Your Phone’s Deal With the Devil

If you do drop your phone, good luck, because the biggest corporations in the world are trying to prevent you from repairing the stuff you own.

Sources & Citations

Citations reference first appearance, without repeating for subsequent usage:

• Allstate Protection Plans: Allstate Protection Plans Finds 78 Million Americans Damaged Their Smartphones in the Last Year. The Nation’s Repair and Replacement Bill Now Totals $149 Billion Since the Introduction of the Smartphone (2024)

• Consumer Reports: Manufacturers Are Making Repairs Too Hard for Consumers, FTC Says (2021)

• CBS News: How manufacturers make it impossible to repair your electronics (2021)

• Allconnect: Why are companies intentionally bricking their own technology? (2020)

• The Global E-Waste Monitor (2024)

• NPR: Apple Apologizes For Slowdowns, Lops $50 Off Battery Replacement Cost (2017)

• CNET: Apple Starts Sending Out iPhone 'Batterygate' Settlement Payments. What to Know (2024)

• PC Mag: 11M iPhone Owners Bought Apple’s $29 Battery (2019)

• Mashable: 11 million iPhone users chose to get battery replacements (2019)

• Apple Newsroom: Letter from Tim Cook to Apple investors (2019)

• iFixit: How Parts Pairing Kills Independent Repair (2023)

• The Guardian: Apple pips Exxon as world's biggest company (2011)

• Wired: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership (2015)

• The Guardian: A Right to Repair: why Nebraska farmers are taking on John Deere and Apple (2017)

• Vice: A Medical Device Maker Threatens iFixit Over Ventilator Repair Project (2020)

• iFixit: What’s Inside That McDonald’s Ice Cream Machine? Broken Copyright Law (2023)

• Modern Tire Dealer: Massachusetts voters approve Right to Repair (2012)

• Nebraska Public Media: Do-It-Yourself Farmers Lobby For Right To Repair High-Tech Tractors (2017)

• Vice: Apple Tells Lawmaker that Right to Repair iPhones Will Turn Nebraska Into a “Mecca” for Hackers (2017)

• The Washington Post: Clear wants to scan your face at airports. Privacy experts are worried. (2023)

• Extreme Tech: Massachusetts Passes Robust Automotive Right-to-Repair Law (2020)

• Grist/The Markup: How Big Tech rewrote the nation’s first cell phone repair law (2023)

• The New York Times: It’s Your iPhone. Why Can’t You Fix It Yourself? (2019)

• iFixit: archived copy of publicly released Apple emails (accessed 2026)

• NPR: A new copyright rule lets McDonald's fix its own broken ice cream machines (2024)

• FTC: Nixing the Fix: An FTC Report to Congress on Repair Restrictions (2021)

• Today: Man drives record 3 million miles in the same 1966 Volvo (2013)

• WBUR: Americans Toss 151 Million Phones A Year. What If We Could Repair Them Instead? (2018)

• World Economic Forum: 5 billion cell phones will become e-waste this year (2022)

Episode Credits

Creator/Host: Rollie Williams

Writers: Rollie Williams & Matt Nelsen

Director: Matt Nelsen

Editors: Rollie Williams, Justin Dodd & Paul Ramsdell

Executive Producers: Rollie Williams, Matt Nelsen & Daniella Philipson

Cinematography: Matt Nelsen

Producer: Daniella Philipson

Desk Cinematography: Justin Dodd

Slow Motion Cinematography: Daniella Philipson

Special Effects: Matt Weir

Colorist: Nicholas Lareau

Desk Production Design: Caity Birmingham ( http://caitybirmingham.com )

Intro Animator: Ian MK Cessna ( https://ianhasawebsite.com/ )

Theme music by: Gratis ( https://www.youtube.com/@gratis3241 )

Special thanks: Louis Rossmann, Jessa Jones, iFixit & Geek Shop
Special thanks to the Civil Liberties Defense Center ( https://cldc.org/ ) for their continued support.

Copyright Climate Town 2026. All rights reserved.