[1] Here is an example of how ridiculously far the airlines have gone in claiming everything is a safety issue, even when it is things completely within their power to control: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/air-canada-denies-compensatio...
This makes no sense at all. If I order a pizza and it doesn't show up the reason it doesn't show up is completely irrelevant; they still owe me my money back.
But more seriously, I think the sibling posts are right here: A plane crash is more than a monetary risk: In the worst case, managers of the airline could be criminally liable for lost lives.
Asking because flying passengers on unsafe planes is already illegal.
I've made about $1400 from delayed flights in the last 3 years
All this says to me is that the government does nothing to prevent hugely unsafe airlines from operating.
The cancellation loophole seems fine to me, it's the followthrough that's concerning. What am I missing here?
which is already illegal, and has consequences. The airline will probably lose reputation and business if the public catches wind of it. The exception for cancellation should not have been in place, except as a way for airlines to get out of the obligations but also allow law makers to be seen to be doing something. Basically theater.
It reads to me like this law was intended to provide additional compensation to passengers who are delayed. The EU has something similar.
Then the regulators should be asking why there are so many safety issues? Seems like by the airlines' own admission, this is a perfect ground for a full investigation and penalties in case the issues are found to be misclassified under the category of safety.
If you have any interest, check out the below link for a great piece of legislation. It protects NZ consumers and effectively puts a warranty on everything you buy here.
Another example which I appreciate every day is the regulation imposed on our telecommunications industry. We have gone from a trash copper network to an excellent fibre network that is fast and inexpensive to use - all via regulation, investment and legislation.
Regulation works just fine when done properly, and I’d like more of it here in NZ. I’d like the supermarket monopoly broken up via regulation. I’d also like the building supplies and fuels racket broken up.
https://www.consumerprotection.govt.nz/general-help/consumer...
In the US, I suspect that pretty much any personnel who observed this could raise it as an issue through an FAA safety reporting program. There are some protections for reporters.
(These programs, and the people and organizations who participate in them, are a big part of why aviation is as safe as it is. It's something a lot of people seem to take very seriously. It's pretty inspiring, IMHO, and if only we could collectively believe in other common goals like this, and execute as well.)
"Wrong" reason is subjective. Tickets are nonrefundable because otherwise the network doesn't work, financially. Every hole in that increases costs far beyond the refunds themselves further down the line.
Air travel is not a high margin, luxury product, it's a lot margin mass market product with tons of competition - ergo costs are cut wherever possible. When you force airlines to take on costs for moral reasons, they basically are obligated to find as narrow an application of the moral reasoning as possible to keep costs down.
This is 100% false. Southwest Airlines is one of the most profitable airlines in the US and their refund policy for refundable flights is a full refund up to 10 mins before the flight. For nonrefundable flights you get full credit if you cancel up to 10 mins before your flight, with no additional fees.
During the pandemic, ALL airlines moved to full credit with no change fees if you cancelled your flight. Previously they would have absurd $200 change fees or loss of your flight.
The idea that airlines can’t survive with flexible, consumer friendly policies is a lie. Things like the check in fees or fuel surcharge are pure profit.
Wait. I don’t understand you. “Nonrefundable” means to me that you who bought a ticket can’t decide to not fly and ask for your money back.
If the airline for whatever reason decides to not fly the route, or doesn’t have the capacity then that is a different thing altogether. Are you arguing that it is okay for an airline to take your money, do not provide you with the service promised and keep your money?
Looking at a random domestic flight. The difference between the three tiers are about $30-$45 each.
Never buy Basic. But if you at least by the middle tier, while the tickets aren’t refundable, you can change the tickets without paying a fee or cancel a flight and get a credit that’s good for year.
The network works fine with people cancelling and changing flights all of the time.
The laws are basicaly made by those companies.
There have been various court cases to clarify and strengthen the regulations.
It will take another 5 years probably for the Canadian regulations to have a serious effect which gives the airlines plenty of time to shaft customers in another manner.
