Tech Companies Don’t Need PACs to Dominate Politics
How Apple and other companies strong-arm policy and why that matters
Nathan Proctor is director of the Right to Repair Campaign for U.S. PIRG, an advocacy organization.
I work on Right to Repair, a campaign that aims to encourage companies such as Apple to provide customers with parts, service information, and repair software — so we can fix the gadgets we own.
When manufacturers don’t let anyone else have access to the parts, tools, software, and information needed to fix things, it creates a monopoly around certain repair procedures, driving up costs for customers. When it’s expensive to repair an electronic product, people are more likely to throw older devices away and buy new ones. The goal of Right to Repair is to pass state laws that break open these repair monopolies, and give people more repair options to reduce cost and waste.
From where I sit, Apple has an incredibly outsized role in American politics.
Unfortunately, Right to Repair is not a popular idea with manufacturers, including Apple, because it is much easier to make a profit for their shareholders by selling more new products than it is helping their customers repair or otherwise extend the…
