Tag: repair

  • Enshittification: when goods & services turn bad

    Let’s talk about enshittification – and yes, this is an actual term! Do you notice your favourite products, platforms or services steadily deteriorate in quality over time? See articles about services and marketplaces charging for functionality you otherwise used for free? Well, more likely than not, it’s a symptom of these places turning to complete and utter rubbish!

    Today, we explore the slow burn process of manufacturers, tech companies and other businesses appealing to everyone in different ways, then extracting value from them. In other words, maximising short term gain at the cost of long term sustainability.

    What exactly is enshittification anyway?

    Enshittification, crapification, or “poopification” (as we will call it from now on) is where companies make decisions which result in making their products and services worse for their customers. Usually, it is a gradual process with a focus of maximising profits from customers, advertisers and suppliers. But eventually, these groups grow dissatisfied to the point of taking their respective customs elsewhere.

    Cory Doctorow first used the term in a November 2022 blog post, where he explained how people started leaving Facebook and Twitter en masse. He also used the term ‘platform decay’ to illustrate the same concept. Then, he released another blog post in January 2023, further elaborating on the poopification concept. There, he describes how companies make platforms flourish, then exploit users, advertisers and suppliers for profit, and finally let the platforms wither into irrelevance.

    In a May 2024 post, Dave Pollard further expands upon Cory Doctorow’s articles about poopification. He illustrates how it is the culmination of decades of unregulated capitalism. According to Pollard, businesses engage in activities with the goal to maximise profits. He identified five key areas which keep the businesses in check, and how they work to undermine, and eliminate these as if they are obstacles. These are: competitive markets, domestic laws and regulations, overseas rivals and laws/regulations, consumer groups and unions, and Governments.

    This infographic illustrates how businesses maximise profits through a broad range of questionable activities and measures. (Image courtesy of Dave Pollard, under CC-BY-NC-SA)

    How poopification works

    1. Firstly, a business launches a new platform or marketplace. It leverages products and services as loss leaders to attract users to the new platform or marketplace.
    2. Then, the business encourages these users to purchase goods and services from them. One approach is to stock items which customers can’t easily find elsewhere.
    3. Once it sufficiently locks in a critical mass of customers to the platform/marketplace, the business then uses its customer base as a loss leader to attract suppliers and advertisers.
    4. Afterwards, it then exploits the suppliers to accrue the value and profits in order to keep advertisers satisfied.
    5. Then, the business leverages the platform/marketplace to maximise profits for itself, along with shareholders and venture capitalists.
    6. Finally, the business goes into stagnation and decline, as people and organisations abandon the platform. Particularly, advertisers will search for other loss leaders in markets. Eventually, it withers and dies, or another business buys the failing platform for itself.

    Does this only happen to platforms?

    Sadly, no. While we see this often with online marketplaces and social media platforms, anything can fall victim to poopification. From everyday items such as food and drinks, tech gadgets and furniture, to services such as healthcare and public transport. Often, there is the tendency among organisations to succumb to greed and the allure of ever greater profits. And as a result, they – along with the environment as a whole – become unsustainable.

    In fact, we would argue that planned obsolescence often goes hand-in-had with poopification. Basically, manufacturers transitioned from building products to last, to extracting value from expensive repairs and new product sales. By doing this, they can maximise profits for themselves and their investors. Consequently, planned obsolescence and poopification contribute to a ‘throwaway society’.

    But what happens when free and open source software (of all things!) fall victim to poopification, too? What if maintainers of Linux distros engage in the same anti-user practices Microsoft does with its proprietary Windows OS? Here, Nick from The Linux Experiment demonstrates what might happen when the concept applies to a Linux distro…

    What if it happens to repair cafes?

    But what happens when repair cafes like our own Reyt Repair workshops succumb to poopification? Well, imagine an alternate universe, where Gareth transforms them into a global enterprise. One where our repair cafes pop up all over the world, and people can help fix each other’s things. Even in Antartica – because there are humans living in small colonies there as well. Can’t have them go without repair services, after all!

    And then, one day he starts to turn to the dark side. He cannot resist the temptation of the massive profits Big Tech earn year after year any longer. Slowly but surely, he enacts measures to extract profits from these enterprises. He transitions from being an awesome pro-community fix-it-upper, to an evil corporate overlord. Gradually, piece by painful piece, he turns Reyt Repair – and other enterprises he runs – into the exact same entities as the manufacturers in the real world. Entities which engage in the very practices he founded these groups to fight against.

