Article

Fuck iFixit

Liv G

19 Jun 2026 • 5 min read

I've always been the kind of person to tinker with things. I loved to take things apart as a kid, and still do today. As an adult, I can occasionally even put them back together! One of the things I loved to do most as a kid was to get an ancient computer someone no longer wanted, and just take it apart to see what the inside looked like. Slowly, over time, I was able to figure out how things naturally came together, and which parts were interchangeable. Often, I would need a guide to tell me which screws to unscrew, or where to pry to get into a device. The majority of these guides came from iFixit.

Some had this perfect polish of a perfect white background, while other guides were clearly taken on someone's dining room table. They helped me all the same. One of the most memorable things I did with an iFixit guide happened in maybe 9th grade. One of my parents smashed the screen on their iPhone 8 Plus, and decided to upgrade to a newer device rather than repair the existing one. I asked for the shattered one, and got it. One Amazon purchase later...

screenshot of amazon order detials, order placed may 8, 2020, of an iphone 8 plus replacement screen, and a case. — Idk why the product image for the replacement screen is for a device with a notch in this pic

...and I had a brand-new (to me) iPhone 8 Plus. After dealing with the crummy tools included in the $22.99 screen replacement kit, I decided to get a quality toolkit... from iFixit.

It felt like I was not only getting a great toolkit, but that I also became part of a community of people willing to help one another repair their own devices. The idea of crowdsourcing these guides made me feel like I was a part of some greater movement of people taking ownership of their devices. With that, I decided to try tearing apart the devices around me, documenting what worked, and taking plenty of pictures.

My blog software doesn't support alt text on galleries, so I'll describe here - 9 photos taken of various devices partway through disassembly

My blog software doesn't support alt text on galleries, so I'll describe here - 9 photos taken of various devices partway through disassembly

All in all, I wrote 25 guides, added several new devices, and eared a bunch of "iFixit badges"... for whatever that's worth.

Then... iFixit stabbed me in the back.

It was an ordinary Tuesday, in early December of last year. I was scrolling through YouTube, as usual, when I refreshed by Subscriptions feed, and stopped dead in my tracks. It was a new video from iFixit (whom I had been subscribed to) at the top of the list. It was labelled "Meet FixBot, Your New Repair Assistant". My heart sank, as I grimly watched the following video:

0:00

/1:34

You pieces of shit. How dare you? How absolutely dare you?

This is a revolting betrayal of every person who had ever written a guide for them. I spent my time, money, and passion building a free and public database of easily accessible repair guides, and they chose to feed it to an AI model. Users were never asked if they gave permission, warned that this would be happening, or given a way to opt out.

But of course, iFixit themselves gets to block others from stealing their work. Fuck you.

iFixit Terms of Service: Except as set forth below, reproducing, copying or distributing any Content, materials or design elements on the Site for any other purpose, including training a machine learning or Al model, is strictly prohibited without the express prior written permission of iFixit. — iFixit Terms of Service

So... what to do about it?

I live in the US state of California, and thanks to our Governor, Lord, and Savior Gavin Newsom, I have actual privacy rights that are comparable to the GDPR. So, I sent in a California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) request, asking for all of my data to be deleted. In response, they deleted my account, but conveniently didn't remove my guides.

So, I submitted a second request, this time requesting an email receipt, which I got.

Hello L G. We would like to inform you that a data deletion has been carried out as requested.

Checking the website, I could still see my guides, so this time, I replied to the receipt with "Hi. This request was not carried out. I can still see my data on your website. Please remove all data that I have ever submitted to you. Thank you so much."

I was told to submit the CCPA form... that I had just replied to.

Thanks for contacting us! Please use this form to submit a request regarding your personal data. Once verified, we will process your request without undue delay and within the time specified by applicable law.

After I replied letting them know that my request was not fulfilled, they ghosted me. So I followed up. Again. And again.

me "circling back" and "following up" and "checking in" 4 times

Finally, they replied that "All information regarding this individual has been deleted", I specifically pointed out that my photos and guides were still visible. I had stated that I wanted these things removed in the original CCPA request, but I guess I had to bring it back up in order to get them to delete it.

Hi there, We confirm we have gone in and removed all of the content of your previously authored Teardowns and Guides, and we have wiped all traces of your personal information from all parts of our website and database. Note that we cannot remove guides which you did not author but have contributed to, because then we would be removing someone else's content, so you will still see "Guides I've Contributed To" and "My Wikis" because those do not contain your private personal information. This is the furthest extent we can go as far as deleting content you have personally added to iFixit's website at this point. The only thing left is to cease communication with you, because further emails from your email address is directly reversing the GDPR deletion process we have already performed twice for you. So... If you're all set, then please cease emailing us from this email address, and we will cordially delete this email conversation from our database so that we can return to a clean GDPR status on our end with regards to your private information. Have a terrific day. — TLDR: "Fine, we did it. Now piss off"

With that out of the way, I felt a lot better.

Generative AI is a scourge upon free creative thought, and it is the product of a mass theft the likes of which the world has no comparison. It is atrophying the minds of otherwise highly intelligent people, reducing them to walking living breathing proxies of some language model, unable to form a thought for longer than a few seconds before they are forced to depend on a monthly subscription to have some next-token-generator spit out a vaguely-coherent wall of text for them to use instead. It saps away at the curiosity present in bright and capable minds, and I am insulted by iFixit's attempt to use my hand-crafted and well-authored guidance as fuel for the quickly-spreading wildfire threatening the brilliance of those around me.

Fuck you, iFixit.

iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit. A couple bits are missing, the scredriver has scratches, the tweezers are missing paint, and all-but-one of the guitar picks are gone. — This is my well-worn, much loved, first AND LAST iFixit toolkit.

If you go re-watch the video, the guy who "can't seem to find my oil filter" IS HOLDING THE OIL FILTER IN HIS HAND