[HN Gopher] Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors
___________________________________________________________________
Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors
Author : anandaverma18
Score : 544 points
Date : 2021-06-07 07:23 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.farms.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.farms.com)
| w3news wrote:
| My dad is also a farmer, and im impressed about the large range
| of knowlegde of all farmers, from nature to mechanic. I think
| this problem is already for a long time, and there are many
| farmers that dont buy new tractors anymore for this reason, that
| they cannot repair the tractor anymore, and it can cost a lot of
| money because they cannot harvest, and are waiting for the
| tractor dealer.
|
| But i think the same problem is for cars, you cannot e.g. repair
| your Tesla everywhere, this is also very closed.
| hans1729 wrote:
| > _But i think the same problem is for cars, you cannot e.g.
| repair your Tesla everywhere, this is also very closed._
|
| The repairment-strategy for Teslas in Germany seems to be
| pretty simple. You just buy a new one :-)
| praptak wrote:
| This kind of anti-consumer lock in seems to be the natural course
| of things when more and more stuff runs software which the buyer
| has no control over. I don't think we can fight this with
| consumer decisions only, it is just too profitable to shakedown
| consumers like this.
| gerbilly wrote:
| I agree, and the software additions are mostly useless (lasers,
| GPS etc...).
|
| The primary reason the software is there is for vendor lock-in
| and rent seeking.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > A few decades ago, any given farmer often had the skills and
| tools needed to quickly make repairs if their machinery broke
| down. These days, however, it's not so straightforward. Most
| modern farm equipment is technologically advanced, containing
| computers and sensors that collect and transmit data. As a
| result, specific software tools are typically necessary to
| address mechanical failures and other issues.
|
| > However, most companies refuse to make those tools available to
| farmers, making it exceptionally difficult to fix broken
| machinery on their own. They can't even go an independent
| mechanic, since manufacturers won't sell them parts or diagnostic
| tools either. This leaves farmers essentially no choice but to
| take their broken equipment to a licensed dealership.
|
| > This isn't cheap. A farmer might spend thousands of dollars on
| a simple adjustment they could have done themselves with the
| appropriate resources. On the other hand, this arrangement has
| proven wildly lucrative for manufacturers; for Deere, as an
| example, parts and repairs are up to six times more profitable
| than selling the equipment itself.
|
| This is a part of a larger pattern. Our current underlying system
| "keeps many practical alternatives sequestered behind private
| firewalls or unfunded if they cannot generate adequate profits".
| The current system enables "an exaggerated set of intellectual
| property monopolies - for copyrights, trademarks and patents -
| [which] restrain the sharing of scientific, social and economic
| innovations. Hence the system discourages human cooperation,
| excludes many people from benefiting from innovation and slows
| the collective learning of humanity" [1].
|
| Imagine today's high-tech world, without the capitalist
| intellectual property system. It will allow many more people to
| become skilled and able. I think we will look back at this phase
| of human civilization in horror; IP systems are an excessive way
| of dominating people and stifling their growth.
|
| [1] http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/peer-peer-economy-and-
| ne...
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| Are the technological advancements in tractors really worth it?
| Does anyone have any stats on this? I imagine tractors two
| decades ago did the job about the same. Is adding a whole bunch
| of chips to something for a very minor increase in efficiency
| worth losing the ability to repair it easily.
|
| If it is anything like cars, then I would think the technology
| increases chance of failure and actually just increases the
| cost of doing business; especially when they have to wait to do
| simple things.
|
| Cars 40 years ago did just fine getting from A to B, had air
| conditioning, radio, and worked reliably. Cars now are finicky,
| spy on you, and very expensive to repair. It makes me wonder if
| we would just be better off with not flooding everything with
| chips. Does connecting your car to your phone really improve
| your life? I don't think it would improve mine. If anything,
| I'm trying to connect my phone to _less_ things than I used to
| because it just steals my attention from things that really
| matter.
| bluGill wrote:
| > Does anyone have any stats on this?
|
| Yes, every farmer in the US who is serious (that is no small
| hobby farmers). If the GPS is broken they won't bring the
| planter out in the field. Technology allows them to put
| exactly the right amount of seed in the ground at the right
| place. They saves thousands of dollars every year just by not
| planting too much. Then get tens of thousands more every year
| because the right amount of seeds results in more yield
| (profit) than either too much (plants have to fight each
| other for sun) or too little (bare ground doesn't produce a
| harvest).
|
| Farmers are still figuring out to turn other data into
| profit, but they are learning that some soils just never will
| yield well no matter how much fertilizer they put on so they
| don't waste money on them, while others with a little extra
| fertilizer will yield more. The computer lets them easily
| adjust fertilizer levels for each small section of land.
| eliaspro wrote:
| Tractors and farming in general have dramatically changed
| throughout the last 20 years or so. They've become much
| bigger in size (and thereby more efficient), they're mostly
| self-driving once in the field and control now the whole
| operation very precisely down to centimeter accuracy e.g. for
| fertilizer application.
| antibuddy wrote:
| On the other hand the incentive for people to innovate and make
| it accessible to anyone is often money. The criticism of
| capitalism is warranted, however the supposedly bad capitalist
| IP system is also the reason for innovation and cooperation.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| Most of the interesting innovations happen on publicly funded
| research. Whether it's your RNA vaccine
| https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-
| release-d... or your phones touch screen, or your siri voice
| assistant or your uber gps taxi
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Most of the interesting innovations happen on publicly
| funded research
|
| Excluding airplanes, jet engines, rockets, transistors,
| git, etc.
| devdas wrote:
| Rockets were publicly funded research. A lot of airplane
| research was publicly funded.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Goddard was not publicly funded.
|
| The Langley prototype fell into the Potomac like a sack
| of wet cement, and cost 20 times in government funding
| what the Wrights spent on their entire R+D program.
| Langley clearly had not solved any of the problems
| necessary for controlled, powered flight.
| louis___ wrote:
| This rethoric has been proven false in the software
| development ecosystem.
|
| Nowadays almost all new programming languages are open-
| source, and *nix OS softwares have won the cultural battle
| over Windows in the devops community.
|
| > _the supposedly bad capitalist IP system is also the reason
| for innovation and cooperation_
|
| For me this is as much a myth as the good old "the wealth
| trickles down from the rich to the poor"
| antibuddy wrote:
| Tell me what system without the capitalist IP system
| actually innovated faster/better. I only find a lot of
| failed attempts.
|
| Maybe monetary incentives are important for innovation. And
| I don't think it's perfect at all, but abolishing it also
| seems a bit rich.
|
| > Nowadays almost all new programming languages are open-
| source, and *nix OS softwares have won the cultural battle
| over Windows in the devops community.
|
| What does that proof? You can't pretend that this would
| work universally.
| WalterBright wrote:
| There's nothing anti-free market about Open Source.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Except copyleft, the GNU project, and all other viral
| licenses
| WalterBright wrote:
| Since those are purely voluntary, they are not against
| free market principles.
|
| Anyone can (and has) form a commune in the US, too.
| There's nothing to stop you.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| > This rethoric has been proven false in the software
| development ecosystem.
|
| Citation needed.
|
| I like open source software, but let's just say often you
| don't want OSS community to design an interface or maintain
| it.
|
| Inkscape is on one hand a great tool, on the other hand, it
| just bogs down doing routine things like zoom or rotate
| canvas.
