Silicon Valley is worried that people will no longer need to buy their products every two years and instead will repair the old versions of the products they have now. They have been campaigning to stop users having the right to repair the products they have bought to get a little longer from them.

The Entertainment Software Association, a trade organisation that includes Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, as well as dozens of video game developers and publishers, has joined in opposing a "right to repair" bill in Nebraska.

Similar bills are making their way through the Nebraska, New York, Minnesota, Wyoming, Tennessee, Kansas, Massachusetts, and Illinois statehouses will require manufacturers to sell replacement parts and repair tools to independent repair companies and consumers at the same price they are sold to authorised repair centres.

The bill also requires that manufacturers make diagnostic manuals public and requires them to offer software tools or firmware to revert an electronic device to its original functioning state in the case that software locks that prevent independent repair are built into a device.

The current setup has allowed companies like Apple to monopolize iPhone repair, John Deere to monopolise tractor repair, and Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo to monopolise console repair.

This will expose the repair monopolies these companies have enjoyed to competition. Given that we have been told by these same companies that competition is a good thing, the opposition is especially unctuous.