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there's a troubling trend in the technology industry more and more the

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devices we buy are becoming locked down through a combination of hardware and

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software that's designed to prevent us and independent shops from upgrading

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repairing and in some shocking cases even using them in ways that aren't

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sanctioned by the original manufacturer this tight integration has brought us

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improvements like smaller and less expensive gadgets but it's come at the

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cost of producing more waste making repairs unnecessarily expensive and

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inaccessible and even manufacturers trying to use their control over your

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electronics to remove functionality unless you agree to pony up a monthly

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subscription fee i mean i'm sorry what

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making deals and then altering them after the fact how is that even legal it

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sounds like some kind of fictional dystopia doesn't it but it's not

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it's real and it's right now thankfully we do have a solution called

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right to repair but before we can take it from a concept to actual legislation

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that protects consumers small businesses and the environment we need to talk

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about it and make sure that we are all on the same page after i tell you about

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every time we bring up right to repair i am surprised afresh to see that the vast

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majority of the opposition to it comes from either people who haven't had it

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explained to them properly or from folks that are on board with right to repair

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even though they don't realize it yet so for that reason i think we should start

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with what right to repair is not nobody is calling for manufacturers to

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be forced with a gun to their head to repair your stuff now many oems these

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days do offer voluntary repair programs for their products and sometimes they're

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an extension of the warranty like with cos's headphones where they will repair

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or replace your headphones for free as long as you pay the shipping fees these

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types of repair programs are great for consumers but forcing a product

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manufacturer to implement one could add costs that will either need to be

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absorbed by the business potentially putting it in jeopardy or passed along

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to the customer potentially making the product more expensive in the first

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place another common argument is that right to repair legislation would hurt innovation

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and on the surface this one sounds reasonable i mean if i'm apple why

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should i bother developing a new iphone if i'll be immediately forced to give

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the plans for every component to third parties who can then make their own

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iphone without the upfront r d this is a

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perfect example of a straw man argument most of the electronics repair industry

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is small shops performing relatively simple jobs like screen replacements and

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keyboard repairs these are things that wouldn't require apple to give up enough

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details about these parts for someone to make their own

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except when they might do just that leading us perfectly to opposition point

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number three if manufacturers can't protect their users against fake or

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reverse engineered sketchy parts there is no way to ensure that the customer

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experience will be a safe and positive one think of this apple makes the news

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every time an iphone lights on fire and anyone who only skims the headlines is

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going to miss important details like if the user had a shoddy third party

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charger or screwed up a diy battery replacement that's a fair point because

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this kind of thing can cause immeasurable long-term damage to a brand

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so it sure is a good thing that no one is asking for that either

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with right to repair no one should be able to build another company's device

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entirely with third-party components or manufacture patent infringing parts

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what they should have is the right to access oem components and resources to

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make repairs to consumers devices when required and the craziest part of this

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controversial stance is how uncontroversial it already is in the

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automotive industry we'll talk a bit more about that later on that note

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though we have a few videos coming out on some very cool electric vehicles so

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make sure that you're subscribed now the last argument against right to repair

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yes you in the back of the room go well i don't want to repair my own stuff

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ah yes but that's the thing right to repair means you have the right

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to repair it you can still go out and buy a new one or you can have someone

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else exercise their right to repair it for you just like with your car where a

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combination of laws and industry norms ensures that decades after production

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ended you can still get new breaks for your 97 datsun but enough about what it

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isn't what is it then right to repair

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supporters know that there's no single perfect solution that's ready made right

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now but what it's about is figuring out

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how to tackle the problems that i just outlined with the goal of improving

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consumer choice and freedom here's a hot take for you anyone who fully

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understands right to repair and opposes it opposes individual freedom it really

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honest to goodness is that simple

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so then particularly in america we're getting branded anti-freedom is pretty

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undesirable how is it that lawmakers lobbyists and

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corporations are working so hard at it

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did you really have to ask

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i mean think about it what do you think is more profitable

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selling you a screen for seventy dollars and billing an hour or two of technician

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time to replace it or selling you a brand new phone for over a thousand

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dollars and don't get me wrong i'm a business owner

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i'm not some kind of anti-capitalism activist if my business has an

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opportunity to make money long time viewers are going to know i'm

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into it but a business model that is designed to force you to buy more is

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unethical at best which in my mind is just another word for something that

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should be illegal but just isn't yet and before you guys say it planned

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obsolescence manufacturers forcing you to buy a new one by breaking the old one

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that is not some kind of tinfoil hat conspiracy theory that is a real thing

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and has been for decades after the great depression it was

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discussed that the things that we use should all be made to fail after a

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certain amount of time or have specific dates where they can no longer be used

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to increase consumerism for the purpose of strengthening the economy i can't

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even make this stuff up guys and since manufacturers aren't penalized for the

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excess waste that this mentality generates

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there's never been an incentive for them to go back to making longer lasting