| vimacs2 wrote:
| Not only is it a myth but also incredibly arrogant, as if
| the ten thousand years of advancements and innovation by
| humanity since the dawn of civilisation prior to the
| development of capitalism in Italian city states never
| happened.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The hockey stick innovation curve started at the time of
| the industrial revolution, thanks to free markets.
| vimacs2 wrote:
| Or it could have also been due to the whole having access
| to orders of magnitude more mechanical power on tap,
| assembly line production allowing for rapid prototyping,
| and industrialisation of agriculture leading to a
| population boom.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Which happened in free market countries, not unfree ones.
|
| P.S. the assembly line (invented in a free market
| country) is not about rapid prototyping. Prototypes are
| not built on an assembly line.
| vimacs2 wrote:
| Russia and China or do those not count?
| WalterBright wrote:
| Russia and China did not industrialize until well over a
| century later. Or are you saying Russia and China build
| prototypes on an assembly line? I'll need a reference for
| that!
| maxerickson wrote:
| The DRM in these tractors doesn't really depend on any IP laws.
|
| There's probably some restriction on reverse engineering it,
| but for a relatively low volume market with difficult to
| manufacture hardware parts, there's not going to be all that
| much interest in overcoming DRM even if there weren't laws.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| DMCA. Breaking even the shittiest DRM is illegal. This of
| course kills incentives to break DRM from the commercial side
| as nobody can make any money off it without getting sued.
| Otherwise I imagine some 3rd party part manufacturer would
| attempt it.
| saurik wrote:
| Even if it weren't illegal, we are rapidly entering an era
| where it won't be practical anyway: I work directly on
| these issues--participating in the DMCA exemption process
| every cycle and serving as a witness during the hearings--
| and the whole process just feels kind of dumb knowing that
| "sure, so let's say it is legal to jailbreak your tractor:
| they still have to make a mistake in a world where
| bootloaders are becoming increasingly reliable" :(.
| bluGill wrote:
| The DMCA is the least of your worries. The EPA has
| figured out that the only only reason people actually
| want to update software on their tractors is to turn off
| emissions controls.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| Manufacturers of higher-powered diesel tractors have had
| to introduce features to allow for regen cycles to be
| postponed, so I wouldn't be surprised at all
| mnouquet wrote:
| noteworthy facts: regen is only required because of EPA
| regulations.
| mnouquet wrote:
| Emission control suit of requirements (both hardware &
| software) make these tractors failure more likely. Eg.
| from a youtube farmer in Sask, Ca., his NH tractor wiring
| harness failed because highly corrosive DEF was puked all
| over it. Wiring hardness is only needed to fine tune
| injection pump & the pletora of sensors because of
| regulations, and DEF is only needed because of
| regulations.
|
| All of this decrease the useful lifetime of equipment.
|
| And no, all of this is not required, a trucked was able
| to pass California regulations with an old pre-EPA-
| regulations diesel engine, but the tolerances are a lot
| tighter (ie. forget about that chinesium oil pump with a
| couple thousands too much shaft end play), maintenance is
| a lot trickier...
| olyjohn wrote:
| Reminds me of when Honda designed and installed CVCC
| cylinder heads on a Chevy 350, and were able to get those
| engines to pass the 70s emissions standards without a
| catalytic converter. Instead the EPA ruled that all cars
| must have a catalytic converter, even if you could figure
| out other ways to pass emissions. Must have taken a lot
| of pressure off of the US automakers at the time when
| smarter, smaller imports were starting to gain
| popularity.
| dalbasal wrote:
| I like this line of thinking, but I don't like the grand theory
| aspects of it.
|
| Terms like "current political economy." Explaining everything,
| from poverty to environmental degradation, as a product of
| psycho-societal ideas like the "false idea of material
| abundance." It might work as a method of criticism, but I don't
| think it works the other way. We need to discover and develop
| new ways, and that doesn't tend to work from highly broad,
| abstract understandings down to the practical level.
|
| I agree with most of the major touchpoints, but I think it
| could be written better.^ To hazard an inexact term, this needs
| to be far less ideological.
|
| Take this paragraph:
|
| _We believe that new forms of cooperative and distributed
| property will emerge along these lines, a trend explained by
| Matt Cropp in his article, "The Coming Micro-Ownership
| Revolution."6 Cropp's article explains the direct link between
| P2P-driven declines in transaction costs and the shift to more
| distributed forms of ownership. The new corporate forms will no
| longer be based on shareholder-based ownership, but on common
| capital stock, held by the commoners themselves. These new
| entities constitute the "third commons" of "created
| materiality," i.e., humankind's productive machinery (in other
| words, capital), which joins the first two commons, the
| inherited material commons of nature and created "immaterial"
| cultural commons. The new forms of distributed individual
| property, which can be freely aggregated into collectives,
| emulate the free aggregation..._
|
| The author believes this because its a highly legible, direct
| application of the ideas and analysis. It has the disadvantage
| of being both limiting, and nonspecific. Hard to use as a
| formula, and easy to use for rejection.
|
| I'm totally on board with OSS/Linux & Wikimedia as existence
| proofs. I would also add the WWW. OSS and its ecosystems are a
| rich set of smaller examples. I think lichess makes a great
| example, somewhat similar to wikimedia. Note that Jimmy Wales
| is more of a capitalist/libertarian, in his ideals. He would (I
| assume) be totally off put by this article's take. Thibault
| Duplessis, Lichess' founder, describes himself as a french
| communist. CVince Serf is just a dude. TimBL is more of a
| moderate pragmatist. Good look finding a take on "contemporary
| capitalism" that appeals to all three.
|
| Why carry all this unnecessary baggage.
|
| ^More practical, convincing to the unconvinced, more room to
| graft on other ideas, less combative, less offensive to pre-
| xistsing political identities....
| GuB-42 wrote:
| In fact, the pattern is that people don't want to spend a lot
| of money upfront and companies like sustained income.
|
| So given the choice between a $50k tractor which cannot be
| repaired unless you pay a lot of money and an easy to repair
| $100k tractor, both farmers and manufacturers will chose the
| first option. Of course, farmers want an easy to repair $50k
| tractor, but manufacturers have to make money. And
| manufacturers want to sell $100k expensive-to-maintain
| tractors, but competition won't let them.
|
| The system we have now, with all its flaws, is one that suits
| people the most. We can make laws when the free market doesn't
| work, for example, we could make $50k unmaintainable tractors
| illegal, which I think would be great, but it will piss off
| farmers who will need to pay $100k for their tractors and it
| will piss off manufacturers who will lose their steady income.
|
| > Imagine today's high-tech world, without the capitalist
| intellectual property system.
|
| No need to imagine, we have China, and before that, we had
| USSR. Not perfect examples, especially for China, but these are
| the real world alternatives to capitalism.
| sequesteredmar wrote:
| It isn't about maintenance itself, it's limiting that
| maintenance to the manufacturer only artificially where it
| could be done by anyone.
| msrenee wrote:
| I'm not sure how I'm supposed to have any kind of sympathy
| for a manufacturer who wants to offer a worse product for
| more money. Especially when that directly translates to
| higher food costs for everyone.
