --> 03:04.870]  And they tell the manufacturer of the motor, don't sell this motor.
[03:05.030 --> 03:13.990]  So, they are forced to spend $35,000 to replace the table in spite of the fact that it has one small thing wrong with it that you don't even need to be a medical professional to fix.
[03:14.190 --> 03:25.330]  And there's a lot of arguments in this country about whether or not we should have single payer healthcare, insurance provided healthcare, or if it should just, you know, get rid of the mess that makes it so expensive to where you can't afford basic work off of your own paycheck.
[03:25.490 --> 03:29.470]  But at the end of the day, somebody's paying that $35,000 for a broken motor.
[03:29.470 --> 03:32.410]  Or another example, like I saw a few people with MacBooks here.
[03:32.670 --> 03:34.330]  Let's say you have a $2,000 MacBook.
[03:34.570 --> 03:35.730]  You notice the battery is 5%.
[03:35.730 --> 03:36.950]  You go to plug it in.
[03:37.030 --> 03:37.550]  You plug it in.
[03:37.610 --> 03:38.030]  It goes...
[03:38.030 --> 03:39.130]  And it stops working.
[03:39.390 --> 03:41.690]  What would it cost to get that $2,000 MacBook fixed?
[03:43.550 --> 03:43.910]  Guesses.
[03:44.610 --> 03:45.530]  Shout out any price.
[03:45.830 --> 03:46.190]  $500.
[03:46.890 --> 03:47.750]  Okay, $500.
[03:47.970 --> 03:48.550]  What else do we have?
[03:48.770 --> 03:49.330]  $1,000.
[03:49.490 --> 03:50.130]  $1,000.
[03:50.270 --> 03:50.890]  Okay, we're getting closer.
[03:53.310 --> 03:54.390]  Somebody's been to the Genius Bar.
[03:54.510 --> 03:54.810]  What else?
[03:55.970 --> 03:56.690]  $1,001.
[03:58.030 --> 03:59.830]  It's usually $1,200 to $1,500.
[04:00.410 --> 04:02.030]  And there's a chip that goes bad inside of it.
[04:02.090 --> 04:02.930]  It's made by Intersil.
[04:03.030 --> 04:04.330]  It's called an ISL9240.
[04:04.610 --> 04:06.790]  And when this chip goes bad, it stops charging.
[04:07.050 --> 04:09.130]  Now, this should be a fairly simple repair.
[04:09.410 --> 04:13.050]  The problem with it is that they tell the company making the chip, don't sell it to anybody else.
[04:13.150 --> 04:15.510]  So you can't go to Mouser or DigiKey or Newark or buy it.
[04:15.630 --> 04:17.630]  What we'll do is we will go to...
[04:17.630 --> 04:21.150]  We'll have to find another device that uses this exact same chip.
[04:21.150 --> 04:30.050]  So we'll have to randomly rip open a bunch of stuff that we buy and spend money on, and figure out that there's an iPhone XR charging case with the extended battery that uses this same chip.
[04:30.250 --> 04:31.330]  And then we'll take that apart.
[04:31.530 --> 04:33.870]  We will throw the battery away into an e-waste container.
[04:34.050 --> 04:37.770]  We'll take the chip off of it, re-ball it, and put it on a board so that we can make that work again.
[04:39.890 --> 04:42.790]  Let's say... now, this is something that pretty much spans all industries.
[04:42.790 --> 04:44.470]  So if we're talking about, let's say, tractors.
[04:44.630 --> 04:48.410]  Let's say you're actually able to find everything you need to fix your $500,000 combine.
[04:48.670 --> 04:50.410]  Will it work again after you fix it?
[04:50.590 --> 04:51.010]  Yes or no?
[04:52.150 --> 05:03.970]  No, because you have to have somebody from the dealer come out at $125 an hour that sometimes has a two- to three-week wait in the middle of your harvest to plug his computer in to say... to clear the error code and say, it's okay, you're allowed to use what you spent half a million dollars on.
[05:04.370 --> 05:16.150]  I'm going to stop this knock-off game of the price is right, because it's kind of getting old, to get to the point that this is something that spans virtually every single industry, whether we're talking about medical equipment, home appliances, laptops,
[05:16.490 --> 05:20.130]  cell phones, automobiles, and it's something that I walked into by accident.
[05:20.350 --> 05:22.130]  So this is not something that I was intending to do.
[05:22.270 --> 05:23.990]  I used to work at a recording studio.
[05:24.190 --> 05:25.450]  The recording studio closed.
[05:25.610 --> 05:28.710]  I needed a MacBook to work on a session that I was working on in Logic.
[05:28.950 --> 05:33.050]  And as some people who watch my YouTube channel may gather, I'm not the biggest fan of Apple products, so I didn't own one.
[05:33.250 --> 05:34.370]  So I had to buy a MacBook.
[05:34.510 --> 05:35.050]  I bought it.
[05:35.150 --> 05:35.870]  It showed up broken.
[05:36.310 --> 05:38.250]  I got a partial refund from the seller.
[05:38.410 --> 05:40.210]  I found the part to make it work again.
[05:40.210 --> 05:41.110]  I made about $250.
[05:41.590 --> 05:41.990]  And I thought, huh.
[05:42.670 --> 05:45.970]  I have been making $400 to $600 a month for the past year.
[05:46.130 --> 05:48.390]  I just made $250 for 20 minutes of my time.
[05:48.570 --> 05:49.490]  Let's try that again.
[05:49.670 --> 05:51.710]  And I built a business off of it.
[05:51.770 --> 05:56.710]  And the weird thing is that it took me five years to finally ask the question, why is this so hard?
[05:56.990 --> 06:02.950]  If I want a manual, why do I have to wait for somebody to leak it on some Romanian FTP server that I have to worry about getting shut down?
[06:03.110 --> 06:14.090]  Why do I have to wire money to strange people that don't have real businesses in order to buy a part rather than just reach out to LG or Intersil or any of these companies and just buy from them or their distributors?
[06:14.410 --> 06:16.790]  And it's something that is...
[06:18.850 --> 06:22.330]  It's something that took about five years for me to finally start asking.
[06:22.470 --> 06:31.170]  And the thing is, I'm not that young, but I'm young enough that I'm not old enough to remember when all of these devices came with manuals.
[06:31.190 --> 06:36.310]  When you could actually buy a computer that had all of the documentation, all the schematics.
[06:36.490 --> 06:41.510]  When you could go to RadioShack and buy tubes for your television or for your amplifier or anything else.
[06:41.710 --> 06:53.030]  And the idea back then that people would make the argument that it is unsafe to do this type of work, that there's a security issue, a safety issue, you shouldn't be allowed to do this, would be absolutely seen as insane and ridiculous.
[06:53.210 --> 06:56.110]  But it's something that's seen as fairly commonplace today.
[06:56.670 --> 07:10.710]  When it comes to arguments made against repair, one of my favorite arguments, this goes back to 2015, was speaking to an assembly person in New York State who said that he was told by a manufacturer, when I replace a fuse or a wire on a motherboard of a MacBook,
[07:11.010 --> 07:18.150]  I've now converted that MacBook into a PC, but I'm still representing it as a MacBook to my customer, which is fraud, which is why I shouldn't be allowed to do what I do.
