From a warehouse in California, an 815-pound McDonald’s ice cream machine has become an unlikely symbol in one of the most consequential consumer rights battles in the country.
The machine belongs to iFixit cofounder and CEO Kyle Wiens, who bought it to challenge a federal system that can make it illegal for owners to repair the products they purchase.
“At any given point in time, one in 10 McDonald’s ice cream machines is broken,” Wiens says during an interview at iFixit’s Chattanooga facility. “And the reason is manufacturers make it difficult for franchisees to repair them on their own, forcing them to call in company-authorized technicians.
“It’s the exact same situation farmers face with John Deere equipment. The manufacturer controls the repair process in a way that keeps owners dependent on them.”
That comparison – between a fast-food dessert machine and a multimillion-dollar tractor – illustrates the breadth of the modern right-to-repair movement. What began as a niche fight over smartphone batteries and repair manuals has grown into a sprawling national campaign touching everything from hospital equipment and school alarm systems to electric wheelchairs, agricultural machinery and consumer electronics.
At the center of much of that effort is Wiens, whose company helped turn online repair guides into a global advocacy network pushing lawmakers, regulators and manufacturers to reconsider a basic question: If consumers buy a product, do they truly own it?
“This is really about competition,” Wiens says. “At its core, the question is whether your local repair shop can realistically compete with a company like Apple when manufacturers control access to parts, tools and repair information.”
When ‘ownership’ stops meaning ‘ownership’
Wiens traces the origins of the movement to a shift consumers barely noticed at first.
For decades, repairing household products was ordinary. Manufacturers published schematics, replacement parts were readily available and owners expected appliances, electronics and machinery to last for years.
Today, Wiens argues, many products are designed to be replaced rather than repaired.
“Planned obsolescence keeps consumers on a treadmill of constantly replacing products,” he says.
The smartphone industry became the clearest example. Early generations of phones offered dramatic improvements from year to year, but as technological leaps narrowed, manufacturers increasingly leaned on sealed batteries, proprietary parts and software ecosystems that discouraged independent repair.
“Going from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 5 was a meaningful upgrade that made sense to consumers,” Wiens says. “But what’s the difference between an iPhone 14 and an iPhone 15? Not much. At this point, the cycle is less about innovation and more about keeping revenue flowing to one of the most profitable companies in history.”
Batteries degrade, software updates demand more processing power and repair costs continue to rise – all part of what Wiens sees as a system designed to push consumers toward replacement instead of repair. Often unable to replace a single failing component, consumers instead buy entirely new products.
Wiens believes that the system has reshaped consumer expectations in ways that extend far beyond phones.
“If you buy a cheap SharkNinja vacuum, you’re essentially buying a disposable product,” he says. “In most cases, it’s not designed to be repaired at all.”
But Wiens doesn’t place all the blame on manufacturers.
“Every time consumers choose the cheapest option, we undermine the companies that are actually trying to support their products long term by making parts and repairs available,” he says.
From repair guides to political organizing
Wiens cofounded iFixit in 2003 as an online repair manual platform designed to help consumers fix their own electronics. The company eventually expanded into tools, replacement parts and repair advocacy.
At first, Wiens hoped manufacturers would voluntarily embrace repair access.
“We started iFixit to fill the gap manufacturers had left by refusing to support repair,” he says. “At first, we tried working cooperatively with companies, asking them to share repair manuals and make replacement parts available. But almost none of them were willing to do it.”
Eventually, the effort moved from persuasion to legislation.
“It became clear that voluntary cooperation wasn’t enough and legislation would be necessary to force manufacturers to provide access to parts, tools and repair information,” Wiens says.
Over the last several years, Wiens has become one of the movement’s most visible public advocates. He chairs repair.org, a national trade association representing repair businesses. iFixit also helped launch repair advocacy groups in Europe and Australia.
Wiens has testified before Congress, the European Parliament and state legislatures across the country. The movement itself has grown into a coalition that includes consumer groups, environmental organizations, independent repair shops, farmers, recyclers and technology advocates.
That broad alliance has helped transform right-to-repair from a fringe issue into one of the rare policy debates drawing support from across the political spectrum.
A bipartisan cause
The coalition behind right-to-repair often includes people who disagree on nearly everything else.
Farmers frustrated by locked-down tractors share common ground with environmental advocates concerned about electronic waste. Small-business conservatives align with consumer-rights organizations seeking stronger market protections.
Wiens says movement leaders intentionally worked to avoid partisan branding.
“We’ve worked to build support across the political spectrum,” he says. “Part of that means making sure these laws advance in both red states and blue states, because the underlying issue affects everyone regardless of politics.”
That strategy has paid off.
This year, Kansas passed a right-to-repair law covering personal electronics. Texas approved repair protections earlier this year. Colorado, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, New York, Nevada and Connecticut have also enacted various forms of repair legislation.
“Roughly a third of the U.S. population now lives in states covered by some form of right-to-repair law,” Wiens says.
Even President Donald Trump briefly entered the debate during his reelection campaign by referencing perpetually broken McDonald’s ice cream machines – an issue Wiens says became a surprisingly effective way to explain the broader movement.
“We recognized early on that this is fundamentally a pro-consumer and pro-small-business issue,” Wiens says. “The goal is to protect consumers, support independent businesses and give farmers and other owners more control over the equipment they rely on. That’s not a partisan issue.”