    So how would Gareth do it all in this alternate universe? Let’s go over some of the different ways he would enshittify our services, the workshops and…well, everything else!

    How Reyt Repair could go through poopification

    Basically, the key part in the poopification of our services is in doing so in subtle, gradual steps. If he does it too quickly, then customers will go elsewhere, and our services will suffer as a result. So, let’s go through the steps in the poopification process, and cover some of the ways in how they work in practice. They may not happen in the exact order we list here, but they illustrate how a repair cafe goes from serving the community to serving the “mighty pound sterling”!

    Step 1: Attracting customers and volunteers

    Gareth needs ways to encourage everyone in Sheffield and beyond to take their items into the Reyt Repair for repairs, and to devote spare time to help out with repairs. Just like in the real world, they reside in a small room inside Abbeyfield Park House. So, how to expand beyond the busy main roads in Pitsmoor?

    Well, we can send our flyers all over the city to start with! Basically, flyers help inform people about our work, and how they can help us repair everyday items in the community. Additionally, we can augment these with some local ads to really get our social enterprises out into the collective consciousness!

    Step 2: Establishing the enterprises

    Next, he needs to build up an empire, where he reaches out and sets up repair shops to the rest of the UK. Bonus points if he gains a presence across the rest of the world! Initially, teams of volunteers can create articles and materials which garner interest in our work.

    In the real world, I predominantly take on the responsibility of writing articles for this website. Usually, I focus on quality over quantity in making them informative, insightful and/or humourous. But in this scenario, I can only produce so much content without veering straight into clickbait territory! And so, I need all the help I can get! (In fact, perhaps I should try dabbling in AI tools like chatGPT. After all, it might prove useful for augmenting my work in writing interesting articles for us all…)

    To expand the network, volunteers in other parts of the country can set up new repair cafes and shops under Gareth’s family of social enterprises. In this way, we can help serve communities across the UK and beyond.

    Step 3: Monetising everything

    Once Gareth reaches a critical mass of volunteers, customers and online followers who all want to be part of his burgeoning repairs empire, he needs ways to really start raking in the cash. Because after all, all this work in growing his empire costed him valuable money. This is the point where Gareth sells the souls of Reyt Repair and other enterprises he operates to the devil!

    Initially, he could put the most interesting articles on this site behind a subscription paywall, where readers pay a small monthly fee to access these articles. Another way to make money is to source cheap, questionable quality components for repairs. Bonus points if he finds parts no other repair cafes have! This ensures customers will keep coming back to Gareth’s repair shops.

    Step 4: Enlisting the services of suppliers

    Without spare parts, Gareth’s repairs empire can’t fix all kinds of everyday items. To ensure that his repair shops always have the necessary parts, he can do deals with various manufacturers. These manufacturers then supply the spare parts to his repair shops.

    After a time of gaining customer confidence, he can then start to reduce the quality and cost of the spares to boost his operating profit. Usually, this entails specifying cheaper and less durable materials, particularly for critical components in the parts to accelerate wear and tear. Naturally, he will proceed cautiously, only subtly reducing quality over many months to maximise thee time it takes until the customers begin to notice!

    Step 5: Acquiring venture capital

    To keep his empire going, Gareth would reach out to investors and venture capitalists. He would enter discussions with them to strike deals, where they offer capital upfront, in exchange for a share of the profits from his repair empire. To further sweeten the deal, he would further monetise the site(s) and the repairs services – which means, you guessed it, more enshittification. By now, he notices that the premium subscription services for the super-interesting articles on this site are wildly popular. So he decides to roll it out across the rest of the websites under his wing.

    He can also, at this point, choose to go public with his empire on stock markets across the world. This allows investors to buy stocks and shares in his conglomerate. It also means one more group of people he needs to keep on his side – but hey, such is business! These injections of funding would allow him to further sustain the business – oh, and buy more beachfront properties (and shiny yachts!), because why not?!

    Step 6: Selling out to the advertisers

    By this time, the volunteers churn out all sorts of interesting and insightful articles for Gareth’s repair empire. They busily maintain a strong presence on social media. But all this effort only goes so far in sustaining a strong mindshare in the world at large. So now, he needs to go beyond the local papers and go not just national, but international!