[07:18.510 --> 07:21.090]  Does this argument hold any faith with anybody in the audience?
[07:21.350 --> 07:21.630]  No.
[07:22.050 --> 07:23.690]  So I see we have no politicians here.
[07:25.130 --> 07:31.810]  But the thing is, I'm not a professional activist, I'm not a professional politician, legislator, or anything like that.
[07:32.070 --> 07:36.650]  The way that I got into this is, my face turned red when this guy told me this.
[07:36.810 --> 07:39.610]  And I just felt incredibly aggravated.
[07:39.710 --> 07:41.910]  And I asked him, why did you believe this shit?
[07:42.050 --> 07:44.570]  And he says, well, nobody came here to tell me otherwise.
[07:44.790 --> 07:46.430]  But now you did, so thank you.
[07:46.430 --> 07:48.970]  And he co-sponsors the bill and he actually signs it.
[07:49.050 --> 07:49.790]  He changed his mind.
[07:49.930 --> 07:56.790]  So I thought, okay, everybody has this idea that the reason that the bad people win is because of all this money and all this power and all this corruption and all this that and the other.
[07:56.930 --> 07:59.750]  And the reality, like the real red pull of it, is that nobody actually showed up.
[08:00.030 --> 08:07.210]  He said, you know, this has been something on the docket for about two or three years, and you're the first person to show up that was actually in favor of it that actually explained this to me.
[08:07.210 --> 08:09.190]  So that was really all it took.
[08:09.290 --> 08:18.170]  And that's how I started to get obsessed with this idea of going to these legislative hearings, recording these arguments, filming them, and posting them live for everybody to be able to hear it.
[08:18.790 --> 08:22.430]  Since then, there have been a bunch of different arguments that I'd like to read to you.
[08:22.590 --> 08:27.490]  So we've had, in 2017, somebody from AHAM said that a magnetrometer will explode.
[08:27.610 --> 08:29.130]  Does anybody here know what a magnetrometer is?
[08:29.430 --> 08:30.250]  It doesn't exist.
[08:30.250 --> 08:31.350]  It doesn't exist.
[08:31.450 --> 08:31.910]  Good answer.
[08:32.070 --> 08:34.510]  So there's something called a magnetron inside of a microwave.
[08:34.890 --> 08:35.770]  These things don't explode.
[08:35.770 --> 08:38.770]  Has anybody here ever heard of a magnetron in a microwave exploding before?
[08:38.970 --> 08:39.930]  Not exploding, though.
[08:40.130 --> 08:40.730]  Just exploding.
[08:41.210 --> 08:42.370]  Read about it on the news?
[08:42.950 --> 08:43.990]  Hear about it from your friend?
[08:44.110 --> 08:44.810]  Happened in your own place?
[08:44.910 --> 08:45.790]  It's because it doesn't happen.
[08:46.050 --> 08:55.070]  So this person that doesn't even know how to pronounce the part that goes into a microwave is saying that appliance technicians shouldn't be able to do these types of repairs because things will explode.
[08:56.010 --> 09:08.150]  From somebody from the ESA in 2020 in Washington, while explaining why it's important that you not be able to be able to replace a fan in your game console, because that would be bad, was trying to explain the entire process about how a game console works,
[09:08.270 --> 09:09.250]  how anti-piracy works.
[09:09.570 --> 09:11.650]  She said that the game plays the console.
[09:12.750 --> 09:15.010]  The game plays the console.
[09:15.010 --> 09:32.650]  In Massachusetts, independent auto... there was a right to repair bill on the ballot in 2020, and they had said that they had done this really, really weird commercial against this bill that allows independent auto mechanics to get access to the wireless telematics so that they can read information on what's going on with your car.
[09:32.890 --> 09:34.270]  And they had a woman in a parking lot.
[09:34.390 --> 09:45.910]  She's walking over to her car, but right behind her, with scary string music playing, there's a guy walking over slowly, and somebody in the background with scary music, and it ends, like on this crescendo, as the guy's about to smash her in the neck or something,
[09:46.090 --> 09:54.070]  and they said vote no on question two, because if you allow independent mechanics to be able to fix your car, apparently, you're going to be assaulted in a parking lot.
[09:54.430 --> 10:08.330]  Or, they had another one, where there's a woman, this guy's old, frail-looking woman walking into a garage, and slowly going to the door to enter her house, and there's a guy, and he has like a cap on, and he has the green flannel shirt, because we all know all people who wear green flannel shirts are rapists,
[10:08.470 --> 10:21.970]  and he's slowly walking up like this into the house, and then he goes right behind the woman, he goes to tap her on the shoulder, and she goes to scream, and before she can scream, you hear the narrator say, vote no on question one, keep yourself safe.
[10:22.550 --> 10:25.630]  These are the arguments that get used.
[10:25.830 --> 10:33.150]  And the real depressing part here is that these arguments don't win because of a lack of money, although we'll get to that momentarily.
[10:33.550 --> 10:37.010]  These arguments, money simply helps these arguments be put in front of the right people.
[10:37.310 --> 10:42.970]  These arguments win because our culture has lost some respect for just the concept of freedom.
[10:43.350 --> 10:56.290]  And the idea that you should not be able to have an independent mechanic work on your vehicle, because if the independent mechanic works on your vehicle, that you're going to get stalked, you're going to get beaten in a parking lot, that your magnetometer is going to explode,
[10:56.410 --> 10:59.330]  that your game is going to play the console, which I think is the scariest one of these all.
[11:00.390 --> 11:04.970]  These all exist because our culture has lost some respect for freedom.
[11:05.610 --> 11:06.610]  I want you to think about the car.
[11:06.890 --> 11:10.330]  A car is something that weighs 4,000 pounds, that can go 70 miles an hour.
[11:10.450 --> 11:19.170]  And we completely accept that you should be able to work on this car, be able to work on your brakes, and fix the thing that allows this 4,000 pound thing that can go 70 miles an hour down the road.
[11:19.430 --> 11:24.770]  We accept the fact that you should be able to work on this, to be able to fix the brakes in your driveway.
[11:24.950 --> 11:27.230]  And the reason is because that's kind of grand-fathered in.
[11:27.230 --> 11:30.970]  Cars came out over 100 years ago, and that was when we had a different culture.
[11:31.190 --> 11:38.610]  Even when it comes to something like, let's say, fixing a tube amp, or fixing a television, or RadioShack selling tubes and stuff like that, we have 300 or 10,000 volts running through it.
[11:38.750 --> 11:44.030]  That happened 50 to 70 years ago, back when we had a little bit more of a respect for freedom in our culture.
[11:44.310 --> 11:53.850]  And a lot of the arguments that you hear against right to repairs, that it's unsafe or insecure, this, that, and the other, I don't think that a lot of these arguments would have worked 50 or 70 years ago.
[11:53.950 --> 11:55.170]  And I'm trying to bring that back.
[11:55.310 --> 11:57.650]  And part of how I try to bring that back is showing you.
[11:57.810 --> 11:59.170]  I'm going to work on all this stuff.
[11:59.310 --> 12:00.110]  We're going to do it live.
[12:00.290 --> 12:01.130]  It's not going to be edited.