|
| I'm not saying communism is the answer, but a free market
| where your choices are a crappy "cheap" product or an
| acceptable product for twice the price isn't something to be
| proud of. Oh, the market will solve the problem. Well this is
| what the market has produced, so that means this is the best
| possible option. It's like some kind of religion. If this is
| what the market has decided, then it must be the best thing
| and we have no right to question it.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| By the option that suits people the most, I didn't mean
| "best".
|
| The free market is actually a science, and the "invisible
| hand of the market" is formalized by game theory. And it
| often result in optimal solutions, but not always. The
| prisoner's dilemma is the best-known counter-example. There
| is mathematical proof that a free market is not perfect,
| but currently, in practice and when supplemented by
| relatively light regulation, that's the best we have.
|
| As for the choice, you can't have good and cheap, it is not
| about being proud of something, it is just how things are.
| Legislation can just remove the choice. For example, you
| are not allowed to buy a car so cheap that it is going to
| kill you and the environment, which is a good thing. But
| because of that, you are forced to pay "twice the price",
| you just don't notice it because the cheap option is simply
| not available.
| mnouquet wrote:
| > I'm not sure how I'm supposed to have any kind of
| sympathy for a manufacturer who wants to offer a worse
| product for more money.
|
| Apple.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| If John Deere were being honest they wouldn't sell tractors, but
| lease them with the cost of repair built into the yearly fee. If
| "parts and repairs are up to six times more profitable than
| selling the equipment itself" eventually they will ruin their
| brand and people will purchase other brands.
| shagie wrote:
| That approach might work... if they were leased the same way
| that airplane engines are - by hours running. (
| https://www.rrpf-leasing.com/home )
|
| If you lease it with a calendar time instead, it would make it
| uneconomical for either JD (in the case of multiple farms
| sharing the same equipment and logging #x times more hours on
| the equipment) or for smaller operators (where JD prices it for
| the 'its running 7 days a week' when its only running 1 day a
| week).
|
| It would also be necessary to make sure that there's no way to
| circumvent that running time clock on the devices with 3rd
| party software.
| petewailes wrote:
| Background: grew up in farming communities, live in a farming
| community, almost everyone around us farms.
|
| Repairable tractors would be a huge boon. I wish to anyone
| listening that Deere, New Holland, Valtra, Fendt and co would
| produce properly repairable, open heavy hardware.
|
| Deere is the worst in this, but the rest of the industry isn't
| anywhere near as good as it should be.
|
| There's a reason you see old Defenders, Fourtraks, Rangers,
| Hiluxes and their ilk around so much on farms. They're
| mechanically simple, which means you can repair them and keep
| them going basically indefinitely. Compare that to a modern Deere
| 7 series for example, and whilst the Deere is more capable, if
| something goes wrong, you're basically screwed. I've no problem
| with the hardware getting more advanced, but that same
| maintainability needs to be baked in.
|
| The problem is, no-one seems interested in shaking things up
| there, and the manufacturers aren't in any hurry to change.
| They're a conservative bunch who don't need to, and for whom it's
| directly more profitable to make machines which can't be repaired
| by anyone other than themselves and people they authorise.
| majjam wrote:
| Probably a naive question, but arent new Kubota tractors more
| repairable than say, a John Deere? Or are they just as bad?
| mikey_p wrote:
| They aren't comparable in technology (lots of farmers want
| GPS, auto steer, etc) and they definitely don't compete on
| size and power. Kubota tops out around 200 horsepower and
| Deere offers tractors up into the 600+ range.
| petewailes wrote:
| It's a sliding scale. There's better and worse, but no-one's
| making open software systems which are generally available to
| be evaluated, updated and fixed, and the hardware side isn't
| much better.
|
| Sure, a Kubota, Belarus, or JCB is better than a Massey or
| John Deere, but none are as good as they should be.
| sumedh wrote:
| What about Mahindra tractors, they are pretty big in India and
| they sell in US as well.
| petewailes wrote:
| They're not even vaguely comparable in terms of utility. I
| may be wrong, but I think their most powerful unit comes in
| at mid 70'shp, with a max of ~300Nm torque. Compare that to a
| midrange JCB Fastrac like a 4190, which has north of 200hp
| and what, 950Nm? The newer ones are approaching 1500Nm, and a
| John Deere 9 series can get you up beyond 600hp and getting
| on for 3kNm of torque?
|
| It's just not in the same league. They're very much light
| duty tractors.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Adding to the list of people who grew up on a ranch...
|
| Growing up in the 80s and 90s, we had a bunch of old farm
| equipment, some from like the 1930s-era. Mostly a lot of stuff
| from the 60s and 70s.
|
| And like every bit of equipment on the place had special
| operation rules.
|
| "Don't run that tractor past 5k RPMs" or "Don't use the PTO Shaft
| (Power Take Off, the gear in the back that hooks in to power
| towed equipment) from Tractor A with Equipment Item B since it'll
| blow out." "Remember Tractor J is Brand X, but it has an engine
| from Brand Z, and a PTO shaft from Brand Y..."
|
| Point being, like every piece of equipment was rigged together
| with duct tape. It's horrible unsafe. When you buy used
| equipment, nothing comes written down... like you try it, break
| it, and duct tape it all back together again.
|
| Parts from Brand Y in Engine X -- because that's what the
| implement had in stock when you needed to repair something. Lots
| of home-welds, lots of splice jobs. Need a new hose? Grab one off
| a car... it's not rated for the tractor, but it sort of fits...
| and it lets you get the job done today... so cool, "works" and
| then likely just forget about it until it breaks.
|
| So how on earth could John Deere be liable for the performance or
| safety of their equipment? If a John Deere tractor blows up, or
| more aptly some part suffers catastrophic failure and hurts
| someone... who's at fault? Does John Deere have to honor a
| 10-year warranty, if you cut corners on the repairs?
|
| And, in the case of accidents, even if it's the farmer who is at,
| the brand suffers from the news report, "A farmer father of 7 was
| killed today when his John Deere tractor malfunctioned..." Left
| out of the story is the fact that the farmer didn't repair it to
| spec, or the guy the farmer bought it from didn't repair it to
| spec...
|
| Anyway I side with John Deere here. It's chaos not to lock this
| stuff down. Who owns liability? These things are used hard, they
| break frequently -- especially with age. How to you know
| something actually works right if you don't lock down the repair
| process?
| shagie wrote:
| > So how on earth could John Deere be liable for the
| performance or safety of their equipment? If a John Deere
| tractor blows up, or more aptly some part suffers catastrophic
| failure and hurts someone... who's at fault? Does John Deere
| have to honor a 10-year warranty, if you cut corners on the
| repairs?
|
| This gets to a very interesting question when it comes to
| industrial equipment (which farm equipment falls under). Unless
| there is * _VERY CLEAR*_ instructions not to do it, and the
| manufacturer made an effort to prevent it, the manufacturer is
| nearly always liable. (slide 14
| https://www.slideserve.com/butch/product-liability-law-in-th...
| and also note slide 54 with respect to the liability - the
| video presentation of this slide deck is at
| https://youtu.be/NdN577BbnSY )
|
| Additionally. as you noted, the news that {Brand} equipment
| broke and killed someone travels much faster and does more
| impact than the later findings that {Brand} was not at fault
| because the owner had removed the safety equipment from it.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Really interesting. Thanks for sharing!
| bbsimonbb wrote:
| Perhaps put those farmers in touch with diabetics who would like
| some affordable insulin, or researchers who would like to consult
| publicly funded, peer-reviewed-on-their-own-time, research.