    And what this entails, is enlisting the help of marketing companies to really get the brands out there! There are ad spaces for television, radio, billboards…oh, and especially in apps and online, too. Speaking of online in particular, Gareth decides to wring more value out of the websites under his empire by placing ads throughout the site. Sure, this would open readers up the risks of malware and scams miscreants place through ad networks. But hey! By buying a monthly subscription for a small fee, they can remove ads, as well as browse all the super interesting articles to their heart’s content.

    Step 7: Accruing all the value for oneself (and shareholders & venture capitalists!)

    Here is where Gareth starts to work on keeping all the value he accrued from his empire for himself – along with all of the shareholders and venture capitalists he attracted along the way! Essentially, he would do all of the measures we covered earlier – but crank it up to eleven! In fact, he realises technology evolves to such an extent, he would just fully automate all of the repair jobs and content creation using a mixture of robotics and AI tools. No volunteers and staff necessary any more!

    While Gareth goes about it, perhaps he’ll use the extraordinary wealth he built up over the years to entertain himself and fellow billionaires. For example, he could start a mission to enter space – if the likes of Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson can send rockets into space, then so can Gareth!

    Or, perhaps he could explore the depths of the oceans in a submarine. Who knows? If he really fancies a challenge, Gareth could try building an underwater city deep in the oceans. All with its own public services and means of producing everything cities need to thrive!

    Step 8: Withering on the vine at the end of it all

    Eventually, Gareth pushes his efforts in maximising profits from his repairs empire too far. And all the volunteers, the customer base, and everyone else reach the point of not taking all the poopification any more. At this point, some of them start setting up their own local repair cafes and workshops to break free from the network lock-in. And when these workshops start thriving, customers simply take their items there for repairs instead. Consequently, Gareth’s repairs empire experiences a gradual decline in relevance and sustainability. One of the following would happen at this stage:

    • His enterprises would still operate as much smaller businesses.
    • He would sell them off to another business, which would operate them as part of its portfolio.
    • Worst case, the enterprises would simply close down for good.

    Now, Gareth might try to buy up all of the fledging repair shops he possibly can. However, at this point, it’s a case of delaying the inevitable. People who feel his excessive profiteering costs him all the trust and goodwill he spent so much time and effort building up, do not easily forgive and forget. And, once they turn away from his empire, they will not willingly return. In fact, they may even revert back to discarding broken items and only buying new ones out of sheer disillusionment.

    Summarising poopification

    In conclusion, poopification is the insidious creep of sacrificing long-term quality and sustainability for maximum short-term profits. Ultimately, the resultant decay of products and services benefits no-one in society. It has a detrimental impact on the environment, with many poor quality products needlessly going to waste. And so, we all deserve better, repairable and sustainable products and services.

    We used our own workshops as an example to illustrate how poopfication subverts efforts to help communities and the environment. Because if it creeps into our work in real life, then it will negatively affect every other existing community repair group and social enterprise. So let’s all keep calm, keep on fixing, and support each other and our communities!

  • Planned obsolescence – what is it all about?

    In the world of manufacturing and repairs, there’s a term that refers to the state of being that makes us favour new stuff and trends. Something that leads us to switch to new and better ways of working and entertaining ourselves. And what sometimes leaves us unable to keep old, but otherwise functioning everyday items going any more. We call this planned obsolescence.

    The word “obsolete” refers to a product, service or practice that’s no longer in use or becomes outdated or old-fashioned. Obsolescence refers to the act of making them obsolete by introducing newer or improved products, services or practices. Take moving from horse-drawn carriages to heavy-goods vehicles (HGVs) for transporting goods, for example. You can move much larger volumes of products over longer distances with HGVs than you can with horse-drawn carriages.

    There are other forms of obsolescence that we encounter in the real world. But today, we specifically focus on planned obsolescence for this discussion.