These outlandish claims wouldn't work nearly as well as they do if claims of safety didn't cause a large part of the population to turn off their brain and side with whoever's making the claim regardless of the details.
Safety is often used as one of our modern analogs of "god's will."
The airline isn't being "punished" - they're being required to either complete a contract, or to compensate their counterparty for their failure to complete.
To take the example upthread, if the pizzaiolo drops a screw in my pizza, the resulting safety issue doesn't void the contract; he has to go off and make me a new pizza, or give my money back. It's not a punishment. If he can't complete on the contracts he makes, he has to stop selling pizzas or go broke.
I don't know any good reason why airlines shouldn't be subject to normal contract law.
In both cases, they were forced to pay out in arbitration after the arbitor determined that their stated causes were false (e.g. providing the tail number for a different aircraft that was legitimately delayed) , but there was no penalty for lying.
In such an environment, it's quite rational for them to lie and deny.
Make spurious 'safety' cancellations expensive, very expensive.
Or, the very fundamentals of the American democratic system have been eroded to a point I previously did not comprehend. This is not anything like the picture Schoolhouse Rock painted about how this all works.
Also, with a veto-proof majority, why on earth would the legislature ever even agree to any changes?
Also also, fuck the governor.
It was pretty much gutted. Right to repair for farm equipment was removed entirely, and rights involving digital devices made far weaker. That got press coverage in June 2022.[2] Other than cell phone screen and case repair, it doesn't seem too useful.
[1] https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/s4104/amendm...
[2] https://www.techspot.com/news/94843-new-york-senate-official...
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ORIGINAL AND AMENDED VERSION:
This version makes technical clarifications to the bill, including providing that the requirements will apply to products with a value over ten dollars, adjusted annually based on the consumer price index. Another adds that nothing in the section will require that an OEM or authorized repair provider make available any parts, tools or documentation if the intended use is for making modifications to digital electronic equipment. Others provide that nothing in the section will require an OEM or authorized repair provider to make available parts, tools or documentation for 1) public safety communications equipment used for emergency response or prevention purposes by an emergency service organization, 2) where it may be in violation of federal law such as with gaming and entertainment consoles, related software, and components, or 3) home appliances with digital electronics embedded within them.
Manufacturers, distributors, importers, or dealers of off-road equipment are added to the exclusions, those to whom the requirements would not apply.
Amendments also include extending the effective date of the bill from 120 days to one year after it shall have become a law.
And WHY would they do that?
The winning at-all-costs attitude is what got us here in the first place: people so concerned with winning and having their people in office they don’t care if they actually won the election, and tell themselves increasingly nonsensical things to justify it.
…assuming you trust the system to enact policies you care about. Punishing the act of disingenuously eroding trust in the system for political gain isn’t just a matter of principal but a clear long term strategy. Believe it or not there’s another election cycle after this one.
The fact that corporate entities actively shape the legal framework to suit narrow interests that frequently undermine collective welfware somehow escaped him.
When intellectual dishonesty and amoral behavior reach such systemic levels society crosses boiling points
Friedman's point is not so easily dispensed with by calling him names. He is arguing that a corporation that is formed for the purpose of generating profits for its shareholders is most effective when it focuses on that and then the dividends and capital gains generated for the shareholders can more effectively be applied by them to charitable enterprises as they see fit. That is not an excuse for a corporation to rape and pillage the countryside, break any law, or behave in an objectively unethical manner.
It merely means a corporation should pursue the aims for which it was formed and is legally restricted to, and especially not be hijacked to pursue interests that its members or shareholders would not support. The latter is basically a form of theft, although the loss of focus usually takes milder forms.
The problem is that the laws that are relevant in this context are far from a static body. They are in constant flux as new behaviors, new knowledge and new technologies are adopted. This necessitates continous new rule making and new regulations that must be fit-for-purpose.
Shareholder profit maximization under current systems means it is rational (and a very profitable project) to proactively capture the political system. There is no meaningful penalty and eliminating the downside or creating more upside is enormously valuable (in monetary terms).