| wscott wrote:
| People also want control over the information collected from
| their farming equipment and sent to headquarters. The machines
| collect information about exactly how much of which crops are
| planted and then at the end of the year it knows exactly the
| yield as it is being harvested. Knowing yields before anyone else
| is very valuable.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| oh now _that_ is interesting. And possibly the first real
| 'privacy' issue I have seen that has serious teeth.
| Boxxed wrote:
| Apple/Google and friends have just as much power. Seeing
| where people are shopping is the same thing -- I bet they had
| evidence of the decline of malls before anyone else, for
| instance.
| nimbius wrote:
| diesel engine mechanic by trade here, and ive followed this topic
| with interest for about five years now. Its similar to large
| over-the-road trucks in that its ultimately manufacturers
| catering to large fleets instead of owner/operators.
|
| most farms in America are corporate monoliths. "farmers" here
| want mttf, mtbf, metrics, and a projection of how many cam
| chains, PTO knuckles, lockout converters, etc... they will need
| to buy in 30 years of depreciable service for a machine. They
| want to be able to carve the machine they own down to the last
| cent...the only way to do that is to turn your IH or Komatsu into
| a rolling cloud. even the windshield wipers get a sensor.
|
| smaller farms with actual farmers that wear hats and overalls
| already balk at a million dollar sticker shock from a harvester,
| and if you ever go to a farm and take a look around, most
| tractors there are nearly sixty years old. the priority is
| farming, not investor return. The tractor needs to perform its
| stated function first before anything else matters. service
| interval warnings and degraded performance alerts here are _a
| failure condition_ the farmer works around. they arent
| incentivized to stop what theyre doing at 4:15 AM and call up the
| local JD dealer 143 miles away for an appointment. there isnt a
| second tractor.
|
| If legislation isnt passed, ultimately youll end up with what
| commecial trucks got in response to sensor overkill: Gliders.
| gliders are 60 year old truck drivetrains and engines that get a
| new cab and body parts, and get recertified for the road. they
| belch smog and roar like a freight train at idle, but all thats
| grandfathered into EPA legislation. New manufacturers get to
| crank out fleet machines at high prices, and owner/operators get
| their old reliable filling the parking lot with NOx and waxy
| sulfur haze at 4 am. they become a market that manufacturers
| refuse to tap, because it cannot be fully exploited to the
| disadvantage of the operator.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > gliders are 60 year old truck drivetrains and engines that
| get a new cab and body parts, and get recertified for the road.
|
| I doubt any gliders are running 60yo engines unless you meant
| 60 year old engine technology. Most likely pre EPA 2006 to
| avoid the DPF and later EPA 2010 SCR systems. I'd guess the
| popular glider engines would be Cummins big cam's, CAT 3406's,
| and maybe S60 Detroits.
| gerbilly wrote:
| > most tractors there are nearly sixty years old.
|
| When I worked as a farmhand we were still using some 1950s
| Massey Ferguson tractors every day.
|
| An it's one of the biggest dairy farms in the province
| (Canada).
|
| I mean we had newer stuff too, but the old machines were kept
| chugging along. I remember opening a sideplate on a MF 135
| after one of the kids jammed up the transmission.
|
| We got it unstuck with a crowbar, and were up and running again
| in 15 minutes.
| infopedia wrote:
| Tractors are billion dollar market and who care of farmers in
| front of these Tech Giants....
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| I have the feeling someone will become very rich by buying up all
| the old used diesel trucks in the world and keeping them going
| when EVs take over the world in 4 years.
| mnouquet wrote:
| Good luck running a electric tractor rig moving 120,000lb
| (modern quad-track are ~60,000lb, plus the drill, plus the
| fert/seed cart) all day long...
| [deleted]
| MikeUt wrote:
| > Equipment manufacturers collect lots and lots of data about
| soil, weather, yields, and other factors, which they can then
| share with or sell to "affiliates and suppliers."
|
| So a company selling seeds (with a no-reselling clause in their
| contracts) could buy that information, make a good guess at a
| farmer's profit margin, and individually adjust their pricing to
| the maximum that each farmer would be willing to pay.
|
| Yet another way in which big players can abuse information
| asymmetry.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Yet another way in which big players can abuse information
| asymmetry.
|
| Solution here is to not allow for the asymmetry. So much of
| society's ills are caused by incentives to keep information
| asymmetric, so that market participants cannot make optimal (to
| all) informed decisions.
| _wldu wrote:
| I wonder why JD does not make a large simple tractor that is
| mostly mechanical and hydraulic using standard/common parts and
| sell them at a higher price? They could advertise them to be
| owner repairable to justify the higher price. It seems there is a
| demand.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| In a properly-functioning market, it seems as though this would
| be an opportunity for a competitor. You have to wonder why this
| isn't happening.
| saurik wrote:
| If a competitor figures out how to build a tractor that is as
| good as the ones from John Deere then they probably can
| compete with John Deere directly--as in, "on their terms"
| with a locked down tractor that makes them more margin--
| rather than bother to sell unlocked tractors. The same issue
| happens with cell phones: users want control over their
| phones, but they also want good phones with good screens and
| good cameras. There are, in fact, phones you can buy that
| give you complete control, but they are the companies that
| have shit products and so are trying to use this as a
| differentiator to draw in a new market. If you are able to
| compete with the iPhone--like Samsung can, but almost no
| other manufacturer can (sometimes Google manages to pull it
| off with first party phones, but very few people buy those,
| so they are clearly missing something)--then you build a
| device as equally locked down as the iPhone and compete with
| it "on Apple's terms" as there is a nearly bottomless well of
| money that you can extract from users if you are willing to
| screw them and _force them_ to participate in your closed
| ecosystem.
|
| Essentially, you can't just look at the one product in
| isolation and think "this should exist from a competitor", as
| if anyone could easily make a company to go out and do it...
| you instead have to consider the ecosystem of companies and
| the numerous barriers to entry (such as patents and limited
| supply lines and the enormous R&D costs) and what the
| incentives in the market are, and it turns out that, if your
| product is one where the competition is already scarce--Apple
| + Samsung make up 80% of the mobile phone market, with the
| rest likely targeting people who don't have enough money to
| pay for high-end phones; there is a similar thing going on
| with tractors, with five companies controlling >70% of the
| market, and AFAIK mostly now selling locked down machines--
| you can't just expect to magically find a competitor pop up
| that is going to fill this particular interest. If you manage
| to circumnavigate all of the hurdles to build a phone that
| works as well as an Apple or a Samsung device, you are almost
| certainly going to join the oligopoly and lock your device
| down also, as the incentives are just too poor otherwise. The
| only fix for this is regulation and, to the extent to which
| regulation actually already exists here, legal precedent.
| libertine wrote:
| That would be a proof of concept that their current practices
| aren't justified, not only from a marketing standpoint but
| probably also from a legal standpoint.
|
| The problem isn't providing replacement parts. I think the
| issue is that locking their customers in their maintenance
| services is part of their business model.
|
| Most likely the lifetime of service (decades) wouldn't easily
| be fitted into the margin of a specific model.
| mnouquet wrote:
| Largely EPA regulations make this impossible.
| dncornholio wrote:
| I mean, if two of the biggest companies of the world, Apple and
| Tesla can get away with it, why not the rest of the markets?
