The "right-to-repair" sentiment is totally understandable, as the article says. However, on the other hand, imagine some user modified the underlying Android, which caused the treadmill to run unstoppably, which end up injuring him. He then sues the company for millions of dollars. If I were the owner of the company, I would rather losing some customers than sleeping on a ticking bomb. Their move is also understandable.
I think an ideal solution could be the manufacturer officially supports accessing the "privilege mode" with some sort of "release of liability". Customer must agree to this the first time they access, forfeiting warranty and ability to sue. Much like when people decide to unlock phone bootloader and root.
And to make all manufacturers willing to provide privilege mode to their products, I think either 1) the court makes clear statement of supporting this legally, or 2) having a supreme court precedence established for this, is required, otherwise some manufacturers would still fear the potential legal risk.
What happens if, when you're upgrading your new right-to-repair laptop, you leave some wires sticking out of the battery and fry yourself, and then sue the laptop maker?
Indeed, what happens when you fry yourself repairing the ur-right-to-repair device, the light fixture with a removable lightbulb?
You can invent any scenario for any machine or device that the user can repair, but it should be fairly straightforward to add language that says "if you modify the device's behavior in such a way that it harms you, that's not our fault."
I think an ideal solution could be the manufacturer officially supports accessing the "privilege mode" with some sort of "release of liability". Customer must agree to this the first time they access, forfeiting warranty and ability to sue. Much like when people decide to unlock phone bootloader and root.
And to make all manufacturers willing to provide privilege mode to their products, I think either 1) the court makes clear statement of supporting this legally, or 2) having a supreme court precedence established for this, is required, otherwise some manufacturers would still fear the potential legal risk.