Instead of rule takers that must optimize profit within their designated sandbox, giant private entities become the unchallenged rule makers. This is not intrinsically and automatically evil. It becomes so whenever the monetary profit of a narrow set is grossly misaligned with the welfare of broader segments of society.
Examples abound. As they keep piling up they undermine the legitimacy of the very system. Killing the golden goose of a well governed market democracy and opening the door for uglier versions of society.
Companies are not people and do not have rights.
https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-...
Yep. Perversely, various pathologies are actually entrenched because "fighting" is avoided via all sorts of collusion, cartels, revolving doors etc.
I guess I'll see if Google can enlighten me
Go away.
As your amoral ideology masquerading as science ruins society and the planet you will find increasingly more "unconvincing folks" annoying your pristine reasoning
For instance, I’m sure that the execs at Microsoft, and a subset of their employees, agree with their lobbying. But I don’t understand how politicians can justify the level of engagement with a big economic player, who represents a tiny amount of people. When we vote, we have one vote each. But when we lobby, our “votes” differ in several orders of magnitude.
When it comes to autocratic foreign regimes, we understand the risks and monitor for behavior that can hurt the nation. But corporations are also autocratic, sometimes nation-state sized, and their interests are often directly opposed to the interests of our citizens. Even from an economic perspective, corporations are semi-detached from their original host nation through tax planning and funneling of assets overseas. However, since their public identity appears shared, from a nationalist perspective, we seem to put our guard down even though they have both the incentives and abilities to harm us in similar ways.
This perspective is in my view politically neutral, even though it may sound leftist in our bizarre political climate. But this is equally – if not more concerning – from a free market perspective. Corporations don’t just lobby against consumers, but also against the competition. In the case of right to repair, we don’t actually need Apple to provide cheap components and repairs, we just need to be able to get them elsewhere on the free market. In fact, Luis Rossman is coming from precisely this angle, as an entrepreneur who wants nothing but the right to serve his customers.
I would still agree with you though, most of the orgs on that list were likely at the table attempting to ruin the bill.
One catch on the site is no definition of FUTO? I looked all over and couldn't find out what the acronym (?) means. Future Use Tech Org? Fun Under The Orange?
[1] https://store.rossmanngroup.com/faq.txt [2] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=FUTO
FUTO Updates The Organization or something
It's takes decades to change policy, enact legislation. A very readable intro is the Waxman Report. https://www.amazon.com/Waxman-Report-Congress-Really-Works/d...
My unsolicited advice is:
- Convert this outrage into action. Do fund raising.
- Set up an organization that can run a marathon. Burnout for activists is very high.
- Someone, somewhere will pass this legislation. Find them. Even if it's just for virtue signaling. Like a city, which can't enforce such laws, passes a measure, to build awareness and demonstrate support for a policy.
- Get politicians on record. Create a candidate questionnaire. Send it out to all campaigns. Publish the answers.
- Encourage various local political parties (congressional districts, state level legislative districts, etc) to include your questionnaire (as part of their endorsement processes).
- Get various parties to include your policy in their platforms. Again, builds aweness and demonstrates support.
Yes and:
With Percoco v US and Ciminelli v. US, the current SCOTUS has another opportunity to bat down the government's ability to combat fraud.
https://crooked.com/podcast/making-fraud-great-again/
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/ciminelli-v-unit...
Embarrassingly, or perhaps tellingly, SCOTUS has previously been non-partisan in asserting their own immunity to frivolous stuff like anti-fraud and ethical oversight.
The corrupt government ruined him. It turned a beautiful young mind ready to change the world into a really bitter person. That's not a knock against him, but against the NYS Government. Glad he moved away, and hope he has more success in other districts.
The governor is able to stop "tyranny of masses" by their veto power. Almost no bill in our partisan age is able to pass with a veto proof majority. So the governor has the ability to prevent good outcomes for specific members of their party in the legislature in the future. Sure a budget that makes the party and governor look good will pass, but members who "step out of line", will find that they can't "bring home the bacon" in terms of what is allocated to their district.