[12:01.590 --> 12:04.190]  We're going to run power through a short, this, that, and the other.
[12:04.310 --> 12:05.670]  And let's see if it turns on at the end.
[12:05.750 --> 12:07.230]  And look, see, I'm still here.
[12:07.770 --> 12:10.270]  A little older, more gray hair, and less of it, but still here.
[12:10.490 --> 12:12.030]  But I can't blame that on the repair.
[12:12.330 --> 12:15.910]  Now, a lot of the argument that you hear against right to repair is that it's going to stifle innovation.
[12:16.230 --> 12:35.750]  But what many people forget is that many of the companies making these arguments that the ability to repair your own stuff is going to stifle innovation forget that many of these companies that are lobbying against Steve Wozniak came out in favor of right to repair and saying that this is what's going to encourage the next generation of engineers,
[12:35.990 --> 12:41.350]  the next generation of technicians and mechanics, people that are opening up stuff and tinkering with it that have lost that opportunity now.
[12:41.570 --> 12:48.470]  Yet the company that he was a part of founding and engineering their primary products in the early days, it comes out saying this is a bad thing.
[12:49.250 --> 12:53.490]  People who get into engineering, mechanics, and programming start by opening things up and messing with them.
[12:53.550 --> 12:55.490]  And we lose this more with each passing year.
[12:55.490 --> 13:10.630]  Now, part of what I started doing was just making videos to try and get people involved, to show them that this is fun, to show them not only how to fix their own stuff so that they can save a little bit of money or get that little kick-a-dope mean you get when something works again,
[13:10.750 --> 13:13.050]  but also so that they can make a little bit of money.
[13:13.210 --> 13:23.430]  If you go to the Apple Store and they say something is $1,200 and the part is $5 and it takes a half hour of your time, there's a fair amount of profit margin to be made there if you learn how to do this type of stuff.
[13:23.430 --> 13:27.650]  And a lot of what I've tried to get across online is that you don't have to have an engineering degree.
[13:27.850 --> 13:38.070]  You don't even have to have graduated high school to understand some very basic simple detective-like concepts to be able to figure out how these devices work and to be able to make them work again when something dies.
[13:38.750 --> 13:51.630]  And part of what makes this fun is when people will show up at my store and say that, you know, thank you, I used to work as a cashier at Walmart, now I run my own shop and I can afford to have a house for my family and everything else.
[13:51.990 --> 14:01.630]  Once you make, you allow somebody to either save money by get that little kick-a-dope mean when they make something work again or make the money necessary to make a living, I think you have them for life.
[14:01.630 --> 14:07.870]  And this was very successful, and this is how I kind of accidentally backdoored my way into being an activist.
[14:08.090 --> 14:16.150]  Because I wasn't lecturing people on why they should care, but I was allowing them to share in my fun and showing them how close you are to not having any anymore.
[14:16.590 --> 14:23.310]  This is something that gets a little controversial, but there's this one clip that's gone all around the Internet for a long period of time.
[14:23.310 --> 14:25.330]  The Greta Thunberg, how dare you moment.
[14:25.490 --> 14:33.550]  And I think that that is responsible for more Ford F-350 diesels rolling coal on my electric car as I drive through rural Pennsylvania than I could ever imagine.
[14:33.710 --> 14:38.930]  And the idea is that activism is not about holding signs or lecturing people from a place of moral superiority.
[14:39.130 --> 14:44.050]  It's about getting people to join in your fun, profit from your passion, and benefit from what they're learning.
[14:44.170 --> 14:47.370]  And that got right to repair a really long way.
[14:47.730 --> 14:51.330]  But at the end of the day, it still kind of reached its limits.
[14:51.330 --> 14:55.390]  It did not have... you know, again, I started doing this around 2013-14.
[14:55.750 --> 15:03.290]  And five years in, every single state that I testified in, a bill would usually get declined or left out of the legislative chamber.
[15:03.590 --> 15:04.590]  Nothing really changed.
[15:04.730 --> 15:06.450]  No companies really changed any of their behavior.
[15:07.170 --> 15:11.310]  And somebody called me out of the blue in summer of 2020.
[15:12.150 --> 15:14.550]  And they asked what I would do with a million dollars.
[15:15.010 --> 15:17.010]  Now, at this point, I had a million subscribers on YouTube.
[15:17.030 --> 15:19.110]  My store address is public.
[15:19.970 --> 15:24.570]  I am used to... you can imagine the amount of prank calls I get with my phone number being public and a million subscribers.
[15:25.050 --> 15:27.570]  So, he's like, what would you do with a million dollars?
[15:27.770 --> 15:28.610]  And I said, hang up.
[15:28.930 --> 15:29.530]  And, well, click.
[15:29.670 --> 15:32.150]  I went back to what I was doing because I was busy doing a border pair.
[15:32.290 --> 15:34.250]  I go over to my back office.
[15:34.410 --> 15:37.530]  I said, okay, I'm going to continue my stream that just got interrupted.
[15:37.730 --> 15:38.750]  Go back to my border pair.
[15:39.030 --> 15:41.810]  A $100 super chat shows up and it says, not a prank.
[15:42.030 --> 15:42.770]  Pick up the phone.
[15:46.970 --> 15:50.230]  Needless to say, my border pair stream ended early that day.
[15:50.410 --> 15:50.990]  I'm listening.
[15:51.410 --> 15:56.370]  There was a Silicon Valley programmer on the other line who had become a billionaire and was tired of their culture of control.
[15:56.610 --> 16:00.390]  He suggested I start a non-profit and take right to repair advocacy a little bit more seriously.
[16:00.610 --> 16:05.970]  To keep doing what I'm doing and offered a million dollars with pretty much two strings attached.
[16:05.970 --> 16:09.030]  that I continued doing what I was doing and that I not sell out.
[16:09.250 --> 16:19.770]  At this point, I now work for this organization that is looking for all these different types of projects that are dedicated to a goal of restoring control over technology to consumers and the users of that technology.
[16:19.930 --> 16:21.430]  That organization is called FUTO.
[16:21.570 --> 16:31.090]  They have been funding all these different types of projects, whether through small grants with no strings attached or investments in companies, that are focused on this main hire concept.
[16:31.330 --> 16:35.550]  At the end of the day, right to repair is a small thing under the umbrella of control.
[16:35.550 --> 16:45.890]  Whether we are talking about a medical company that says you're not allowed to buy a motor to fix this that requires you spend $35,000 dollars to replace an operating table where everything works...
[16:45.890 --> 16:50.610]  Whether we're talking about not being able to do basic repairs on your car, your tractor, your computer.
[16:50.930 --> 16:55.070]  Whether we're talking about a cell phone with a locked bootloader so I can't install an operating system of my choice.
[16:55.290 --> 17:01.050]  Or, we're talking about Apple saying that you're not allowed to install whatever apps you want on an iPhone that you own.
[17:01.250 --> 17:02.290]  That you have to go through them.
[17:02.550 --> 17:04.630]  You're not allowed to program an app for your device.
[17:04.630 --> 17:08.850]  You, after you program it, you have to kiss the ring of Tim Cook to be able to install something on it.
[17:08.950 --> 17:10.950]  This all kind of goes under the umbrella of control.