|
| This trend needs to stop. I cannot fathom how anyone thought
| preventing farmers, FARMERS for crying out loud, the people who
| grow our goddamn food, from repairing their equipment is way, way
| beyond me..
| zepto wrote:
| The question is - why do farmers not buy Kubota tractors if
| they want something repairable?
|
| The only explanation given in this thread seems to be
| 'branding'.
| tim333 wrote:
| Apple's not that bad really. Typed from an 8 year old Apple
| with replaced battery, ssd and keyboard.
| CivBase wrote:
| Who replaced those parts for you and what sort of hell did
| they have to put up with to facilitate those repairs? And how
| viable are those same repairs for a modern MacBook in
| comparison?
|
| Apple's goal (same with other manufacturers like JD) isn't to
| eradicate independent repair. They just want to make it
| economically in-viable so that third-party repair disappears
| and most consumers choose to buy new.
| syshum wrote:
| Search Louis Rossman if you really believe that
|
| Apple is the poster child for hostility to independent repair
| swiley wrote:
| They weren't so bad 8 years ago.
| simion314 wrote:
| But can you have it replaced for cheap on a new model? Nobody
| said that you can't pay Apple a big amount of money so they
| fix your stuff, the issue is that in newer devices it is
| getting harder to repair the devices using an independent
| service(not everyone has the money or lives near an Apple
| store).
|
| Apple can just not fuck with this independent people, let
| them have access to the same repair documentation and parts
| their own people have access.
| dncornholio wrote:
| Apple is actively disabling people to even change their
| battery. Same type of battery wont work in another same
| type macbook anymore..
| tim333 wrote:
| Ah. That's bad.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| The problem with modern large farmers is the same as with
| richer tesla owners... you buy a car/tractor with 5y warranty,
| you service it at a dealer (to keep your warranty), and after
| 5y, you trade it in for a new one. It's same as with most other
| devices like that.. even a mercedes... who cares about
| data/plans/parts/... for a 3yo mercedes? ..it's under warranty,
| so they'll deal with it. Same with phones... new phone has a
| warranty, sometimes even insurance
|
| The problem becomes real when your tesla/tractor/mercedes/phone
| is 10yo (phone a bit less) and available for cheap on the
| second hand market... it's not under warranty anymore,
| financially it's not worth it to have a dealer fix it, if you
| can do it yourself, but you're unable to do so, because you
| don't have the schematics and/or parts available.
|
| So, the large industrial farmers don't really care... it's the
| "little guys" who get fscked by companies like
| JD/tesla/apple,...
| randomdata wrote:
| A lot of the new equipment is not even bought, but rather
| leased. The largest farms will keep rolling the leases into
| new equipment and then the used equipment is then put out on
| the used market for someone to buy. The first users do not
| have a whole lot of concern about legally of their ownership
| as their leases have them renting the equipment from the
| start.
|
| The users down the line may have greater concern, but they
| are limited to what is available on the used market. If the
| first generation users choose John Deere, that means they are
| effectively limited to John Deere.
| dncornholio wrote:
| Leasing and/or renting: Fine.
|
| But making a monopoly on providing parts and services is not
| a good thing. People end up paying 2000 dollar for a 2 dollar
| repair.
|
| Imagine the world when buying a new car/truck/tractor is less
| expensive than replacing the brakes for example. This is how
| the world works right now.
| basch wrote:
| >People end up paying 2000 dollar for a 2 dollar repair.
|
| That's the entire world economy. Have you watched Shark
| Tank? "What do you sell it for and what is your landed
| price." Mark is smiling and clapping at the people who
| manage to sell a $2 part for $100, the bigger the ripoff
| the more he loves it, they've achieved the American Dream.
|
| The reality in the Apple/John Deer situation is that the
| profit is going back into overfunding design to also make
| better products. Not all of it, but enough to keep a
| persistent edge over competitors.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Paying $2000 when you could pay $2 is how much of the
| economy operates but personally I think situations like
| that, often under the umbrella of "rent seeking
| behavior", are actually harmful to society.
| CivBase wrote:
| > The problem with modern large farmers is the same as with
| richer tesla owners... you buy a car/tractor with 5y
| warranty, you service it at a dealer (to keep your warranty),
| and after 5y, you trade it in for a new one.
|
| I don't think that's how that works. My grandparents own and
| operate a very respectable size farm for being independent
| and they definitely do not trade in their tractors like that.
| I'd be skeptical that mega-farms do this too. Even with cars
| the majority of the market buys second-hand, which is why the
| few who buy new every 5 years have someone to sell to.
| Tractors are an order of magnitude more expensive and
| independents who might consider paying good money for second-
| hand equipment are vanishing quickly.
| markhahn wrote:
| Not just farmers and tractors eh?
|
| Perhaps we should push beyond merely protecting the right to
| repair, but figuring out how to incentivize standardization and
| open protocols.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| we got to this point building almost entirely on incentivized
| standards and open protocols. It's only in the past ~20 years
| that we've started to replay the telephone company cycle that
| required the intervention and kicked off the greatest
| innovation anyone alive has ever seen. I'm not confident that
| the same governments are prepared to do this again with the
| current crop of "to big to fail" effective monopolies, which
| could mean a sea change in global competition.
| buro9 wrote:
| No-one wants to sell hardware any longer, it's not as profitable
| as providing it on a subscription (dare we say "rent") and
| forcing all support, maintenance and additions to go through your
| channels as part of the subscription package.
|
| Unfortunately this trend is everywhere now. It happened to
| servers, media, has started to happen to cars... but it's
| happened already to agricultural hardware.
|
| Super profitable if you are the provider (especially with all the
| data one can yield from operating the hardware), super annoying
| and frustrating if you are the consumer.
| syshum wrote:
| Post Ownership society where MBA's have decided that it better
| to have high OPEX and no CAPEX .....
|
| Higher TCO, lower ROI, but hey those quarterly reports look
| great...
| mikey_p wrote:
| That's really because customers are demanding software now.
| They want auto steer, variable rate application, they want to
| mark their tile inlets or waterways on their fields before they
| upload into the tractor. They want their sprayer or planter to
| integrate and show them singulation and population or rates
| right there in the cab. Lots of famers are using iPads along
| with multiple in cab systems to manage all the technology and
| record additional data. I've see farmers planting with as many
| as 4 or 5 screens in their tractors and it's getting to where
| there's an aftermarket just for mounts to hold more screens and
| computers. Farmers aren't just accepting that, but they are
| buying additional systems that require more software all the
| time because at the end of the day, it's business.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| > it's not as profitable as providing it on a subscription
| (dare we say "rent")
|
| Simple but excellent point. We should just start calling it
| what it is. xbox game pass, adobe software, it's all just
| renting. Subscriptions are supposed to be for access to new
| stuff, not continuing access to the existing stuff.
| tehaugmenter wrote:
| I mean you vote with your dollar. Stop supporting these bad
| practices. I don't, it's a hull to get everyone to stop and
| force themselves to work around. Maybe it's a losing battle,
| but stop giving them money and we'll be better off. I would not
| purchase a product with an underlying subscription. I even go
| as far as getting older cars so I don't have to worry about it.
| cferr wrote:
| > I would not purchase a product with an underlying
| subscription.
|
| Not even your phone?
| tremon wrote:
| Indeed, not even my phone. Why would that be hard to
| understand?