So could the bill be pushed through unmodified despite an governor's veto? Of course. The system expressly allows this given a 2/3rds vote. But the legislature needs to weigh their options:
1.) Have all members push the bill forward anyways 2.) Have just enough members push the bill forward 3.) Accept the governor's revisions and move the bill forward 4.) Drop the bill
As a representative it is hard to tell which of 1/2 you are choosing in the moment. The issue is that 2 may paint a target on your back. The members of the party opposing the governor are less incentivized to care about the veto. So do you want the governor to hold a grudge with "1 of X" representatives of their own party who sided against them? Granted the legislature is about 2/3rds democrat, so for a break with the governor to happen maybe half the democratic legislature would have to break with the governor.
3 Is appealing over 4, since you are able to claim victory for now. Something was passed after all, and the name of the bill alone is usually enough to make a good ad come re-election. and if the issues really are so severe, this is just another victory for the future you.
That's democracy. If you water down or prevent the democratic will through ANY means to empower the will of the minority over the majority for ANY reason, then you end up implementing the governance of an elite.
Minority rights of the people are a different matter - they would be guaranteed by the civil law governing human rights in a country - they dont have anything to do with the democratic will.
We live in representative democracies not absolute democracies and these table thumping maximalist positions rarely make good conversation or policy.
They get retweeted though.
Practically speaking, there are usually committees (may be area specific, or general such as scheduling/introductory) that make the first choice as to how the process will continue. For new york this seems to be the standing committee which decides what will be put to a vote, “ Members of Standing Committees evaluate bills and decide whether to "report" them (send them) to the Senate floor for a final decision by the full membership.”[0].
Nice write up, but leaves me wondering how this works formally.
My main guesses:
1.) There will be a vote to formally accept the new changes, but it’s treated as a done deal.
2.) The governor can formally edit the text to say anything she wants, and it’s up to the legislature to protest afterwards.
"Safety"
(Yes, I know that's two words, "don't @ me" as the youths would say.)
Outside of the quote from the governor where she makes this statement, WHERE is this agreement? Under what authority was the agreement made, WHO in the legislature agreed to it? Under what authority did this person(s) make the agreement
I ask because currently the NY legislature is not in session, and no vote could have taken place which is normally how one gets an "agreement" from a legislature
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/s4104/amendm...
Hasn't been updated yet.
I'm not surprised Louis has gone all in on emotional anti-authoritarian rants, it must play well with 'the algorithm', versus laptop repair.
Not being able to repair a device means less reuse, more e-waste, more garbage and that's bad for the environment.
So this bill can be interpreted not only as "fuck the consumer", it's also "fuck the environment", "fuck our future", "fuck the planet", etc.
It's doubling down on planned obsolescence.
The version that came out of the legislature would have required OEMs to sell individual components instead of only larger assemblies. For example, if something on a macbook board breaks they have to sell the individual component. Currently Apple/Samsung require you to buy the whole board for several hundred dollars
reading between the lines here it's likely that Hochul was lobbied by the listed OEMs and NY law allows the governor to make sweeping changes to a bill before signing it (for some reason?? doesn't seem very pro-democracy to me). Video title should be "Kathy Hochul Sabotages Right to Repair Bill"
Cuomo was famous for pulling this kind of shit regularly, like with the bi-partisan passed E-bike law he vetoed, because he had grudges against sponsors of bills or because they didn't come to him personally and "kiss the ring"[1].
Hochul has proved in short time to be every bit as rotten as her predecessor. Just without the grab-ass.
[1]: trade political favors in exchange for him not vetoing your bill.
more to the dangerous point: for whatever amount they choose, even if they are specifically pricing it to make repair unreasonable.
Pretty sure that the legislature agreed to the amendment. So the blame should be equally shared by everyone. And democrats wonder why they lose seats in NY.
Pretty sure the legislature is not currently in session and could not have "agreed" which to most people would be voting on, the amendments to the law.
Checks and balances are needed whenever organizations are formed to avoid these kind of vices.
