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Yes I get it, that's what I try to do as well. Just recently I went through the hassle of repairing my moms 5-year old Asus Zenbook, which had a broken SSD that was also a lot more effort to repair than necessary because of the non-standard M2 slot Asus used for the sole purpose of discouraging home repair (there literally is no other explanation for this slot besides trying to get you to pay Asus for the repair or -even better- a new device). She was already planning to throw it a way and get a new one.

The point is, that if it weren't for the fact that I explicitly asked her to let me have a look to see if I could repair it, she would have thrown it out even though it was perfectly possible to repair it (it's working 100% fine again now). My mother is not the exception, she's the rule. I would guess over 90% of people don't bother to repair 5-year old laptops, under any circumstance. They just write it off and get a new one.

That's why I was saying all these discussions about how repairability of laptops impacts the environment are largely moot. Probably better incentives to promote proper recycling (e.g. a tax on electronics that gets re-imbursed when you properly dispose them) would have much more positive effect compared to improved repairability.



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