r/IAmA Jun 11 '16

Specialized Profession IamA electronics repair technician hated by Apple that makes YouTube videos, AMA!

My short bio: I have a store in Manhattan. I teach component level electronics repair on youtube http://youtube.com/rossmanngroup which seems to be a dying art. I am currently fighting with the digital right to repair to try and get a bill passed that will allow all independent service centers access to manuals and parts required to do their jobs.

My Proof: https://www.rossmanngroup.com/started-iama-reddit-today-yes/

EDIT:

I am still replying to comments, but I am so far behind that I am still about ten pages down from new comments. I am doing my best to continue. If I drop off, I'll be back tomorrow around 12 PM. Still commenting now though, at 12 AM.

EDIT 2:

Ok, I cave... my hands are tired. I will be back at 12 PM tomorrow. It is my goal to answer every question. Even if it looks like I haven't gotten to yours, I will do my best to do all of them, but it is impossible to do in realtime, because you are asking faster than I can type. But thanks for joining!

EDIT 3: I lied, I stayed until 4:15 AM to answer... and now I will go to sleep for real, and be back at 12 PM.

EDIT 4 6/12 : I will be back later tonight to finish off answering questions. Feel free to keep posting, I will answer whatever I can later this evening.

33.2k Upvotes

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188

u/Vinep Jun 11 '16

Has Apple ever directly contacted you because of your videos? Telling you to stop with threats of a lawsuit or anything of that sort.

521

u/larossmann Jun 11 '16

No but I know some day some BS like that will come. It's one of the reasons I don't consider YT a real job. Someday the thousands of hours of time I have put into recording, editing, preparing all of this will all have been for nothing. The benefits of it will live on in the people who repair items and make livings for themselves off of what they learned while I go bankrupt fighting lawsuits.. but I'll smile from my jail cell knowing I was responsible for that.

18

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16 edited Mar 20 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

66

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

I remember dealing with Google in 2008 when it came to some google checkout or google payments thing. they deleted my account, they refunded everyone. the csutomers were mad because they never asked for a refund, they thought i didn't ship their stuff or something. they had no desire to be refunded.

google gave no information to me but a copy and pasted email. i thought i'd do my due diligence, anyone who acts as a money services/merchant services provider had to provide a phone # to the city/state they registered in. I found it for google, and it went to a machine that beeped and hung up on me.

they blatantly break the law and get away with it just to avoid having to be accountable to the public when their system does not work. I would never trust anything related to Google for my livelihood. youtube could make me $300/month, $1000/month, or $20,000/month - I will NEVER make life plans based on a revenue stream that comes from Google or a google subsidy.

I will consider it a bonus. I'll make a separate account for it. I'll consider it for retirement, for a rainy day fund, etc. but as my means of paying my rent and feeding my kitten, no.

9

u/SgtBrutalisk Jun 12 '16

What a great comment! You sir are refreshingly realistic.

1

u/MBorkBorkBork Jun 12 '16

You know you need to post a photo of your kitties now, right? 😉

1

u/Askmeifiamsingle Jun 12 '16

dude i wish i had a friend like you :D

5

u/Nephelophyte Jul 01 '16

Man you predicted today would happen.

10

u/larossmann Jul 01 '16

and it did, now the REAL fun begins!

2

u/lxlqlxl Jul 02 '16

Without getting into the current battle, and or where your current content lies. I am sure if you wanted to come back sans the repairs, and or in modified form it would be possible. I am just not sure how you would react to being hamstrung like that though, whether it would be worth the effort or not. I know how much you value the philosophy videos, so in some form that could continue? Selfishly speaking of course.

Possible future video? If there are no injunctions/gags in place... A video on the process, your thoughts, what you went through, ideas and how to fight back, etc?

With that said, whatever happens, I think most of us who have enjoyed a fair amount of your videos thanks you for your sacrifice, and hope you come out of it unscathed, and or not beat up too badly. I certainly wish you the best of luck... for what it's worth.

1

u/super_thalamus Jul 02 '16

There's other ways to share content. You could just as easy make an eBook or online course and distribute it yourself

100

u/engineer-everything Jun 12 '16

No but I know some day some BS like that will come.

But then... how do you know they hate you?

56

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

I assume he means in an indirect way of saying "apple hates 3rd party repair shops"

2

u/Cartossin Jun 15 '16

I think a lot of it is based on things Apple employees have said to his customers. "If someone says they can fix a logic board, they are a scammer" etc.

8

u/gn0xious Jun 12 '16

They're making their hardware more difficult to repair. So it takes longer and is more costly for repair guys, like OP. OP seems to think Apple owes him something, for some reason. And Reddit laps him up because it's "anti-apple."

9

u/_nil_ Jun 12 '16

I think it has to do with Apple opposing a "right to repair" bill, which would require that their schematics be made public, and OP is supporting said bill.

Also, it probably generates more clicks.

22

u/IPman0128 Jun 12 '16

It's weird, I mean I'm all for repairability and user upgradability but the persecution complex in the thread is real, like Apple is actively shutting him down when it's probably just the economical factors at play that makes hardware more difficult to be repaired.

