> If you make more than a thousand of something, you have the resources to include a few diagrams and a simple but useful manual. For now I won't say anything about smaller quantities.

If someone makes more than a thousand of something, they probably also have the resources to buy you a free lunch, too. But that's not the product you bought.

Sales are never just the product. At the very least there are rules about scams, basic safety, radio interference... Sometimes it's okay to have legal requirements that lead to fewer problems down the line. You might not think this particular rule is worth it, but it's not out of line with existing rules. And a lot of people do think it's worth it.

Whether a rule is "worth it" or not isn't the evaluation I'm making at all; the first question, before that, is "is there a critical life-or-death reason to interfere with a private transaction". There are plenty of features I'd like to have, and I look for people who sell products with those features. I often support people that specifically provide better documentation, open source software, diagrams, schematics, as well as companies that give back to the people and projects who make components they use. That's my choice, because I value those things. I'd certainly like other people to value those things as well.

Are you against all the existing rules that aren't life-or-death, then? Because they make life a much better place when you don't have to obsessively research every single product you buy.

And generally you can avoid it for bespoke items. It's not a barrier to personal deals.

I'm in favor of independent voluntary certifications (and testing labs, and similar) that encompass a large number of associated features and properties. I shop at places that have good return policies, and I like the resulting incentives to not sell products that will generate many returns. And I'm strongly in favor of having enough up-front information to know whether you're in a buyer-beware as-is situation or a "you don't need to check very carefully" situation, and make decisions accordingly.

I don't want to prohibit the equivalent of "This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY".

> And generally you can avoid it for bespoke items. It's not a barrier to personal deals.

I'm not just talking about bespoke or "personal deals", I'm also talking about "crowdfunded, we made 6,473 of them, but we're not a big company". Or "here are some schematics to build a piece of hardware, I'm not making any promises about the result". Or any number of other situations in which the choice is not "write and provide a repair manual or not", it's "develop the product or not".

> I'm in favor of independent voluntary certifications (and testing labs, and similar) that encompass a large number of associated features and properties.

Got any suggestions to make that actually happen? The benefit per sale is small enough that it's really hard to get the demand together on a per-product basis. Consumers don't have the time to learn every minor certification body either. But making the decision in bulk, as a society, is a lot more feasible.

Also, there isn't an infinite variety of products. The more dimensions you have to filter by, the worse your result gets per dollar. The free market can't solve everything at the same time.

> I don't want to prohibit the equivalent of "This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY".

That is again not a sale. And you can have triple your $0 back if it breaks.

> I'm also talking about "crowdfunded, we made 6,473 of them, but we're not a big company". Or "here are some schematics to build a piece of hardware, I'm not making any promises about the result". Or any number of other situations in which the choice is not "write and provide a repair manual or not", it's "develop the product or not".

A small crowdfunded operation can do this more easily than a big company. They can have a designer spend two days getting the final schematics together and writing a short document. It's such a miniscule cost that it will almost never be the difference between producing and not producing, and that tiny risk is worth the benefits.

And a schematic documents itself pretty well. But if you really don't want to make any promises then maybe don't charge money for the design.