[17:11.250 --> 17:16.290]  More and more companies are focused on controlling what you do with what you own.
[17:16.430 --> 17:20.510]  Or, if we're talking about subscription models, just taking away the concept of ownership entirely.
[17:20.690 --> 17:32.710]  Whether we're talking about BMW charging you a subscription for heated seats in a car that you already paid for the coils in, more software moving to a subscription model, hardware moving to a subscription model, it kind of falls into that umbrella of control.
[17:33.190 --> 17:41.750]  And what I'd like to do is start pushing the movement, not just focusing on right to repair, but taking back control of our devices, taking back control of what we own.
[17:41.990 --> 17:46.850]  Most people, they don't see a smartphone as a computer, but that's what it is.
[17:46.970 --> 17:53.090]  And the idea that you can install an operating system of your choice on a computer that you spend a thousand dollars on would be considered insane.
[17:53.290 --> 17:58.030]  But we just kind of accept it to the point where there are very few choices that you actually have.
[17:58.270 --> 18:04.050]  And this is something that I think we have started to reach the end of our rope with.
[18:04.370 --> 18:07.470]  This laptop that I'm using here is made by a company called Framework.
[18:07.590 --> 18:14.610]  This is the first laptop company that I know of to create a usable mainstream laptop where they will give people access to the schematics of the motherboard.
[18:14.790 --> 18:21.530]  So you do not have to pirate it off of an FTP server in Romania and wonder if they're going to hack your PayPal account after you pay them, which is great.
[18:21.850 --> 18:24.070]  The entirety of this device is made to be repairable.
[18:24.230 --> 18:27.130]  So you can literally just, if you want to replace the screen, it's not something that's glued in.
[18:27.270 --> 18:27.830]  There's no screws.
[18:28.010 --> 18:30.170]  You just take out for the bezel or anything like that.
[18:30.270 --> 18:30.610]  You do that.
[18:30.750 --> 18:32.010]  Everything just comes right out of it.
[18:32.590 --> 18:35.230]  Fairphone came out with a device that has a user replaceable battery.
[18:35.350 --> 18:36.490]  It's a little bit more easy to work on.
[18:36.850 --> 18:43.970]  But the problem is still there that at the lower levels of the tech stack, whether it comes to hardware or software, it is difficult to get things done.
[18:44.270 --> 18:50.790]  So for instance, like Fairphone does not make schematics available for the motherboard so that I can do the type of repairs I do in my videos.
[18:50.970 --> 18:52.230]  I don't blame them for that.
[18:52.350 --> 19:01.050]  I'm very confident that they most likely have some sort of NDA there under or contract there under with the company that makes the chip for the modem and everything else that goes into the device.
[19:01.310 --> 19:13.410]  And this is where it's really important that people that have the amount of money as my new boss start to get involved and find the companies that are going to create the technologies that compete with the existing ones so that we can take back control of what we own.
[19:13.950 --> 19:14.690]  That's about that.
[19:14.970 --> 19:15.770]  So any questions?
[19:28.450 --> 19:28.890]  Sure.
[19:28.890 --> 19:30.130]  We have a microphone coming.
[19:40.390 --> 19:43.690]  If anyone has questions for Mr. Rossman, please stand in line.
[19:44.290 --> 19:47.310]  I do have a question from the Matrix chat.
[19:49.470 --> 19:50.970]  Let me just find that question real quick.
[19:51.130 --> 19:51.970]  From J Fred.
[19:53.190 --> 19:57.030]  What do you think about the same sort of right to repair issues applied to software?
[19:57.250 --> 20:03.910]  For example, an IoT security camera might have vulnerable software that allows an attacker to intercept the video feed.
[20:04.870 --> 20:11.570]  and when... and oftentimes your only resort is to scrap it and make more e-waste instead of being able to fix it.
[20:13.050 --> 20:26.690]  I'm for it, but I've had that be separate from right to repair for these types of devices because I don't know enough about programming to be able to actually look at a bill and say this is written in a manner where there's not going to be unintended consequences or side effects.
[20:26.690 --> 20:37.230]  Whereas I'm confident enough about my tech... my knowledge of technology and the specific stuff that I do to be able to read a bill and say this is everything that we need and this is not going to create a bunch of unintended consequences or side effects.
[20:37.470 --> 20:39.910]  But I'm definitely... I'm definitely sympathetic to that particular cause.
[20:40.770 --> 20:51.950]  And there's... and also adding on to that, there's certain things like section 1201 of the DMCA where you're not allowed to break a hardware or you're not allowed to break a software lock on something that you buy so that you may actually purchase something.
[20:51.950 --> 20:59.070]  It may be insecure, but you're not allowed to break the digital lock on it to be able to fix what makes it insecure because that's a crime.
[20:59.450 --> 21:12.310]  But... and we are working towards severely kneecapping section 1201 of the DMCA that's active lobbying that's going on right now so that you can actually break a digital lock in order to work on the devices that you own.
[21:15.060 --> 21:18.240]  I understand New York has a right to repair law.
[21:18.420 --> 21:19.820]  What does the law actually do?
[21:20.680 --> 21:21.760]  Right now, nothing.
[21:21.960 --> 21:24.000]  It doesn't go into effect until next year.
[21:24.140 --> 21:26.940]  But what it would do is it would allow people to get access.
[21:27.560 --> 21:31.640]  Assuming we're not talking about tractors because the bill did exclude tractors and certain police equipment.
[21:31.660 --> 21:41.780]  It would allow you to get access to the parts, schematics and diagrams that the original equipment, the people that are authorized by the original equipment manufacturer to do repair get access to.
[21:41.780 --> 21:52.360]  So I would... now the issue there, the hair that's going to be split, is let's say a company like Apple is going to say, okay, you get access to everything the Genius Bar gets access to, which is virtually nothing, have fun.
[21:52.740 --> 22:01.000]  And what our response to that is going to be, well, you have a, you know, you have a reverse logistics repair center, you have people like Flextronics that are actually doing board repair.
[22:01.000 --> 22:02.300]  We want what they get access to.
[22:02.480 --> 22:05.020]  The schematics, the chipsets, the screens, all that kind of stuff.
[22:05.320 --> 22:11.900]  But what that law does is it allows us, once it goes into effect, to actually knock on their door and say, we would like to be able to buy this stuff from you.
[22:13.300 --> 22:15.240]  Another question from the Matrix chat.
[22:15.960 --> 22:26.680]  This is more of a legal question, but could repairing your own system be seen as a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, exceeding authorized access, even though you bought your device?
[22:29.320 --> 22:33.780]  I don't know enough about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to be able to answer that, but I'd love to look into it.
[22:36.020 --> 22:37.120]  Thanks for a great talk.
[22:37.360 --> 22:42.060]  And I'm sorry for not being familiar with your video channel, so this question may already be answered.
[22:42.280 --> 22:49.760]  But would you consider putting your videos up in somewhere that's hosted by a non-evil company instead of YouTube?
[22:51.900 --> 22:55.260]  I actually have all my videos on Library and Odyssey at the moment.
[22:55.260 --> 23:07.300]  And there's talks right now for the person that's my boss to actually purchase that to make sure that it stays alive and stays as a proper entity and as a competitor to YouTube.
