I absolutely love this. It would be easy enough for Valve to say "do not open the Steam Deck" and leave it at that. Instead they present clear, sensible reasons for recommending against opening the device while acknowledging that this advice won't stop anyone who really wants to open one up.
> The company cautions that they are completely custom, but says that it will offer a source for “replacement parts, thumbsticks, SSDs, and possibly more” in the coming months.<p>There you go. that's how you do right to repair.<p>Of course in an ideal world they'd also design the device to be easy to repair, but this is a massive leap in the right direction IMO.
Poor iFixit. But this is exactly how you do it.<p>People are curious what it looks inside and you don’t want them to open it? Just show them what’s inside and take their reason to open it.<p>It’s similar to warnings. “Don’t do x” is easy to not take seriously since people can say it for all kinds of reasons, “... because it would kill you” is pretty convincing.
Remember. Right to repair isn't necessarily about having repairs or upgrades be super easy and anyone can do it. But to make the parts, schematics and information accessible by those that are trained to repair and upgrade them.<p>You can repair a car. Doesn't mean you should repair your own car. Making a mistake can be dangerous. But professionals who know what they are doing have easy access to components and information about the layout of your cars internals if they need them.
I think this is a fair enough position. I don't expect every device to be easily repairable, especially a gen 1 device. They already have enough trouble getting it to fit into a size that is usable. They give clear reasons for you not to do repairs yourself, but they don't impose any arbitrary restrictions. If you want to void your warranty, they give you the full freedom and knowledge to do so.
I'm not necessarily a fan of the complicated design but I accept that it might've been necessary for miniaturisation.<p>Other than that, to me the message of this video is that if anything goes people will have replacement parts available and a repair shop can take care of it. Assuming that's the intention it's still pretty good.
In general, Valve is really consumer-friendly when it comes to hardware.<p>I recently destroyed my Index's tether cable, mostly my fault, and their tech support sent me a new one for free with very little hassle, and with instructions on how to replace it.
This is a whole new type of gaslighting being employed by big corporations in the war against the right to repair.<p>The pervasive practice of designing hardware that is difficult to take apart or service needs to end, full stop.