| saurik wrote:
| > No-one wants to sell hardware any longer...
|
| Then they should stop selling hardware and start renting it;
| but they don't do that, as that signals an honest intention to
| the customer and I'm pretty sure comes with a bunch of legal
| restrictions, both obvious and subtle. Instead, they want all
| the money and lack of liability that comes from selling
| something outright to someone else, and yet they still somehow
| want to maintain total control over the device in the field in
| order to extract revenue over time and, notably, spy on their
| customers. The result is that these technological locks that
| side-step the notion of ownership and turn every object you
| purchase into a sleeper agent for the manufacturer; and, as you
| note, _no one_ wants to actually sell things anymore as it is
| going to be more profitable to build in all of these locks, so
| "voting with your dollars" has become all but impossible unless
| you either are willing to tolerate not only paying more (which
| is fine) but getting a shit product (as none of the good
| manufacturers even bother offering "own your hardware" as an
| option no matter how much you are willing to pay) or have _so
| much money_ that you can build an entire company to commission
| custom hardware. :(
| HPsquared wrote:
| "Just say no." -Nancy Reagan
| natmaka wrote:
| Some underlying fundamentals are known for quite a long time:
| "All in all, wealth consists more in use than in possession;
| for the actualization of the potentialities of such things
| and their use is wealth" -- Aristotle's On Rhetoric
|
| > "voting with your dollars" has become all but impossible
|
| If possessing is more often than not the best way someone may
| understand it and also understand when smart farmers will
| also understand it, then develop an adequate offering, and if
| it performs better most will understand. It is only "more
| profitable to build in all of these locks" when you have
| customers. Am I delusional?
| freeopinion wrote:
| Done right, this could actually be better.
|
| I own a lawn mower. In fact I usually own two lawn mowers--the
| new one and the one I just need to repair a bit.
|
| All of my neighbors own lawn mowers. We all use our lawn mowers
| about an hour per week. It's extremely wasteful to purchase 5
| lawn mowers to perform 5 hours of mowing per week.
|
| We could all hire Suwanda down the street to mow our lawns, but
| that would cost a lot more than buying a mower. That's mostly
| because of the labor costs. So what if Suwanda just rented the
| mower to us and charged us enough to keep the blade sharp and
| the engine tuned? And what if we didn't pick it up and return
| it to Suwanda? What if we just passed it around between us, and
| Suwanda was the 6th stop in the rotation?
|
| And every once in a while, the person who got it after Suwanda
| noticed it was a completely different mower. So 5-6 neighbors
| pay $5/month and always have a mower in tip-top shape, but
| never actually maintain it and never shop for a new one.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| You could also have a community tool lending library where
| everyone can borrow from it.
|
| https://oaklandlibrary.org/locations/oakland-tool-lending-
| li...
| pkaye wrote:
| You can rent equipment already from Home Depot or some "Rent-
| a-Center" place however they need to pay for their overhead
| so there is a hefty markup. But it makes sense for tools you
| use occasionally like a sod cutter or tiller.
| defenestration wrote:
| I thought about this a lot. What if we just share a lot of
| tools with our neighbors. It will prevent waste and free up
| space in your house. However, for me, it's more convenient to
| have my own tools. I have the freedom to mow the lawn
| whenever I want. Also on that sunny afternoon when all the
| other neighbors also want to mow their lawn. And I want a
| tool that's in the right condition. When I have time to do a
| job around the house, my tools should work. Not broken, dirty
| or missing a part. And I don't want a difficult conversation
| with my neighbor about it. Sharing and borrowing tools with
| my neighbors directly is fine for me. Co-owning or
| continuously renting together is not my cup-of-tea.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Tool lending libraries are great!
|
| https://oaklandlibrary.org/locations/oakland-tool-lending-
| li...
| freeopinion wrote:
| Absolutely. I completely agree with everything you said.
| But I still see the benefit in other models. And I wonder
| what innovation might occur if we spent more time exploring
| options.
| defenestration wrote:
| Absolutely! I guess the main innovation will be social.
| Thinking of a way that people feel responsible for shared
| tools, a non-awkward way of selecting neighbors who you
| are willing to share with and some kind of emergency-
| button if you need a tool now and all the shared tools
| are taken.
| freeopinion wrote:
| So let's you and I spend an hour offline ironing this out
| so we can pitch HN for $20 million of seed money next
| week.
|
| We'll start with mowers and expand into kitchen blenders
| and frying pans. We'll displace Amazon in about 15 years!
| [deleted]
| willtim wrote:
| The flipside to this, is that there is perhaps no longer an
| incentive to sell hardware with a limited lifespan.
| vinceguidry wrote:
| Nah. They'll sell you cheaply made crap for $80 along with a
| subscription for $10/mo then sell you slightly better cheaply
| made crap for $105 a year down the road and bump the sub to
| $12/mo for the 'increased functionality'.
| liaukovv wrote:
| Thats the point though isn't it, they dont sell it anymore.
|
| So any gains in lifespan are reaped by the company, not
| consumer
| willtim wrote:
| Hopefully more durable products means less landfill and
| digging up the planet looking for more raw materials. This
| ultimately benefits everybody.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| As long as there are competing suppliers (not colluding),
| they would compete to sell at lowest price.
| teachingassist wrote:
| The opposite, surely.
|
| If there's no market for old hardware, there's no benefit to
| making new products which hold their value.
| rahkiin wrote:
| When a company rents out equipment, the longer the
| equipment is usable, the more rent can be earned on it. So
| there is an incentive to have durable products when the
| income is on a subscription basis.
| bserge wrote:
| It could be even more profitable to do a subscription
| with a "swap your old one for a new one for a big
| discount" on a regular basis.
| Proven wrote:
| Wut???
|
| They've always had the right to do whatever they want with their
| property.
|
| They don't have the right to ask the manufacturer to honor
| service and warranty agreement IF they messed with the parts or
| performed unsupported field repairs.
|
| How many more junk articles do we have to read before this sinks
| in???
| jdikatz wrote:
| I'm a fan of right to repair, but I think it's odd to include
| privacy / data breech concerns as an advocacy point.
| Operationalizing right to repair typically means making software
| more interoperable and sharing access information with third
| parties, which probably isn't great for privacy / data security.
| This was the main tack that auto companies took when fighting a
| recent MA ballot initiative (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020
| _Massachusetts_Question_...), and there could be at least _some_
| truth to it.
| the_biot wrote:
| There is a lot of misinformation about this. At face value,
| articles like this imply you're not able or allowed to fix
| mechanical issues, how dare they!
|
| What they don't mention is that manufacturers protect their
| electronic gear i.e. the consoles inside the machine that use GPS
| to run a field, adjust the attachment acccording to various
| sensors etc. This is very sophisticated stuff, and farmers need
| and want this functionality.
|
| Farmers aren't wanting their old 1950s-era tractors back. They
| want more control over the software -- and in particular don't
| want to pay for it. And while as an open source type myself I'm
| sympathetic to this, I'm suspicious about the outright bullshit
| in articles like this.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| One concern I also never see discussed is that for any type of
| electro-mechanical system, allowing the customer to change
| anything or maintain anything is a actually a big liability
| issue.
|
| Let's be clear, it is pretty obvious that the whole tractor-as-
| a-service paradigm is extremely profitable. However allowing
| access to diagnostics/config/firmware for anything that
| controls heavy machinery can be a huge liability.
