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:
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)
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)
Mashable: 11 million iPhone users chose to get battery replacements (2019)
Apple Newsroom: Letter from Tim Cook to Apple investors (2019)
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)
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.
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