Louis Rossmann on why the right to repair movement is growing

What Rossmann says about repair

Louis Rossmann, a repair shop owner turned YouTube personality and consumer rights advocate, has told WIRED that the right to repair movement is about far more than fixing broken gadgets. In an interview published on 10 November 2026, he argued that the deeper problem is the slow loss of true ownership over the things people buy.

Rossmann explained that he avoids lecturing people about the issue. Instead, he shows them. When a customer who was quoted a large sum by the Apple Store gets their device repaired cheaply, he shows them the documentation he used, and points out that Apple tells chipmakers not to sell parts to independent shops like his.

He has built a large audience this way. According to WIRED, he has published more than 1,000 repair videos on YouTube, and some viewers have told him they learned to repair circuit boards and built new careers from it.

From iPhones to tractors

The right to repair is the idea that when you buy a device, you should be able to maintain, fix or modify it yourself. Rossmann once saw the issue narrowly, through his own shop that worked on Apple products. That changed around 2017, when he attended a legislative hearing in Nebraska.

He told WIRED he expected a room focused on Apple devices, but found farmers describing problems with their tractors. He recalled someone telling him that this was the right-to-repair room, and that everyone now has this problem. From that point, he widened his focus to the whole ownership question.

The issue reaches far beyond phones. WIRED notes that manufacturers have placed similar restrictions on games consoles, cars and smart home devices, and that third-party parts can trigger software locks on iPhones.

Ownership under pressure

Rossmann argues that repair restrictions are one part of a wider pattern. He points to products that must connect to a manufacturer's server to work, which means the maker can disable them at any time, and to devices that turn into subscriptions after purchase.

He gave WIRED one example he finds striking: a thermostat company that went bankrupt, then issued a firmware update requiring owners to pay 117 dollars a year to regain functions they already had. He sees this as companies changing what they offer after the sale in order to earn more money.

In his view, this erosion of ownership has been happening gradually over the past 10 to 20 years, and repair is only one element under that larger umbrella.

Section 1201 and the road ahead

Earlier this year, Rossmann organised the Own Your Shit tour, which travelled across the United States to campaign against Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That provision prohibits users from bypassing digital restrictions that manufacturers place on devices.

According to WIRED, the interview also covered the US midterm elections and the idea of offering bounties to find product fixes. The incoming Congress, which the outlet describes as Democrat-heavy, has a full agenda, and it remains unclear whether repair legislation will be a priority.

Rossmann told WIRED that much of the change so far has happened at the cultural level rather than through legislation. He also pointed to progress by farmers in their long-running dispute with John Deere over tractor repairs, though the interview excerpt does not detail the terms of those breakthroughs.

Why it matters to readers

The stakes are practical. If a device refuses to accept third-party parts, or stops working after a firmware update, owners may face costly official repairs or premature replacement. Rossmann's examples suggest this can affect everything from phones to home heating controls.

The movement may also gain momentum from artificial intelligence. WIRED reports that AI tools make it easier to hack the software that powers consumer devices, which could change the balance between manufacturers' locks and owners' abilities to work around them.

For now, Rossmann's approach is persuasion by demonstration: showing people what a successful repair saves them, and how close their data came to being lost for good.