[23:07.720 --> 23:20.920]  Because one of the things that we want to do is ensure that competitors to YouTube exist, whether it is the content that is allowed or not allowed on YouTube, or whether it's just the predatory way that their algorithm works and just kind of continues to funnel you down a rabbit hole of garbage.
[23:21.540 --> 23:26.520]  One of the things our organization is strongly focused on is ensuring that there are alternatives to current social media platforms.
[23:26.780 --> 23:28.960]  And that's something we're very committed to.
[23:32.280 --> 23:34.440]  Another question from the Matrix chat.
[23:34.760 --> 23:40.620]  SJN asks, are you aware of other organizations like yours in Europe, Canada, or other countries?
[23:43.910 --> 23:45.890]  I think there's repair.eu in Europe.
[23:46.130 --> 23:47.670]  I don't know of any in Canada.
[23:48.290 --> 23:50.090]  I've honestly just been focused on the U.S.
[23:50.870 --> 23:53.810]  Right now there's active lobbying going on in seven or eight states.
[23:54.030 --> 24:00.890]  So just trying to remember everything that's going on, the names of the different people in the different states in the U.S., kind of boggles my brain.
[24:01.030 --> 24:04.150]  So I know that stuff's going on in other countries, but I just don't know it off the top of my head.
[24:07.170 --> 24:15.110]  Thinking back on... you mentioned some failures in convincing politicians to be on your side when it comes to right to repair.
[24:15.710 --> 24:19.530]  Thinking back on successes, what do politicians usually respond to?
[24:19.670 --> 24:20.450]  How do you convince them?
[24:20.910 --> 24:32.650]  Well, one of the things that helped, again, ever since we got the grants from this organization I now work for, we were able to engage with the FTC and actually, you know, we actually had time to have people engage back and forth and say, well, here's the,
[24:32.730 --> 24:34.530]  you know, here's what's actually going on.
[24:34.630 --> 24:46.270]  The FTC came out with a 59-page paper called Mixing the Fix, and it went over, with citations, every single argument the manufacturers made, and mostly, like, very, very politely said that they were mostly bullshit.
[24:46.910 --> 24:57.870]  Which was really helpful, because instead of saying, look, there's a guy on YouTube that wears a t-shirt and screams into his camera that says this stuff is not true, I can now show up to a legislature and say, here's the FTC saying that all of this stuff that you're hearing is not true.
[24:57.870 --> 25:01.990]  Here's an executive order from the president saying that all of this stuff should change.
[25:02.130 --> 25:05.350]  Because an executive order got released by Joe Biden July of last year.
[25:05.550 --> 25:07.810]  The FTC came out with the Mixing the Fix report last year.
[25:07.990 --> 25:15.310]  And also this year, the FTC took action against, I think, Westinghouse, Harley-Davidson, and some grilling company, Weber Grills, I believe.
[25:15.530 --> 25:28.530]  So that stuff is really helpful, because it shows that if they decide to take action, if they vote on a piece of legislation, that they're not going to, you know, have heads roll from higher-ups as a result of passing something that shouldn't have been passed.
[25:28.750 --> 25:33.350]  Once they feel a little bit of wind underneath their wings, they're more than happy to sign on to something like this.
[25:33.670 --> 25:38.590]  And that helped a lot, because in the New York State Assembly, I think this was voted on 145 to 1.
[25:39.070 --> 25:45.850]  Like, you know, again, these were people that were angry over the election, angry over gun rights, angry over abortion and everything else.
[25:45.850 --> 25:51.230]  They were able to put all that stuff down for five minutes to say, yeah, I want to be able to fix my own stuff, which is pretty cool.
[25:53.250 --> 25:55.050]  Another question from the Matrix chat.
[25:56.010 --> 26:00.910]  Are companies liable for their products if the user modifying it, maybe by repairing it?
[26:01.010 --> 26:01.790]  Question by Hoffman.
[26:03.630 --> 26:09.110]  I've heard this a lot, the idea that what if the user modifies the product, then the product explodes.
[26:09.530 --> 26:11.430]  Can they go back to the manufacturer and sue them?
[26:11.610 --> 26:14.630]  The problem is, I haven't seen the citations.
[26:14.630 --> 26:24.870]  Like, I've usually, when I get this comment, I'll respond and say, okay, can you give me some examples of this happening and the manufacturer getting screwed, even though it was demonstrably provable that the user screwed up their own device?
[26:25.030 --> 26:26.550]  And I just, I don't hear the cases.
[26:26.730 --> 26:28.250]  I'd be open to hearing about these cases.
[26:28.310 --> 26:29.870]  I want to be able to dissect them and go through them.
[26:29.970 --> 26:31.830]  But I've never actually seen a case of that happening.
[26:33.850 --> 26:36.350]  Why are tractors so controversial in right to repair?
[26:37.230 --> 26:50.590]  Especially given that the large cost of the implement and the large cost of having people to come out, like you said, to just unblock a software aspect disproportionately affects, like, small farms versus, like, the mega farms that the U.S.
[26:50.590 --> 26:51.590]  is slowly moving towards.
[26:52.410 --> 26:53.950]  This is a really confusing one.
[26:54.050 --> 27:07.330]  In Nebraska, this is a very interesting thing, because in Nebraska, it was very strange, because the people that represented rural areas all voted against right to repair, yet the people that represented cities where they have no farmers as constituents all were voting in favor of it.
[27:07.330 --> 27:16.310]  And what really makes this confusing is that the people who were endorsed by the Farm Bureau were the ones that voted against right to repair, yet the Farm Bureau is supposed to be supporting right to repair.
[27:16.490 --> 27:25.450]  In Nebraska, they voted 176 to 1 in the Nebraska Farm Bureau to be in favor of right to repair, yet all the politicians that were endorsed by the Farm Bureau wound up voting against it.
[27:25.770 --> 27:32.570]  And Maryland, I remember when I was trying to get a bill pushed there, there was somebody from the Farm Bureau that said something along the lines of...
[27:32.570 --> 27:32.990]  One second.
[27:33.870 --> 27:38.410]  Farmers don't have the time or the inclination or the knowledge to fix their own tractors.
[27:38.590 --> 27:40.090]  The real issue is a lack of service.
[27:40.210 --> 27:40.870]  They need more dealers.
[27:41.090 --> 27:43.450]  I'm just thinking to myself, you represent farmers.
[27:43.590 --> 27:45.370]  People pay dues to this organization.
[27:45.570 --> 27:51.070]  If I were to show your statement to the farmers that pay dues to your organization, they would rip up their papers immediately.
[27:51.350 --> 27:52.790]  So something funky is going on there.
[27:52.870 --> 27:55.170]  And I haven't figured it out yet, but I've been digging for the past year.
[27:55.430 --> 27:56.310]  But it's a good question.
[27:57.630 --> 28:00.690]  And there's a related question that came through the Matrix chat.
[28:00.690 --> 28:03.370]  Is it illegal to show that farmer how to reset their tractor?
[28:05.110 --> 28:08.490]  The software that I believe they're using would be...
[28:08.490 --> 28:11.650]  I think it's pirated software from Europe or something that they're using.
[28:12.150 --> 28:18.110]  I'm not certain exactly how illegal it is here, but most of the farmers I've spoken to that use it, who I'm not going to name, don't seem to care.