    The beginnings of planned obsolescence…

    Before the trend of sacrificing product longevity for ever greater profit started, manufacturers produced all kinds of everyday items that last a long time until they naturally break. Light bulbs, cars, cameras, you name them! Back then, manufacturers made sure they built their products to last. But the concept of planned obsolescence started to take root and spread across whole industries…

    During the 1920s, Alfred P. Sloan, then president of General Motors, came up with a strategy to stimulate demand for GM’s cars. Back then, rival car giant Ford aimed to sell progressively improved versions of the Model T across the US market. Sloan coined the term “dynamic obsolescence“. He wanted to get consumers to perceive their current cars as outdated, compared to new models. This is so that they can replace their car with the new one, even if it still works perfectly fine.

    In 1924, the Phoebus cartel, consisting of prominent light bulb makers, came together for a meeting in Geneva. They agreed to make light bulbs with a much shorter lifespan than typical bulbs at the time. The cartel even made sure to impose heavy fines on manufacturers who made longer-lasting bulbs! However, engineers thought there was some merit to this strategy. They believed that bulbs began to lose efficiency and increase energy wastage after 1,000 total hours of operation.

    Then in 1932, Bernard London, who was a real estate agent, used the expression “planned obsolescence” in its proper context. He published an article with the title, “Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence”. Here, he presented it as a way to recover from the Great Depression by stimulating demand for consumer goods. By then, however, some manufacturers, like those in the Phoebus cartel, already cottoned on to the idea. And so, the rest is history…

    How planned obsolescence works

    Planned obsolescence is where manufacturers deliberately make a product that becomes useless or outdated within a set time period. They do this to ensure that we keep replacing their existing products with new versions of those products. To that end, manufacturers employ different approaches to getting us to discard otherwise perfectly-working and repairable items. They typically consist of all of, or a combination of any of, the following:

    • Contrived fragility: Designing and making an item in ways that make it deteriorate quickly.
    • Anti-repair measures: Making products difficult or even impossible to repair to deter people from servicing these items themselves.
    • Sealed-in batteries: Using adhesive to secure batteries in some electronic items to make it harder to replace with new batteries.
    • Programmed obsolescence: Using software/firmware to restrict or render products useless to force replacement of consumables or new models.
    • Perceived obsolescence: Combining marketing campaigns with frequent product update cycles to make current items seem outdated.
    • Withdrawal of product support: Stopping hardware and software support for a product within an arbitrary period of time.

    So, let’s go over each of them in turn!

    Contrived fragility (also referred to as contrived durability)

    Now, there’s a degree of uncertainly that affects how long a product will last. That’s intrinsic to everything people and manufacturers make. Even the longest-lasting and best looked after item will eventually break down. So imagine this scenario; you bought an item that you previously knew lasted a very long time from a shop. You happily use it for its intended purpose as you normally do. Then one day, it inexplicably breaks much sooner than your old one did. What gives?!

    Your newer item is a victim of contrived fragility, of course! It’s a product design strategy that focuses on artificially limiting a given product’s lifespan. A typical manufacturer takes into account an expected average lifetime during all development stages. Therefore, it specifies how long each part should last and then makes each of those parts accordingly.

    One way they limit durability, is incorporate “weaknesses” into the product, so that it wears out quickly through normal use. They could use inferior materials in critical areas, such as plastic for gears of other stress-bearing parts. Or they could make its design layout inefficient in order to accelerate wear and tear on components. The goal here to get consumers to replace their broken items with new ones as soon as realistically possible.

    Many people call this form of obsolescence “contrived durability”. However, we’d argue that contrived fragility is a more accurate term. That’s because fragility conveys weakness, whereas durability actually conveys strength.

    Anti-repair measures

    You bought a spare part for your item that just broke down, and decide to try fixing it yourself. Unfortunately, you notice that it has screws that you don’t have a screwdriver for! So you have to go out and do one of the following:

    • Buy the appropriate screwdriver in order to perform the self-repair job.
    • Send the broken item (and the spare part) to an independent or OEM-authorised repair centre, and have it fixed there.
    • Contact the manufacturer and get one of their technicians to come out and fix the item for you.

    Apple are particularly notorious for this (and their anti-repair stance in general). They introduced pentalobe screws in 2009, starting with the 15-inch Macbook Pro. This type of screw requires a corresponding pentalobe screwdriver to fasten and unfasten. It became synonymous with Apple devices, though some other manufacturers used them as well.