The argument resonates especially outside major metropolitan areas.
“We’re in Chattanooga, and there isn’t an Apple Store here,” Wiens says. “If your phone breaks and you need it repaired, your options are either mailing it away or driving to Atlanta. For much of the country, that’s the reality, and it’s simply not a reasonable system for consumers.”
The stakes beyond smartphones
While consumer electronics helped launch the movement, some of its most consequential battles involve products far removed from laptops and phones.
One of the most emotional fights, Wiens says, involves electric wheelchairs.
“Wheelchair manufacturers do not want wheelchair owners to be able to fix their own chairs,” he says.
In many cases, even small software adjustments require manufacturer authorization. Patients often must navigate insurance approvals, physician documentation and monthslong repair delays.
“If someone with an electric wheelchair needs a repair, the process can become incredibly drawn out,” Wiens says. “First, they often have to get approval through their insurance company, which can require documentation from a doctor and take months to process. After that, they still have to wait for the wheelchair manufacturer to schedule a service call, and in some cases the wait can stretch another several months.”
The result, he says, can leave users waiting half a year for repairs or software changes on equipment they rely on daily.
“It combines some of the worst aspects of the healthcare system with the broader problems of a disposable consumer culture,” Wiens says.
The movement has also expanded into medical devices, agricultural equipment and building systems.
Wiens describes a case involving a school whose longtime custodian unexpectedly died, leaving behind password-protected alarm programming for the campus bell system. Without access credentials, school officials were told they would need to erase and rebuild the entire system.
“The school’s position was simple,” Wiens says. “‘If we erase the programming, it could take a week to rebuild the system, and the school won’t have bells during that time. We just need the ability to reset the password and restore access.’”
Under current federal copyright law, however, bypassing certain digital locks can expose users to severe penalties.
“It would be illegal for them to break that lock,” Wiens says. “That’s crazy. That’s a dumb law.”
The federal battlefield
Much of Wiens’ current focus centers on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 federal law originally designed to combat digital piracy.
One section of the law makes it illegal to bypass technological protection measures – even on products consumers legally own.
“It’s a felony to break the lock on the garage door opener you paid for,” Wiens says.
Violations can theoretically carry fines of up to $150,000 and potential prison time.
To work around the law, advocates must apply every three years for narrow exemptions through a lengthy federal review process.
That process led Wiens to buy the McDonald’s ice cream machine.
“Three years ago, I bought a McDonald’s ice cream machine and applied for the legal right to repair it,” he says. “It took a year and a half of legal wrangling, but we eventually got permission.”
The exemption system, he argues, reveals how deeply repair restrictions have become embedded within modern technology policy.
This year, advocates plan to seek broader exemptions involving building automation systems, air conditioning infrastructure and other industrial technologies.
“The state work is about ensuring competition,” Wiens says. “The federal work is about preserving ownership.”
Changing the industry
The movement’s victories have already altered corporate behavior in ways that seemed unlikely only a few years ago.
“Before right-to-repair laws began passing, Apple wasn’t selling replacement parts for iPhones,” Wiens says. “Now consumers can buy batteries directly from Apple, and the company publishes full repair manuals online. Other major manufacturers – including Samsung, Lenovo, HP and Dell – have started doing the same.”
Some companies have become active supporters.
“Google has emerged as one of the strongest supporters of the movement,” Wiens says. “The company completely reversed its earlier position and decided to begin selling replacement parts and supporting repair access.”
Elsewhere on the West Coast, Wiens testified alongside Google in support of repair legislation while Apple opposed the measure.
“In Oregon, Google and iFixit testified in support of right-to-repair legislation while Apple opposed it,” he says. “Ultimately, the legislation passed.”
Still, Wiens believes the next challenge is enforcement.
Many manufacturers remain slow to comply with laws already on the books. iFixit and allied organizations increasingly monitor companies for failures to provide manuals, parts or diagnostic tools required under state statutes.
“We’re moving beyond simply passing legislation and focusing now on enforcement and changing industry norms,” Wiens says.
Recent coalition reports found that many appliance manufacturers still do not provide adequate repair documentation despite legal requirements in several states.
“Changing the law is only the first step,” Wiens says. “Companies still need time to build compliance systems, make parts and information accessible and create repair programs that are actually practical for consumers to use.”
A fight without an endpoint
The success of the right-to-repair movement has also created an unusual question for iFixit itself.
As manufacturers increasingly release manuals, sell parts and open repair channels, the ecosystem Wiens spent years building could eventually face direct competition from the companies it once pressured.
“We’re actually asking the manufacturers to compete with us,” he says.
The possibility does not appear to bother him.
“The bigger question is what happens if right to repair fully succeeds,” Wiens says. “For years, iFixit has helped build an alternative repair ecosystem because manufacturers weren’t providing those resources themselves. If companies eventually make repair access widely available on their own, there may be less need for organizations like ours – and that might be a good outcome.”
For Wiens, the movement’s goals extend beyond any individual company or product category. He sees repair as part of a broader cultural push against disposability, centralized control and shrinking consumer ownership.
The work, he says, is unlikely to end anytime soon.
“It never stops.”
For now, the movement continues advancing through state legislatures, courtrooms and federal hearings. And Wiens still believes the core principle is simple.
“If you buy a vacuum, it should last for a decade or more,” he says. “There’s no good reason something like that should need to be replaced every couple of years.”