[28:20.070 --> 28:21.910]  You don't want to wait two weeks for their harvest.
[28:22.370 --> 28:22.790]  Sorry, go ahead.
[28:22.890 --> 28:23.410]  Good morning, Liz.
[28:23.550 --> 28:23.810]  Thank you.
[28:24.270 --> 28:29.310]  I was wondering if you could go back in time and give yourself advice on starting a YouTube channel.
[28:29.310 --> 28:34.790]  What are some of the things that you would tell yourself to focus on more or focus on less?
[28:35.150 --> 28:35.410]  Thank you.
[28:36.550 --> 28:38.250]  If I knew that more than a...
[28:38.250 --> 28:42.410]  I just thought in the very beginning the maximum audience I would have would be 300 people.
[28:43.030 --> 28:51.070]  Because there was probably two or 300 people in the country back in 2012 and 2013 that are actually doing component level board repair on Apple products specifically.
[28:51.290 --> 28:54.910]  So, like, the best case scenario, 100% viewership will be 300 people.
[28:55.090 --> 29:00.410]  If I knew that this many people would be watching, I probably would have tried to present myself as more likable.
[29:00.570 --> 29:03.830]  I would have presented myself as somebody that wasn't... I would have been less of an asshole.
[29:03.990 --> 29:04.870]  Like, just being honest.
[29:06.070 --> 29:08.430]  I didn't expect that people would actually watch this stuff.
[29:08.530 --> 29:13.550]  If I knew that people were going to watch, I'd probably think about, okay, how would people outside of my small circle of friends see what I'm saying?
[29:13.550 --> 29:14.590]  Or understand it.
[29:15.970 --> 29:17.530]  Another question from the Matrix chat.
[29:18.490 --> 29:19.770]  From Prestle Pirate.
[29:20.410 --> 29:23.490]  You did mention Framework and...
[29:24.130 --> 29:26.630]  As of one of the company that might fit this, but...
[29:26.630 --> 29:28.330]  How can we vote with our wallets?
[29:28.330 --> 29:31.710]  What other manufacturers would you recommend who make repair easy?
[29:31.990 --> 29:33.330]  This is a good... that's a great one.
[29:33.450 --> 29:38.590]  So, you know, the primary tenant of capitalism is stop giving money to people that are doing things that you don't like.
[29:38.750 --> 29:41.730]  And one of the problems with this is if you want to do that, you're...
[29:42.190 --> 29:46.350]  For the most part, up until very, very recently, that meant buying a rotary phone.
[29:46.490 --> 29:58.590]  Like, for instance, if you want to buy a cell phone where you can get a full schematic to the board so that you can do the repairs I do without having to do some sort of piracy or use the XW tool or use some stuff that is using stuff that's stolen, what are your choices?
[29:58.630 --> 30:06.610]  What company will make a smartphone that will give you access to schematics, that will tell the chips, you know, vendors, feel free to sell a replacement power chip to the phone?
[30:06.610 --> 30:07.730]  Like, you can't.
[30:07.890 --> 30:08.630]  You know, you want Samsung?
[30:08.930 --> 30:09.210]  No.
[30:09.550 --> 30:09.890]  LG?
[30:10.090 --> 30:11.090]  Doesn't exist anymore.
[30:11.950 --> 30:12.290]  Kyocera?
[30:12.410 --> 30:12.570]  No.
[30:12.810 --> 30:13.090]  Sony?
[30:13.210 --> 30:13.390]  No.
[30:14.070 --> 30:14.410]  Apple?
[30:14.550 --> 30:15.090]  Definitely no.
[30:15.550 --> 30:17.050]  Like, virtually every company does this.
[30:17.130 --> 30:24.790]  When it comes to laptops, if you want to be able to get access to a schematic, admittedly, you still have to sign an NDA to get it, which is a partial compromise, but not the worst thing in the world.
[30:25.510 --> 30:28.510]  You have framework, and that's about it.
[30:28.650 --> 30:34.370]  Somebody linked me downstairs to a ARM laptop that has four gigabytes of RAM that's about this thick that will give you a schematic.
[30:34.550 --> 30:35.750]  And it's like, that's cool.
[30:35.890 --> 30:40.390]  It's just, like, it's going to fit, like, one or five percent of use cases for people that buy stuff.
[30:41.270 --> 30:47.190]  So people have asked me, you know, why don't you come up with, on your wiki, a list of all the companies that are doing it right?
[30:47.250 --> 30:48.450]  And it's like, it would be a blank page.
[30:49.910 --> 30:53.690]  It would be either that or I'd be linking to stuff that you could buy that was produced in the 80s.
[30:53.690 --> 31:05.830]  So, like, the problem with it right now is that we noticed this problem so laid in that you're kind of stuck becoming a Luddite if you actually want to have technology that's repairable.
[31:05.910 --> 31:07.310]  Like with tractors, that's a good example.
[31:07.630 --> 31:12.770]  You know, a lot of people would track what they're doing is they're just buying tractors from the 70s and saying, like, screw this.
[31:12.770 --> 31:13.710]  I don't care if it's old.
[31:13.870 --> 31:26.190]  Not only am I saving money by buying something that's used, but I don't have to deal with this shit where I have to wait two weeks for somebody from the dealer to come out when they have an appointment free as my, you know, my harvest fails because I have no equipment.
[31:26.770 --> 31:27.550]  A good question.
[31:29.430 --> 31:31.990]  So, this is my first time actually hearing you speak.
[31:32.250 --> 31:32.630]  I apologize.
[31:32.630 --> 31:36.470]  I'm not a follower of your channel, but I am, like, so in sync with everything you said today.
[31:36.470 --> 31:41.930]  I couldn't help to find a similarity to... I call it, like, right to update.
[31:42.150 --> 31:53.090]  So, for people who might own, like, smart vehicles or electric vehicles, do you see any legislation that protects owners of these vehicles to not have to update?
[31:53.090 --> 32:02.090]  Or are there any legislations coming out that's influencing, for good or bad, how this is impacting people now that own smart cars that maybe don't want the update?
[32:02.910 --> 32:08.010]  I haven't heard about that, to be honest with you, but I agree that you should be able to choose what updates you put on your own car.
[32:08.510 --> 32:09.750]  Like, there's a... what is it?
[32:10.350 --> 32:17.590]  There are, like, for instance, I know that Tesla recently, they did something where they lowered the max speed of autopilot or something from, like, 90 to 80 or 85.
[32:18.950 --> 32:24.630]  And most users that, they woke up to a surprise that day where they're like, oh, I bought it with this ability, now I have it with that ability.
[32:25.890 --> 32:26.210]  Exactly.
[32:26.210 --> 32:26.530]  Yeah.
[32:26.710 --> 32:27.530]  Okay, that was interesting.
[32:27.670 --> 32:27.890]  Thank you.
[32:30.450 --> 32:32.370]  Another question from the Matrix chat.
[32:33.590 --> 32:35.530]  Corporations tend to only listen to money.
[32:35.650 --> 32:41.290]  Is there a way to frame the rights to repair argument to convince them it's more profitable for their hardware and software to be reputable?