    Another anti-repair measure is to tightly integrate critical parts into a single complete part. For example, manufacturers often permanently mold the drum bearings into the wash tubs. The bearings are a mechanical component that’s prone to wear and tear during normal use. This kind of product design means you can’t replace the bearings without replacing the entire tub.

    Also, some manufacturers don’t even sell replacement parts for their products. Or when they do sell them, they price them as close to the cost of a whole new product. They do this to make people think that they’re better off scrapping their items altogether, and buying new ones.

    Sealed-in batteries

    This is common in smartphones, watches, wireless earbuds and many other electronic goods. Manufacturers know that these items last only as long as the part with the shortest lifespan. And that part is usually the battery. Batteries naturally lose capacity, output power and the ability to maintain steady voltage during normal use.

    The practice of sealing batteries into smartphones began when Apple introduced the original iPhone in early 2007. Back then, early smartphones had batteries that user can replace themselves. And replacing the battery that wears out (or becomes a spicy pillow!) in those phones is very simple. You just remove the cover, take the worn battery out, put a new one in, and re-attach the cover.

    Over time, other phone makers caught on, and began releasing their phones with sealed-in batteries. Nowadays, the vast majority of smartphones are like this. Replacing batteries in those require a heat source and specialist tools to remove the rear cover and access the internals. There are very few new smartphones that still have easily removable batteries. Among these are the Samsung Galaxy XCover series, the Teracube 2e and offerings from Fairphone and Shiftphone.

    Programmed obsolescence

    You try to print some homework off that you desperately need to hand into college, school or university. But the printer simply won’t print your documents! You open your printer, take the toner or ink cartridge out, and notice there’s still some left inside. You put it back into the printer and try printing again. Only, it still won’t print! What trickery is this?!

    You fell victim to programmed obsolescence, where a manufacturer artificially disables a product in its software or firmware. It does this to stop the product from working, in order to get the user to buy replacements.

    This is common in printers with ink cartridges containing smart chips. Manufacturers program the chips to stop printers from using them after a certain number of uses or period of time. That’s even though there’s still usable ink inside the cartridges, or the user can refill them. The end result is to get users to replace ink cartridges as frequently as possible.

    Perceived obsolescence

    Let’s say you bought a new phone, laptop, or some other item from a shop, and started using it. Then a few months later, the manufacturer releases a new version of that same item. Your first thought on seeing that new item advertised online or in-store was, “Oops, my current one’s out of date!”. And there’s the concept of perceived obsolescence in a nutshell.

    There are many kinds of everyday items, where people desire them for aesthetics instead of functionality. Clothes and shoes are two examples of these. Manufacturers regularly release new items that have various different cosmetic changes from previous iterations. For example, they change styles, patterns, colours, decals or motifs on a given item. This creates the illusion of a brand new item, when it’s really functionally identical to the old one.

    Withdrawal of product support

    When your item breaks down, you start looking for spare parts in order to fix it. But you find out on the manufacturer’s website that they don’t sell any parts for it. Then you notice that the item is end of life!

    Manufacturers define for how long they provide support for a given product. They can sell replacement parts, provide technical support, and make software and firmware updates available. After a defined period of time, they stop supporting the product and designate it as end of life. When it’s end of life, it no longer gets support from the manufacturers.

    Smartphone makers are particularly notorious for this. Many models from these OEMS only get software updates for a few years, if that. In fact, some smartphone brands don’t release software updates for their phones at all! As time passes, unpatched vulnerabilities in software and firmware can leave users susceptible to security breaches. The end result of product support withdrawal is to make people by new items much sooner than they normally would.

    However, sometimes it’s not actually manufacturers, but Governments, that push for planned obsolescence. This is legal obsolescence, where Governments enact policies to gradually phase out older products. For example, major cities such as London, Paris and Amsterdam introduced low/zero emission zones. They implement them to improve air quality by restricting or barring use of polluting vehicles. This can encourage people to replace older vehicles that have combustion engines with electric vehicles. Or, they may alternatively switch to using bicycles or public transport.

    Why it’s bad for the planet

    Planned obsolescence results in increased waste, as it makes us buy new things more frequently than we should. We allow manufacturers and brands to seduce us in this way through clever marketing, product placement and attractive offers. These encourage us to be wasteful by constantly hopping to new products, even after a short time using previous models! As a result, we consume so much resources that we’re harming the environment in the process.