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stuff i mean if you want to see some brilliant examples of planned obsolescence in the

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real world veritasium just uploaded an excellent video looking at how the light

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bulb industry went out of their way to engineer inferior light bulbs so

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consumers would have to buy more of them going even as far as to find companies

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that produced better bulbs i ran into this personally just a few

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weeks ago when i purchased my new home the previous owner said to me yeah the

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clothes dryer it's pretty ugly and it's real old but i had a service technician

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come in just a couple of years ago to replace the belt and he basically said

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don't you ever throw this thing away they don't make them like this anymore

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and that example of right to repair in action is so good because it

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demonstrates why the status quo isn't good enough and why we need new laws to

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address new exploitative business strategies because here's the thing

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nothing prevents me from making the choice to repair that dryer rather than

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replace it but in the electronics industry which by the way in case you

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didn't notice is quickly becoming every industry the same company can both

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profit by selling more goods and have the ability to remotely

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those goods forcing customers to buy more of them even if they work just fine

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i mean that is a clear conflict of interest if i've ever seen one

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so then back to phones for a moment i mean it's not like you can't repair them

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at all apple will happily sell you applecare for 150 bucks or offer you

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repair services if you opt it out only

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like so many things in life the prices for uninsured repairs often don't make

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any sense a screen replacement for 300

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us dollars and that assumes that you have an apple

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store nearby that you can walk into or that you can live without your phone for

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a week while it's in the mail given the estimated cost of 70 for the

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screen of apple's latest and greatest phone and apple's reported genius

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salaries of about 20 to 25 an hour i

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think it's pretty clear that this is less about taking care of customers

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while covering their costs and more about nudging customers towards a shiny

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brand new device since they're already in the store anyway and oh it only costs

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a few hundred dollars more than repairing the screen doesn't it now that's where independent repair shops

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are supposed to come in and they have done so for years

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the problem is that over the years apple has attacked this industry going as far

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as rating shops over their stock of replacement parts if it has an apple

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logo on it and refusing to provide diagnostic tools that wouldn't be

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necessary if apple didn't specifically create barriers that require these

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diagnostic tools now to apple's credit they have made

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progress in recent years and they've even made parts available to members of

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the independent repair provider program but joining the program reportedly comes

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with some onerous requirements including submitting to unscheduled inspections

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from apple remember though this isn't just about the iphone or apple it's

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about consumer choice and freedom and apple deciding to grant its customers a

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little bit more ownership of their own devices that they paid for is not

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consumer choice and it's not freedom that should be a right not something

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that apple grants at its discretion

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another goal of right to repair is keeping devices out of landfills we're

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producing over 50 million metric tons of e-waste per year and a lot of it is

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repairable or even perfectly functional a local electronics refurbisher and

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recycler jeep is currently in a legal battle with apple over about a hundred

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thousand devices that were refurbished and resold instead of being shredded

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according to their agreement with apple now to be clear we're not siding with

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jeep here they violated their contract and we have no way of knowing if the

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refurbishing that they did was up to apple's standards which could damage

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apple's brand but it does raise a larger question

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why is apple paying to shred a hundred thousand devices when people could be

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using them the answer is right in apple's claim

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that part of the 22.6 million in damages

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is from lost profit due to gray market sales now i'm not trying to pick solely

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on apple here john deere is another company that shamelessly fights against

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the interest of their customers and the general public it's just apple's brazen

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hypocrisy that makes me keep coming back to them they have a whole page on their

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website that is dedicated to how eco-friendly they are but then they

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literally spend money to keep working devices out of consumers hands

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to be clear apple at least makes an effort through their recycling programs

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but any environmentalist can tell you that reduce reuse and recycle are in

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that order for a reason recycling

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particularly e-waste is not as clean as solution as you might have been led to

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believe so with all of this in mind what can we

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actually do well right now lewis rossman who has

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been a huge advocate for right to repair and operates his own repair shop has a

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gofundme going to get a direct ballot initiative published in massachusetts

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hopefully this will lead to the push that's needed for right to repair to

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become a reality in the electronic space he'll be working with the same firm that

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managed to get right to repair pushed to a direct ballot initiative for the

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automotive industry which as you'll remember from my examples is a space

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where right to repair actually freaking exists

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so if you want to support right to repair this is one of the best ways and

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the best times to go about it so a link to the gofundme is going to be in the

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description down below for you guys to check out i want to see what the LTT

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community can do and i'm going to be kicking things off with twenty thousand

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dollars from our only fans april fool's gag to get this engine started so let's

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go go go boys maybe if you guys contribute enough

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we'll actually do some of that crazy stuff no but we're not gonna do that

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we're not gonna we're not doing any this video is brought to you by ting

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if you guys enjoyed this video you might enjoy one of our previous experiences

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with right to repair inconveniences when we broke our imac pro and apple refused

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to fix it for us remember guys oh man so many people

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thought we wanted them to repair it for free we wanted to pay

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they wouldn't do it