[32:42.610 --> 32:50.510]  Yeah, there's one particular investment firm, I think it's called As You Sow or something like that, that wound up filing a shareholder resolution with Microsoft last year.
[32:50.510 --> 32:57.510]  Their idea is that not only is this the right thing to do, but we think you'll make more money if you create a product and you can differentiate yourself in the marketplace.
[32:57.510 --> 33:05.070]  If the Surface is fixable and the iPad is a glued-together piece of shit that, when it dies, sucks to be you, that is something that's going to differentiate you in the marketplace.
[33:05.210 --> 33:06.110]  Why are we not doing this?
[33:06.410 --> 33:18.930]  And that was one... a couple of the organizations that I was able to fund, with the donation from my generous donor, who's now my boss, was able to, you know, pretty much go, knock door-to-door, say, okay, do you know why this is an issue?
[33:18.930 --> 33:25.650]  And one of the people that they knocked on the door that said, do you know this is an issue, was an investment firm that had a fairly large stake in Microsoft.
[33:25.930 --> 33:29.850]  And this was a shareholder resolution that I think was announced in June or July of last year.
[33:29.950 --> 33:41.850]  So there are ways to frame it in terms of, you can actually differentiate yourself from the pack by doing this, if you decide to sell a device that can easily be serviced, rather than one that is, again, a disposable, glued-together piece of shit, in my opinion.
[33:44.230 --> 33:44.970]  Hi, Lewis.
[33:45.450 --> 33:48.130]  I'm one of the people who's been following you on YouTube for a long time.
[33:48.270 --> 33:50.590]  I just wanted to say thank you for being a grumpy New Yorker.
[33:51.470 --> 33:52.070]  Thank you.
[34:03.790 --> 34:06.430]  Okay, actually, we have another question through the Matrix chat.
[34:07.930 --> 34:13.430]  BMW is using a new business model where they charge for features like heated seats.
[34:14.770 --> 34:19.190]  Imagine trying to, quote-unquote, repair seats that you already own to do something they can already do.
[34:21.410 --> 34:26.350]  Do you have any suggestions on what could be done to try and preclude or prevent this?
[34:26.750 --> 34:28.990]  I think I can predict exactly where this is going.
[34:29.190 --> 34:33.910]  So when you unlock your bootloader on a phone that is a locked bootloader, it'll trip a flag and your warranty is void.
[34:34.050 --> 34:45.630]  So I would not be surprised if when you spend $80,000 in your car and you commit the crime of flashing the software so that the seat heater that you already paid for actually effing works, that they wind up saying, okay, your warranty is now void on the transmission,
[34:45.810 --> 34:46.790]  the engine, and everything else.
[34:46.790 --> 34:49.770]  I wouldn't be surprised if that is where that winds up going.
[34:50.970 --> 35:01.870]  When I posted that, there were people saying, you know, even if they were only charging a dollar a month for that, on principle alone, I'm ripping apart my seat and attaching a battery and a switch to the heater, the heating element just on principle alone.
[35:02.330 --> 35:11.570]  Now, I do think they did update that and said that you can technically pay the additional for the seat heater up front, but it's just still like, it's just weird, like you paid for it, it's in your car already.
[35:12.150 --> 35:15.590]  I think that there has to be some sort of limitation on two things.
[35:15.910 --> 35:19.810]  A, section 1201 of the DMCA, you cannot get around a software or hardware lock, that's illegal.
[35:19.970 --> 35:22.610]  If you buy it, you should be able to unlock whatever's in there.
[35:22.730 --> 35:29.410]  And we are already doing active lobbying work to kind of kneecap section 1201 of the DMCA, with again, the help of a generous donor.
[35:29.410 --> 35:32.990]  And the second thing that has to be done is...
[35:33.710 --> 35:35.270]  How was I just... Hmm.
[35:35.910 --> 35:39.210]  Yeah, section 1201 of the DMCA, oh, the second thing is warranty enforcement.
[35:39.470 --> 35:42.150]  What you are allowed and are not allowed to void a warranty for.
[35:42.350 --> 35:50.030]  So, the FTC has been going after companies like whether it's Weber Grills or Westinghouse or Harley-Davidson for voiding warranties illegally.
[35:50.510 --> 35:56.570]  And part of that, I think, is going to have to be, you can't void the warranty on the device if somebody unlocks a feature of their device.
[36:01.140 --> 36:02.320]  So, question from me.
[36:04.180 --> 36:12.360]  What would you suggest to somebody that wants to get started doing some of your type of work, to do low-level work on hardware such as you?
[36:12.820 --> 36:16.460]  I would say buy really, really cheap stuff on eBay and give yourself easy wins.
[36:16.760 --> 36:28.200]  So, and don't buy a $2,000 MacBook that's broken for like $1,600 on eBay, and then try to do some repair, butcher it, lose all your money, and go, oh my god, I can't believe I did that, I'm so stupid, it didn't work, I give up.
[36:28.200 --> 36:29.540]  You have to give yourself little wins.
[36:29.700 --> 36:34.240]  I would say, let's say buy something cheap like an Acer 5517 from 2010 for $50.
[36:34.880 --> 36:36.520]  Buy three of them, that all work.
[36:36.800 --> 36:38.140]  You could probably get that for $100.
[36:38.540 --> 36:41.100]  Take one chip off the board and then put it back on.
[36:41.360 --> 36:44.500]  It doesn't have to be a CPU or a BGA chip or a QFN.
[36:44.580 --> 36:48.100]  Just take like the BIOS chip with legs on it, something big, and then just put it back on.
[36:48.220 --> 36:50.420]  See that it works and go, yes, I did it.
[36:50.700 --> 36:52.240]  It still works, that's a victory.
[36:52.240 --> 36:56.520]  Then take off something smaller, maybe like a fuse or a capacitor, and then put it back on.
[36:56.800 --> 36:57.540]  Have a little victory.
[36:57.700 --> 36:59.440]  When that works, yes, it works.
[36:59.740 --> 37:01.060]  Then you do it with a QFN chip.
[37:01.960 --> 37:07.460]  Then you'll just keep going smaller and smaller, do it with a micro BGA, so you kind of get the skills.
[37:07.580 --> 37:14.620]  But each time you do something, even the smallest thing, give yourself a little internal round of applause.
[37:14.620 --> 37:16.120]  Like, I did it, and it still works.
[37:16.240 --> 37:17.280]  That's actually an accomplishment.
[37:17.800 --> 37:22.840]  You know, because when I started teaching a class in 2015 with Jessa Jones at iPad Rehab, it was great.
[37:23.080 --> 37:28.080]  And there were people that after the week or the second week was done would say, I only fixed two or three things while I'm here.
[37:28.100 --> 37:29.440]  I don't really feel like I got a lot done.
[37:29.540 --> 37:36.200]  And I would have to take them aside and say, I tried to fix my first one of these motherboards, and I think 2009, I got my first successful one in 2013.
[37:36.620 --> 37:39.540]  So like, don't give, you know, don't sell yourself short there.
[37:39.660 --> 37:43.980]  So I would say start with really, really small victories and slowly build up to larger ones.
[37:43.980 --> 37:49.340]  Because the thing is, with this particular type of work, there's some sort of imposter syndrome that goes on, and I've seen it.