    Manufacturers also waste valuable resources by making unnecessary changes to their products too often. These changes often serve little-to-no useful purpose for consumers, when the end result is essentially the same product. In turn, this feeds into the vicious cycle, further damaging the environment and amplifying climate change.

    Planned obsolescence also discourages repairing and reusing otherwise perfectly viable items, through various anti-repair measures. This tempts us to take “the easy way out” in replacing broken or worn items with new ones. If manufacturers won’t let us repair items that we buy and own, then we can’t learn how to repair them.

    All of this culminates in a “throwaway society”. We condition ourselves into always demanding the latest and greatest in everything we buy. And so, through this kind of consumerist attitude, we choose to use, discard and buy new. So much so that we end up forgetting that we should reduce, reuse and recycle instead…

    How we can tackle planned obsolescence

    However, it doesn’t have to be this way! We can do our bit to help reduce waste and protect the environment. One key way we can tackle planned obsolescence is through education. By teaching others how to repair their stuff, we can help them keep items working for longer. We can encourage them to make better consumer choices. For example, they can buy refurbished items or upgrade their existing unit, instead of buying new ones.

    Another key way is to push for legislation to tackle planned obsolescence and encourage right to repair. We can help support efforts to bring in new laws to ensure manufacturers provide long-term product support. Efforts to counter lobbying efforts to oppose right to repair by manufacturers and business groups are also important. We can also rally behind other people who support right to repair. These include notable YouTubers such as Louis Rossmann, Hugh Jeffreys and Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips.

    By fighting planned obsolescence, we can stem the tide of waste and ensure they don’t end up in landfill sites. You can do your bit too, by not buying new stuff when your old ones still work fine. And try to fix them when they do break. Together, we can push back against planned obsolescence!

  • Coleman’s Law: the relationship between specialism and reuse

    Ever wondered why some parts are easier to reuse and repurpose than others? Over the years, we’ve observed what I think is a general rule in the way manufacturers make all kinds of parts. Let’s call it Coleman’s Law: “The more specialised a part is, the less reusable it is.”

    Coleman’s Law refers to the relationship between the physical design of an item, and the ease (or difficulty) of reusing its underlying parts. Changes in a part’s design change the ability to reuse or re-purpose it in turn.

    What does it mean in practice?

    Let’s take a standard fan you find in computers, for example. It is a simple part that helps keep a desktop computer cool by drawing cool air in and expelling hot air out. These fans come in different standard sizes, which make them easy to transfer between desktop PCs. There are also a lot of small DIY projects that make use of computer case fans in alternative ways. That makes it a general part that is therefore easy to reuse and repurpose.

    Now let’s take the chassis from a washing machine. By riveting steel sheets together over a box frame, we can disassemble it and turn them into something else. But if we use bonded steel and plastic sheets, glued together on plastic corners, it’s harder to re-purpose those materials.

    In the same way, we can easily re-use a ‘standard’ stepper electric motor for various different projects. But we can’t upcycle a motor with a special design with custom control electronics as easily. An awkward mounting bracket makes re-purposing it harder still.

    If one feels really bold and ambitious, they might even try repurposing an aircraft engine for a DIY project! Aircraft engines contain a lot of specialised, intricate parts that are manufactured to tight tolerances. If a part fails or gets damaged, then the whole engine could fail spectacularly!

    How does this affect manufacturers?

    Manufacturers have to compete in a transparent way regarding the cost of purchase. Unfortunately, most buyers don’t realise that they need to take the cost of spare parts and when they might need them into consideration. Therefore, one strategy the manufacturers adopt is to make their products loss leaders by selling them at as low a price as possible. In this way, they can then claw back some profit by selling spare parts and/or consumables.

    Of course, if your device contains only ‘standard’ spare parts, then it’s easy for consumers to repair it by buying just the parts they need. And then they would have a fully working device again. But this in turn makes it easy for third parties to offer cheaper aftermarket parts, so you can’t easily claw back profit selling ‘official’ parts.

    Manufacturers know that this affects the profit margins of their products. And so, they respond by using various design tricks to defend their margins. For example, making parts proprietary ensures that consumers only buy spare parts from them. They may use custom screws or non-standard mounting holes, or make custom boards specifically for certain models. Many components can be ‘tweaked’ and made non-standard to make it easier to manufacture at scale. This in turn makes things cheaper and easier to mass produce products, but more difficult to repair.

