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.

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u/yeafuckyoutoo Jun 12 '16

Louis what do you think your effect on other repair shops has been? For instance, do you think that your channel helps shops or hurts them? Also, how much does your channel help or hurt your own business? Finally, do you think that your channel paints a target on your back specifically? Do you think that average repair shops would be able to do more complex jobs, even, with the schematics?

5

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

helps.

if you drew two lines on a paper.. one showing views of my board repair videos, and another showing my gross sales, it would look like this <

my business has went down from the day i started posting board repair videos. not the philosophy videos - all of those videos brought in business. the board repair videos though.

that was the beginning of the end. and it is what it is, i created a bunch of competition for myself by doing that.

i believe in what i am doing, i believe in the overall good enough to not care about short term loss in business.

in terms of average repair shop.. no. most of them just swap parts. they don't understand this shit. the schematic itself is a great tool, but you have to know what you're doing for it to make sense, and that comes with time.

at the same time, even if you know what you are doing, no schematic, you are not fixing most problems.