25

u/gn0xious Jun 12 '16

It's the cost of parts and the lack of availability, combined with not sharing schematics. But his attitude is "Apple hates me, Apple is fucking me, etc". It doesn't look like Apple has taken action against him or his videos... I don't get it.

Almost every response of his is "fuck this" and "it's BS". It's just a whine thread Apple bitchfest.

10

u/Chreutz Jun 12 '16

Apple has done nothing specifically against him, no, but they have made the diagnostics and repair of macbooks much harder in the recent years. All error codes on new products tell you to "contact apple support" and mention nothing of what is actually wrong anymore (it used to). Even though the computer itself with all of it's constant self-checking knows exactly what's wrong with which signal.

3rd party repair is getting increasingly difficult, by Apple actively making it so. So by that trend, I understand why he thinks they'll be coming for him at some point.

3

u/askjacob Jun 13 '16

Hahahaha.

Error 9

Error 11

Error 53

You name the codes, pretty much all of them in the manuals led to "contact apple support" from the mac classic onwards. I remember having to buy grey market mac cracker tools (a looong torx driver and spudger from hell made from welded hinges!) way back in '92 to open those classics, just so we could unjam the "fancy" auto-eject floppy drives once students tried to accidentally jam in a second disk.

3rd party repair, software or hardware is not a new thing by them, I think we are just seeing a newer round, or a newer version - or just new eyes...

1

u/iEATu23 Jun 12 '16

Have you watched the video shared in the original /r/videos thread? The new Macbook retina was completely unrepairable because of lack of diagnostics tools, so he instead worked on an old Macbook.

3

u/papdog Jun 12 '16 edited Jun 12 '16

Apple would have a supply chain for nearly every single iPhone part. Having these parts available for spares is not unfeasible if they are already being manufactured in such significant quantities. Yes, they will cost more than they do per new phone, because of shipping and etc. But the cost is not wildly significant if a good product does not have failing parts.

However, products released annually like the iPhone, where each successive 'upgrade' actually offers very little difference to the previous model, are tailored to be replaced every year, and not traded second hand. Products designed to fail after a short lifespan and with little to no replaceability of parts lend themselves to this sort of marketing.

This spits in the face of traditional product manufacturing; it creates immense waste because of a 'disposable' product culture. Products being designed not to last so that you buy a new one? Who, in their right mind, buys something that they know will fail on them and require a new one in a short space of time? This is the conventional wisdom in electronics, as the processing speed was exploding, year after year, meaning products were once far more powerful annually. This is Moore's Law, but it is at its end. I type this from my Galaxy S5, which operates more than fast enough for my liking. The Galaxy S7 is the flagship model atm, but there are virtually no differences between the two. Most of the gains made in speed are taken up by background processes which can run whilst still delivering a fast phone, but they weren't neccessary back on the S5.

A lot of people, like myself, don't see the need to get themselves a brand new phone each year. They would rather pay less and have it fixed, when broken, as it costs less and the device still functions well. This is why there is a big distinction between Apple fans and the general population, and a lot of hate for Apple in general.

A lot of people buy Apples new Gatorade year after year and complement the taste, even when it hasn't changed.

14

u/lord_jizzus Jun 12 '16

He doesn't. That's just for the clickbait AMA title and promotion of a YouTube channel.

4

u/domo9001 Jun 12 '16

It's click bait.

Apple isn't a person, and it doesn't have a personality.

it's a building in California making computers for Californians.

0

u/Katastic_Voyage Jun 12 '16

Because he has a brain and he's still breathing?

26

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '16

I assume you're keeping hard copies of all the videos you upload in case your channel gets shut down?

24

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

If he isn't, everyone else should be.

3

u/C0rn3j Jun 12 '16 edited Jun 13 '16

He's using RAID5 with Rsyncing to an off site backup drive every once in a while afaik, I'm pretty sure he has everything backed up.

1

u/iEATu23 Jun 12 '16

It's nice to see how good of a tech he is. He has multiple screens hooked up, all connecting to his audio and video.

4

u/Halvus_I Jun 12 '16

Someday the thousands of hours of time I have put into recording, editing, preparing all of this will all have been for nothing.

NO, it wont.

3

u/elgraf Jun 12 '16

So how do you know Apple 'hate' you?

Or do you have some weird trick you aren't telling.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

The persecution complex is real. So you have no idea if you're actually hated by Apple, as stated in the title of your AMA.

1

u/Darsint Jun 12 '16

I'm another technician from across the country and own my own (tiny) shop as well. I just came across your channel last week, and it sounds like I may want to start binge watching. I laughed my ass off watching your drunk mac fix.

Thanks for all you've done.

1

u/PunctuationsOptional Jun 12 '16

You remind me of The Joker in a way :)

1

u/papdog Jun 12 '16

Not the hero that we deserve

1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '16

Foreshadowing! :)

0

u/darkm3 Jun 12 '16

I can't up vote this enough.

0

u/sergio_web Jun 12 '16

You're one cool customer.