    What we can do about it

    And so, today’s devices contain more and more specialised parts such as fans, motors and the like. This in turn makes them harder to repair, reuse or recycle. Of course, while there are justifiable reasons for this, economic pressures and lack of knowledge and time also play a part.

    But the good news is that more and more people are becoming aware of these issues. There is a growing movement of repair activists succeeding in getting right to repair laws passed around the world. More and more projects like ours are growing, as people realise that the costs of endless new devices are greater than just the price of them.

    We can also do our bit to fight planned obsolescence. Finding new ways to reuse everyday items helps reduce the amount of waste we produce. We also want to push towards re-thinking how we make new products in the first place. One way to do this, is to explore ways to make things that use only ‘standard’ parts. In other words, aim for ‘planned endurance’ instead of planned obsolescence!

    We hope to see you soon, and maybe even repair something together!

  • Gareth’s radio interview on BBC Radio Sheffield

    Gareth appeared on the 10th February 2023 episode of Toby Foster at Breakfast on BBC Radio Sheffield. There, in a radio interview, he discussed with Toby Foster about Reyt Repair, and the background behind repairing everyday items.

    Here’s a full transcript of the interview with sub-headings for clarity.

    Transcript of the radio interview

    (Introduction)

    Toby Foster: Imagine setting up your own shop in Sheffield, and getting compared to this. So of course the theme tune of the BBC show “The Repair Shop”, from Sheffield has it’s own version now, Reyt Repairs! Gareth Coleman is the founder, and he’s on the line now. [Speaking to Gareth] Gareth, good morning.

    Gareth Coleman: Good morning.

    Toby: So, tell us about your shop, Gareth. How long have you been there, and what do you do?

    Gareth: We’ve been there about three months now, and we’re a social enterprise powered by volunteers. And we repair clothes, electricals and furniture.

    Toby: Fantastic stuff. “Lost skills”, a lot of people would say?

    Gareth: Well, I don’t think they are ‘lost’. There’s been a bit of a bad patch over the last 40-50 years. But we still find there’s plenty of people who love repairing things. And especially the older generation; they were brought up on it, obviously.

    (About how Reyt Repair operates)

    Toby: So what kinds of things can you do? What kinds of things do you repair?

    Gareth: Well, everything from vacuum cleaners to holes in clothes. We fix small tables and chairs, and other bits of furniture. Pretty much everything around the house. Just a couple of exceptions; we can’t fix microwaves, and we’ve got a really poor success rate with a couple of things like hand blenders and electric toothbrushes and things. But pretty much, we’ll have a go at anything!

    Toby: Because most things are fairly logical once you start to open them up, aren’t they?

    Gareth: Yeah, well obviously, these days with smart speakers and this and that, there’s a lot of variety. Your basic vacuum cleaner is quite a simple device, really. It’s got a switch, and a fan, and a motor – and that’s pretty much all of it. Obviously, things get a bit more complicated with televisions or computers. But we’ve got quite a wide team of people with some really incredible skills. And we’re certainly not afraid to have a go at things, even if the chances are a bit bleak.

    (Discussion about repairing clothes)

    Toby: Talk to us, if you will, about clothes. Because when I was a kid, clothes were all out and I was older, so at least I got them first. But you would have clothes that were best clothes, and then you would slowly mess them up. And then you put holes in them, then they became playing out clothes. And these were two very different drawers; your good clothes and your playing out clothes. Then when you came home from a wedding, you put your playing out clothes on. That’s changed to a degree, because Tesco have made a pair of jeans for £3.

    Gareth: Yes.

    Toby: You know, that certainly my kids didn’t have the kind of demarcation of clothes in the way that I did. But I do find that now they’re getting older, they’re getting into repairing clothes rather than just buying new.

    Gareth: Yes, it’s become quite trendy again, I think. I mean, fast fashion is a bit of a problem for several (reasons). It’s not that great for the environment to buy clothes, wear them a couple of times and then fling them out. So I think young people – well, all of us – are getting a bit more, kind of aware of the virtues of repairing things. And especially when you’ve got a a favourite pair of jeans. It doesn’t really matter how much they cost. Since these are the jeans that you met your missus in, then you are going to want to save them, you know.