|
| You are a misconfiguration away from a work accident with
| injury or death.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| There is a century of case law from the motor vehicle world
| that make this a non-issue.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| The reason that happens with road vehicles is because you
| actually have diagnostics standard ISO 22901, which
| enforces at least partially interoperability.
|
| Actual config/ROM changes are still heavily protected by
| manufacturers and are limited to authorized dealers.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| People have all kinds of tuners that they throw in their
| cars. And you never hear about a manufacturer being sued
| into oblivion because someone threw a garbage tuner with
| garbage settings into their car.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| As a simple counter example you can't tune Front Radar
| calibration for AEB (Automatic Emergency Breaking).
|
| A manufacturer can obviously do it. However, if that was
| allowed in the field, you would likely have whiplash
| injuries at best or fatalities at worse.
|
| My point is some things are 'open' in some popular
| vehicles for which people have reverse engineered stuff.
|
| But there is no liability interest from manufacturers in
| having this sort of thing in user space.
| bserge wrote:
| Is there a legal reason why they can't sign a waiver? You are
| always a misstep away from injury or death working on any
| heavy equipment. That has always been the case.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would not trust the legal power of a waiver between two
| non governmental entities. When the public opinion wants
| someone to pay, the government will go after whoever can
| pay.
|
| I would want a clear law that prevents the company from
| being liable.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >I would not trust the legal power of a waiver between
| two non governmental entities
|
| So you don't trust the courts to enforce a contract?
| That's basically what a liability waver is, a bog
| standard contract that amends a prior (often implied by
| legal convention or state law) contract between the
| manufacturer and the product owner.
|
| >When the public opinion wants someone to pay, the
| government will go after whoever can pay
|
| FYI making one or both entities "governmental" doesn't do
| anything to change this.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The effectiveness of a liability waiver is heavily
| dependent on the state it is being litigated in, as well
| as the precise wording of the contract and opinions of
| the people in the courts.
|
| https://recmanagement.com/feature_print.php?fid=200611GC0
| 3
|
| > FYI making one or both entities "governmental" doesn't
| do anything to change this.
|
| I do not know what this means, but my point is that if
| one of the parties in the dispute is politically
| disliked, then they may not get a fair shake.
|
| In the context of this discussion, I can see "not having
| to deal with risks of liability waivers" as a supporting
| reason for why a company would want to lock down their
| devices or prevent people from tinkering with them. Then
| they can simply tell anyone coming after them that their
| product was clearly not meant to be tampered with and so
| tampering with it removed them from any liability.
| dncornholio wrote:
| > This is very sophisticated stuff
|
| So what? A PC is very sophisticated as well but no matter which
| parts I put together, it works. You can abstract the
| sophisticated stuff away.. This is just a bad excuse IMHO
| the_biot wrote:
| Yes, I agree, and this is IMHO a better way out of the
| conundrum these farmers face: install their own electronics
| with similar functionality.
| mikey_p wrote:
| I bet the number one feature most of these farmers want is the
| ability to defeat emissions controls so they don't have to use
| DEF (diesel exhaust fluid).
|
| Don't believe me? Go watch some farmers on Youtube and it won't
| take long to pick up the hatred for government interference. I
| don't know if it's selection or survivorship bias or what, but
| farmers really do not like being told what to do by someone
| else.
| squiggleblaz wrote:
| I love the way every article about businesses making decisions
| that favor business concerns over customer concerns always have
| this balanced comment that says "What they don't mention is
| that the business has optimised for their own interests and
| ranked other concerns as a hindrance".
|
| Yes, we know decisions aren't free. But it's not a coincidence
| that businesses are all simultaneously optimising in their own
| self interest and ignore the concrens of their customers.
| taurath wrote:
| They want to be able to make adjustments, and fix mechanical
| issues without the whole thing shutting down and then having to
| take it to the one place in town that is allowed to touch the
| thing.
|
| It's one thing to say oh only the new stuff is locked down, but
| every part of the vehicle is, something that wasn't the case a
| short while ago. In fact they're digitizing controls and simple
| mechanical functionality that doesnt need to be digitized so
| they can abuse their maintenance monopoly.
| haspok wrote:
| > in particular don't want to pay for it
|
| This is a complete misunderstanding of the problem, also, a
| false statement in most cases.
|
| People would like to have the option to choose who, when, where
| and how repairs their stuff. If the only option is the
| manufacturer - even after the warranty period -, then that's
| called a monopoly and is guaranteed to result in lower
| standards and higher prices and reduced availability.
|
| It is one thing to have such a problem with a laptop or a
| mobile, because those are relatively cheap items that are easy
| to replace. But if you have equipment that your livelihood
| depends on worth tens of thousands of dollars, then this is
| completely unacceptable.
| lbriner wrote:
| It's not called a monopoly. A monopoly is a single provider
| of a particular service or product allowing the supplier to
| abuse their position.
|
| These farmers do not have to buy John Deere. If they don't
| like being tied in, they shouldn't have bought the equipment
| in the first place and chosen a rival then one of two things
| happen 1) John Deere realise they have been caught with their
| pants down and change their policy to win customers back 2)
| Farmers realise there is a new normal where the equipment is
| simply too complicated to allow them to tinker with it (or at
| least without losing any manufacturers guarantee).
| rich_sasha wrote:
| It's a monopoly on fixing JD gear, a narrower term than an
| outright farming hardware monopoly but still.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| In addition you may be effectively refused such repairs, or
| charged so much that it is better to buy a new product.
|
| If the only entity who can repair the kit is the one who
| sells new kit too, this is even worse than a standard
| monopoly argument. At least a normal monopoly has an
| incentive to serve you at the end of the day.
| sackerhews wrote:
| Making something that only you can repair can be quite a
| lucrative business. This documentary is quite interesting:
|
| McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
| atoav wrote:
| Making something only you can repair lands you on my personal
| everlasting blacklist of shame (and I guess the everlasting
| blacklists of shame of others as well).
| theshrike79 wrote:
| A similar thing is happening with EVs.
|
| Many car dealers don't make their money from selling cars, they
| make most of their money from being the only authorized repair
| shop for said car model. And to keep the warranty valid, you
| need to service the car at an authorized shop.
|
| EVs, by design, don't require as much maintenance or as often
| as ICE cars. This will result in a disruption in the existing
| chain at some point. We'll see what actually happens in 5-10
| years.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Some dealers make bank on the service.
|
| Some dealers are basically in the business of originating
| loans.
|
| It all depends on how the owner happens to structure the
| business.
|
| Often you'll have multiple dealers in the same network that
| take a different route because that's what works for their
| brand and location niches.
| bserge wrote:
| Batteries will need swapping (not often, but a high price),
| and there's the added bonus of being able to "encourage"
| people to come in for repairs by just tweaking some OTA
| updates. I wonder who will get caught doing that first.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > And to keep the warranty valid, you need to service the car
| at an authorized shop.
|
| Magnusson-Moss repudiates this for US consumers.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson-Moss_Warranty_Act
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Yea, same for many EU countries.
|
| Also EVs require some specific knowledge and equipment
| random Mom & Pop shops won't have for a while. Just working
| with HVDC systems alone is a huge hassle.
