This chapter introduces the threats to product longevity and durability created by legal frameworks and product design decisions that shift power from consumers to device makers. In contrast to earlier generations of technology, today’s devices—from smartphones and headphones to medical and agricultural equipment—are designed to be replaced, not repaired.

This chapter outlines the sophisticated array of strategies and techniques that today’s device makers have developed to discourage and obstruct repair. Firms rely on product design, economic manipulation, and consumer persuasion to steer us away from repair and keep us buying new devices year after year. They use hardware and software design to erect practical barriers to repair. They charge unnecessarily high prices for repair or refuse to fix products at all. At the same time, they deny independent repair providers access to parts and tools necessary to meet consumer demand. And through subtle and explicit messaging, they discourage consumers from even attempting repairs.

This chapter describes how device makers try to leverage intellectual property (IP) rights to restrict repair and why those assertions are, as a general rule, inconsistent with a proper understanding of the law. IP—in the form of copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets—offers manufacturers an arsenal of weapons in the war on repair. From a practical perspective, IP law allows firms to credibly threaten to enjoin, silence, and ultimately bankrupt anyone with the audacity to repair a product without permission. That’s true despite the fact that IP claims against consumers and repair providers rest on questionable legal foundations.

This chapter considers the role antitrust law can play in safeguarding repair markets and, along with them, the interests of competitors and consumers. While IP law may grants device makers power over their products, antitrust and competition law are designed to impose limits on exclusionary behavior. As a result, they serve as potential bulwarks against tactics that would impede repair. Despite significant doctrinal and policy hurdles to enforcement, antitrust law can help discipline firms that attempt to capture markets for the repair of vehicles, electronics, and appliances that account for hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue.

As people interact in online venues, they need to represent who they are to others. The details of how we do this matter. Sociologist Erving Goffman explains how, in the face-to-face world, we are always performing roles. These elements of identity translate into the online world. One of the key questions for online activity is the role of anonymity. The chapter explains the advantages and disadvantages of anonymous interaction. In fact, we’re all really some degree of “pseudonymous” (between anonymous and identified) most of the time anyway. How identity is represented turns out to be one of the most powerful design decisions that you make in creating an online communications environment.

Introduces some powerful examples of constructive uses of online collaboration—like Wikipedia and citizen science. Why do people spend hundreds of volunteer hours writing encyclopedia articles or counting birds? The chapter explains the incentive structure in peer production, and what kinds of things are possible using peer production methods, explores citizen science in some detail, and introduces Yochai Benkler’s theory of why peer production is important, and what factors are important for a peer production project to succeed.

In 2004, my son Noah was turning one year old and I had a problem: How do I make him a birthday cake? He was seriously allergic to dairy, soy, and egg. A mis-read food label or a bite snuck from another child’s plate at daycare could send us to the emergency room. But he was turning one – I wanted him to have birthday cake. I found a website called kidswithfoodallergies.org, and asked on the forum there: Did anyone have a dairy-, soy- and egg-free cake recipe? In response to my query, I got a flurry of warm welcomes from parents on the site. They shared an excellent safe cake recipe, and provided a host of other support. Parents on the site helped me figure out how to make a clear and effective allergy-awareness sheet for his daycare teachers. They shared tips for how to safely order food in a restaurant. Their experience was invaluable, and they also were emotionally supportive in a way no one else could be. Parenting an allergic toddler is stressful, and they understood completely.

Building on ideas from epistemology, metaphysics, and social construction of knowledge, the chapter explores what it means to “know” something, and how good a job Wikipedia does at building knowledge. The argument is that “truth” exists (even if we only have indirect and unsure access to it). Knowledge is socially constructed. Social consensus is our best metric for what “is true,” but sometimes that consensus can be wrong.

Explores the ways we can regulate online behavior. Larry Lessig divides regulation into laws, social norms, markets, and technology. As we’ll see, ideas about “free speech” vary around the world, and laws about hate speech are quite different in the United States compared to other nations. Where we draw the line between free speech and illegal speech is the most hotly contested issue about the internet. What is at stake is not just what we all read or watch, but who we are. At its worst, the internet can make insane and hateful ideas seem normal, and make it easy for new people to be radicalized. On the other hand, if some speech is not allowed, who decides where to draw the line? How do we make balanced decisions about what content to allow?