[37:49.440 --> 37:51.440]  I've hired dozens of people to do this type of work.
[37:51.640 --> 37:56.680]  People that were, that, you know, are United States Marines that did this type of work in the Marine Corps that have way more training than me.
[37:56.960 --> 38:02.560]  If you get two or three failures in a row, it doesn't matter if you had 1,000 or 6,000 positive fixes in the past.
[38:02.740 --> 38:06.340]  It doesn't matter if they've been filmed, if you have had five-star reviews on Yelp for it.
[38:06.600 --> 38:09.540]  You still kind of go, am I really good at this, or are those all flukes?
[38:09.660 --> 38:10.700]  Like, do I really know what I'm doing?
[38:10.860 --> 38:12.540]  Do I actually know how to troubleshoot and fix a board?
[38:12.620 --> 38:13.140]  Maybe I don't.
[38:13.140 --> 38:21.500]  You need to give yourself successes, and the way you give yourself successes is do something really, really easy and simple, see that it works, and allow yourself to give yourself a pat on the back.
[38:24.100 --> 38:26.540]  And we have more questions coming in through the Matrix chat.
[38:28.540 --> 38:34.420]  How can we explain the importance of right to repair to normal people who are happy with their locked-down products?
[38:35.740 --> 38:43.980]  Additionally, on a related note, how do you deal with FUD coming from manufacturers regarding repairing their hardware?
[38:44.300 --> 38:51.720]  An example that was given in the chat was, for instance, people being warned with microwaves because it could send voltage to your body.
[38:52.680 --> 38:56.420]  So for the first part of it, how do you get normal people that are happy with the way things are?
[38:56.540 --> 38:56.920]  You don't.
[38:57.060 --> 39:06.600]  And that goes back to the Greta Thunberg, how dare you, comment that I made, which is if you try to lecture somebody or tell them you should care about this because it matters, you could try that until you're blue in the face and you may get them to nod,
[39:06.740 --> 39:09.220]  but at the end of the day, most people care about something when they're self-interest.
[39:09.380 --> 39:14.120]  So for me, again, if somebody has something that's broken, I will focus on it at that point.
[39:14.240 --> 39:17.100]  Here, you thought you had to spend $1,000 to fix your car.
[39:17.320 --> 39:18.880]  Here, it actually only cost $87.
[39:19.340 --> 39:20.920]  You have to get them personally invested.
[39:21.120 --> 39:32.820]  Or if you're talking about, let's say, they figure out how to fix something themselves, and they're happy with the result of it, or they're happy, you know, at that moment, you can explain, this is something that's about to be taken away.
[39:33.160 --> 39:44.160]  Or if, again, one of the ways my channel gets people involved is I'll say at the end of it, if you think you could do work like this and you're broke, here's how much money you can make doing this type of work, and it gets people a little bit more personally invested.
[39:44.500 --> 39:47.360]  Most people, at the end of the day, care about their own self-interest.
[39:47.500 --> 39:51.780]  So getting normal people involved and excited, it happens when you can see that there's a chance.
[39:51.940 --> 39:57.220]  Like, do it at the moment where you believe that their life can be made better as a result of having repair in it.
[39:57.300 --> 39:58.480]  Otherwise, it's not going to.
[39:58.660 --> 40:04.000]  In terms of dealing with FUD, honestly, I just film it and put it on YouTube for people to laugh at.
[40:04.140 --> 40:10.220]  And what that does is that gets people involved because, again, there's this idea, never ask a question on the Internet.
[40:10.480 --> 40:13.600]  Just tell people how to do it wrong and wait for them to correct you.
[40:14.140 --> 40:16.140]  This works so great on Stack Overflow.
[40:16.200 --> 40:17.520]  I built a website doing this.
[40:18.360 --> 40:22.420]  But if you just post, this is what this manufacturer said.
[40:22.560 --> 40:24.080]  This is what the AHAM lobbyist said.
[40:24.080 --> 40:26.800]  Post the ESA saying, the game will play the console.
[40:27.320 --> 40:30.300]  So people will naturally do the work for you.
[40:30.400 --> 40:32.100]  You won't have to ask people to correct it.
[40:32.320 --> 40:37.340]  People that understand what's going on will be so angry, they will tell everybody they know, they will share with everybody they know.
[40:37.680 --> 40:45.240]  And eventually, that network of people will slowly make its way back to somebody to a politician that is voting no on a bill to get them to vote yes.
[40:45.440 --> 40:46.360]  And that's what I have been doing.
[40:46.360 --> 40:48.420]  I know I'm not going to convince the politician directly.
[40:48.640 --> 40:57.340]  The idea is to convince this circle of people, that convince this circle of people, that convince this circle of people, that eventually tap on the shoulder of somebody and go, that person said the game plays the console doesn't know jack shit.
[40:58.080 --> 41:03.380]  So when they talk to you about piracy or how dangerous it is to replace a fan or a CD drive, don't listen to them anymore.
[41:05.580 --> 41:08.000]  Thank you, everyone online, for asking your questions.
[41:09.620 --> 41:12.220]  Another question comes from the Matrix chat.
[41:12.560 --> 41:14.740]  You have mentioned farmers a couple times today.
[41:15.500 --> 41:20.360]  Farmers and certain other blue collar worker groups get much better PR than hackers do.
[41:21.500 --> 41:26.420]  And the public gets mad about, say, denying the right to repair from... to farm equipment.
[41:26.620 --> 41:28.940]  Or perhaps like a big rig.
[41:30.380 --> 41:32.280]  That way they don't for phones.
[41:32.620 --> 41:38.620]  Are you talking directly to those people or groups associated with them at all?
[41:38.860 --> 41:40.540]  Can we get them on TV or something?
[41:41.240 --> 41:43.860]  Are you talking about groups of farmers or with phones?
[41:44.780 --> 41:50.720]  Farmers, for example... from what I gather is that farmers, for example, are a great...
[41:50.720 --> 41:54.240]  I mean, the public has more sympathy for farmers, for example, than they would for hackers.
[41:55.420 --> 42:02.860]  So perhaps the question is about talking directly to farmers and farm groups, having them be PR... the faces for PR purposes.
[42:04.500 --> 42:06.600]  That's something that we've been working on over the past year.
[42:06.780 --> 42:10.860]  A lot of them, they honestly just want to do their job and they don't want cameras in front of them.
[42:10.860 --> 42:11.720]  They don't want to be on TV.
[42:11.860 --> 42:12.760]  They don't want to be in the spotlight.
[42:13.280 --> 42:16.140]  And they like the idea of having somebody else speak for them.
[42:16.220 --> 42:19.000]  But one of the things that I'll bring up is like, you know, I grew up in Brooklyn.
[42:20.040 --> 42:21.560]  There's that saying, a tree grows in Brooklyn.
[42:21.660 --> 42:22.600]  I don't know how to use a tractor.
[42:22.760 --> 42:25.900]  I can barely take care of a Venus flytrap I took home in fourth grade.
[42:25.900 --> 42:27.900]  It would be great if you guys could explain these issues as well.
[42:28.020 --> 42:29.600]  And it is something that we'd like to do in the future.
[42:35.260 --> 42:36.220]  Well, that's that.
[42:36.420 --> 42:36.960]  Thank you.