But that will never happen.
All I generally care about is that I can get my data off of a device after some kind of failure or having a reasonably priced solution from the manufacturer. If the company I purchase from doesn't hold up their side of the bargain - I just buy somewhere else. I have five machines I've built in the past three years, admittedly I've only changed things in those maybe once a year. Never actually ended up needing an upgrade in any of my laptops.
Independent repair shops have done more damage than good to every device I brought them in most cases, I've legitimately never had an issue getting devices fixed or replaced by Apple.
Granted, as a prior fan of Louis' content, after meeting him in person and being treated awfully (after just saying hi and being chastised for living in the wrong part of NYC) I again have less respect for this "movement".
I personally don’t care for Louis and he may be a jerk as you suggested, but I try to look at ideas instead of people. Some really bad people have had good ideas. If you follow ideas instead of people, it’s not an issue if you agree with someone on one topic and disagree with almost everything else they have said.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34170525 (17 comments)
I've always thought the infamous Ben Franklin quote, despite this not being the intended context originally, has become a memorable and brief way to show your opposition for this sort of thing.
According to the New York State Senate[1] the current version of the bill is S4104A from May 2022, which passed both Senate and Assembly in June. Note that nysenate.gov, at the time of me writing this, has not yet acknowledged the governor signing the bill, or filed any "agreement" with the governor or a changed version of the document. The New York State Assembly[2] has noted the signing and memorandum under actions, but published neither, nor an updated version of the bill.
Are such "agreements to last minute changes" an actual thing in New York? Without changing the document number? Without filing the changes in a public documentation system? Without Senate and Assembly voting on the changes and documenting the vote? Can the New York State governor just scribble annotations in the margins when signing bills and those also become law?
My first guess was that the memorandum includes a badly worded summary of the changes made earlier this year (S4104 -> S4104A) which passed the Senate and Assembly in June. But the memorandum mentions "provide assemblies of parts instead of individual components", which is the main hot button issue in the video, as well as eliminating the requirement to override security features, a big change to section 2.B of the bill, and exempting business-to-business and business-to-government sales. None of that seems to be present in document S4104A. So the memorandum seems to not be talking about the changes made earlier this year.
Is the text of the memorandum about some agreement between governor and legislative complete and utter nonsense? Does the legislative process in New York State allow such last minute changes?
The more i look at this, the worse it gets. There is a lot of criticize this bill for, like exempting motor vehicles and home appliances even if they include electronics. Some rather weird notice about federal law having a problem with repairing gaming consoles. But more than the law itself the process is broken. Why is the only source of this memorandum the twitter account of a journalist[3]? There is a press release on the governors website[4] but where is the canonical source of the memorandum? Does the Governor of New York State not operate a public filing system? And who is responsible to publish the actual signed bill to the public? According to Wikipedia[5] getting deep insight into the legislative process requires a paid subscription. WTF?
New York State may need to repair more than just their consumer electronics.
---
1: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/s4104/ Bill according to Senate
2: https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=A07006&term=2021&Actions=Y Bill according to Assembly
3: https://twitter.com/JonCampbellNY/status/1608327624526548993 Memorandum 93
4: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-signs-digit... Governors Press Release
5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Bill_Drafting_Comm...
They probably but it out at this time intentionally while the government lumbers through the holidays...
"Every bill which shall have passed the senate and assembly shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the governor; if the governor approve, he or she shall sign it; but if not, he or she shall return it with his or her objections to the house in which it shall have originated, which shall enter the objections at large on the journal, and proceed to reconsider it" (Art IV S.7).
So if a governor doesn't want to sign a bill, he/she may veto it and explain why, come to an agreement about what is acceptable, and then a revised version would have to be adopted in identical form by both houses before it was ready to sign again.
I am all for right to repair, but that is a pipe dream in our country, given our economic realities.
Also mayors weren't involved in this discussion.
Short answer: because I don't read about them.
The news may have it wrong, but that's an oddly specific claim to wrongly make, IMHO.