    (Examples of repurposing clothes)

    Toby: Sure, absolutely. So have people been bringing clothes into you for repairs, for alterations, that kind of thing?

    Gareth: Yeah, we’ve had quite a mixture. We’ve had a bridesmaid’s dress that we’re turning into a skirt. And that’s sort of one end of the spectrum. And then we’ve had plenty of coats which have broken a zip, and holes in pockets. Darning the sleeve of a jumper, and even making an outfit for a little teddy bear.

    Toby: Fantastic stuff. I mean, obviously, do you watch the repair shop?

    Gareth: Of course. You know, I’ve got a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. I love the show and watching them fix things. But obviously, it’s all shiny and great entertainment. But yeah, it’s not exactly like that in Sheffield!

    Toby: So would it be a little bit easier when you’ve got an unlimited budget and all those aids?

    Gareth: Exactly. And unlimited time as well, you know. Gluing a Ming vase back together, that’s not our strength.

    (About the wider environmental impact)

    Toby: But it’s entertainment, shouldn’t it? And what it does do, hopefully, is highlight the fact that people like you are around.

    Gareth: Yes.

    Toby: And that, you know, like you say, it’s something that’s become relatively…I’m going to be interested in this as I get slightly older. You know, because my kids are getting well into this kind of thing now, in a way that they were much more throwaway when they were younger. Fingers crossed that we become like this.

    Gareth: I mean, it’s a combination of things. I mean, obviously the cost of living crisis has really sharpened everyone’s mind. But it’s also the things for the environment. If your hoover or clothes have only got something small wrong with them, then it’s such a shame to put it into landfill. (Then) have to get something made halfway round the world, and shipped over to you. When for a little bit of fettling, you could be up and running, you’ve saved money, and you’ve saved the environment, and everyone’s happy.

    (Discussion about volunteers at Reyt Repair)

    Toby: Do you find sometimes you’ll open something like…? I’ve just gone and looked on your website and saw a picture there of Dylan opening a broken tube amplifier. I’m guessing repairing an old valve amp is not only incredibly rewarding, but also you can buy the valves and put them in. When you open them up and you just see a load of chips?

    Gareth: [Laughs] Yeah. Well, I mean we’ve got a volunteer who’s skilled in the art of tubes. And we’ve also got volunteers who know their way around chips. So yeah, it’s a different ball game. You need better eyesight and, certainly, we’re lucky in that we’ve been donated a microscope. So we’re looking forward to using that. But it’s a different skill set, but we like to share skills with each other, because everyone’s got a different set of skills. You don’t have to be an expert in tube amplifiers to volunteer with us.

    (About funding Reyt Repair and attracting volunteers)

    Toby: And volunteers are who you are looking for, isn’t it?

    Gareth: Well, that’s it, you see. Because in order to make this service really affordable, which is really important to us. Because there’s no point doing this if we’re going to be charging hundreds of pounds (£), then most people just won’t be able to afford it. And the other thing is, if you combine things for £30-40, then you have to make the repair £10 or £20 in order for it to make sense. You know, (even) with the best will in the world, people aren’t going to spend as much on a repair as they could getting something new. So because of that, we need volunteers to do the repairs, basically. And so, as we get more customers in, and we’re getting a steady flow of customers, we’re really appealing for some more volunteers to join us.

    (Concluding the radio interview)

    Toby: Well, if anybody wants to get involved, then all they’ve got to do to give us a ring, and then we shall pass all of their (phone) numbers on. You’re in Pitsmoor, aren’t you?

    Gareth: Yeah! We’re at sunny Pitsmoor, at Abbeyfield Park House. Please feel free to get in touch. And as you said, we’ve got a website, and we’re on the social media (platforms) and all that.

    Toby: It’s reyt, R-E-Y-T. Reyt Repairs. It’s absolutely fantastic. Wish you the best of luck, Gareth. Thank you very much indeed for talking to us.

    Gareth: Fantastic, thanks Toby!

    (End of radio interview)

    And this concludes the full transcript of the radio interview! Don’t forget, you can contact Reyt Repair using this form if you want to join our repair teams. We’re eager to welcome new volunteers, from newbies who want to learn how to fix things, to experienced fixers and tinkerers who are willing to share their knowledge and expertise with others!