| olyjohn wrote:
| I keep hearing this thing about EVs not needing as much
| maintenance. Apparently nobody has looked at their
| maintenance schedule on their cars. Most cars don't need
| anything except a few oil changes by 100,000 miles. So many
| dealers throw in free oil changes now... and you can still
| have them done by Jiffy Lube if you want for about $50.
| People regularly hit 200k miles just doing oil changes, and
| changing out all the wear items that EV owners also have. If
| you can't afford the oil changes, you probably can't afford
| an EV either.
|
| Brakes, coolant, tires, gearbox oils? Your EV still has all
| that. The power unit itself on an EV may be simpler, but
| mechanical failures in an engine in an ICE car are pretty
| damn rare. You're not servicing anything inside the engine,
| just like you're not taking apart the electric motor in your
| EV for maintenance.
| remirk wrote:
| Great conclusion. This video could have been summarized in 10
| minutes though. For the most part, no real information about
| the problem was given. I guess this is just how YouTube
| documentaires in 2021 are.
| mhb wrote:
| Or maybe not. Extensive discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26936774
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| McDonalds has very strong incentives to reduce labour costs
| to zero. This started with very clear & limited roles which
| meant cheap rates, but now means reducing the number of
| employees. At $5/hour it's cheaper to train and manage people
| to do the job; @ > $15/hr you can justify an army of machines
| and a few technicians, even if your ice cream machine seems
| to be broken a lot of the time.
| shagie wrote:
| If you poke at McD's corporate jobs in IT, you'll find a
| bunch of jobs in machine learning, audio processing and
| similar for an AI drive through project.
|
| https://careers.mcdonalds.com/global-
| corporate/jobs?categori...
|
| Many of the tech positions have been filled (from what they
| were a year ago)... though still more than a few.
| gruez wrote:
| Yeah, the non-sinister explanation is that mcdonalds decided
| to go with a self-cleaning machine to reduce the possibility
| of workers messing up the cleaning cycle, taylor implementing
| that badly, and no one else using self-clean machines.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| For all the romantic HN faux farmers:
|
| Dealer repair cost is only one factor, and not the largest.
|
| During harvest season, every operating hour is worth thousands of
| dollars to get the crop in, so onsite self-repair is critical at
| that time.
| Glavnokoman wrote:
| In the end market should take of this. If repairability is a
| major concern for the farmers they would just eventually buy the
| tractors with less of a high-tech bells and whistles. And also
| cheaper I guess.
| zwirbl wrote:
| It should, but will it? The magically all-mighty market does
| not fix all problems without intervention
| Glavnokoman wrote:
| It probably won't. But that does not dismiss that it should
| :).
| nspattak wrote:
| This is an oversimplification that overlooks at automotive
| engineering history (if not history in general). Are there 2T
| engines or Wankel engines available for people to choose?
| WalterBright wrote:
| Heavy regulation of the automotive industry is why I can't
| buy a new Dodge Coronet.
| patrickmclaren wrote:
| Can you expand on how this would come to be, in practice?
| apples_oranges wrote:
| Well, it's not that hard to imagine, is it? Someone founds a
| company that produces tractors but they are simpler, cheaper
| and can be repaired. If that's what customers want, they
| _will_ gain market share. If not, then the demand isn't
| there.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Then the next argument would be that John Deere is
| destroying competition by artificially selling their
| tractors below cost, making it impossible to compete with
| them.
|
| Because yeah, that's what you do when you recoup the rest
| of the cost in the subscription/maintenance.
|
| It's the same model that game consoles use to keep the
| hardware costs low. They make it up in the game and
| peripheral licensing fees.
|
| If JD dropped the subscriptions, but instead charged full
| price for the tractors, people would just scream about the
| prices instead.
|
| I actually agree that farmers should legally be able to
| repair their own tractors, or have anyone else do it. But
| gaining that "right" back wouldn't actually fix their
| complaints, just shift them.
| xxs wrote:
| ...and of course, there will be zero patents infringed that
| would cause no injunction.
| petewailes wrote:
| I'm going to go out on a limb and say you don't live in a
| farming community...
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Pleasse stop rehashing free market platitudes without any
| thinking.
|
| Look at the actual manufacturers, realise that noone is
| producing simple tractors any more, where are they going to
| come from?
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Belarus produces simple and cheap tractors since forever,
| they are popular in Russia and other CIS countries. Just
| import them.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I dont think "just import them" covers the difficulties a
| lone farmer would have in transport, customs, language
| barrier and maintenance of a fairly random piece of
| equipment across an ocean that is also critical for their
| primary source of income.
|
| And imagine you have a warranty dispute or similar
| petewailes wrote:
| Belarus are already imported into the US, as I recall.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Oh, i didnt realise that
| petewailes wrote:
| An old Belarus 420A is a simple tractor. Even a modern 742
| or 1220 isn't that complex. But it's simply not as capable
| as a Fastrac 4 or 8 series, or a Valtra N or C series, or a
| Deere 6, 7 or 8 series for example. They're just not in the
| same league in terms of what they can do with tool
| management, fitness for specific tasks or tool interop.
|
| As a single example, there's nothing that Belarus make that
| I'd want to use for buckraking a heap of any real size.
| They don't have a JCB 435S equivalent, or a heavier Fendt
| or Claas.
|
| They're great tools, but you're not going to get the
| hectares per hour of sowing or harvest or the movement of
| tonnage of the modern competitors.
| cowl wrote:
| But isn't this self-defeating reasoning? on one side you
| say things need to be simpler to repair, on the other you
| say simple technology doesn't cover your needs. A lot of
| these advanced features are so complex and so intertwined
| to each other that you really want only a qualified
| person to be able to "try to fix it"
| sequesteredmar wrote:
| Should there not be the option to break whatever you own
| however you want to? People who know they can fix X
| should be allowed to fix X
| cowl wrote:
| You surely are allowed to break it if you want at the
| cost of loosing the waranty. If you mean you want to be
| able to break it and still have the waranty then no.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| The whole complexity narrative is false pretenses.
|
| The new tractors contain computers and need tools.
| Manufacturers refuse to sell tools and placed equivalent
| of DRM on computers to stop you repairing your tractor on
| purpose. They make their supplirs sign contracts where
| the supplier is not allowed to sell parts to anyone else.
| None of these issues are due to complexity, all of them
| about you loose property rights over your possessions and
| turning physical goods into a subscribtion model
| edulix wrote:
| So farmers would buy in mass simple tractors, making the
| manufacturer that does it alone rich amasing a huge segment
| of the market.
|
| But no manufacturer wants to do it. And no venture capital
| wants to finance such thing. Because.. I guess.. these evil
| capitalists just don't want to make more money.
|
| Is that the argument? That capitalists don't want to make
| more money?
| MikeUt wrote:
| From another comment: "Deere is the worst in this, but the
| rest of the industry isn't anywhere near as good as it
| should be."
|
| So no, the argument isn't that they don't want to make
| money. The argument is that they _do_ , and realize that
| tacitly colluding will make them more money than
| undercutting each-other.
| xxs wrote:
| Most of the time it's not possible to produce new equipment
| without patent licenses even if everything else came into
| places. Assuming a new honest player that won't collude...
| [deleted]
| Glavnokoman wrote:
| Please stop attribute anything confronting your believes to
| lack of thinking. And if you are not aware of something that
| does not mean it does not exist (look for Belarus tractor
| references it the thread below). Even if they did not exist
| there is nothing (or should be nothing) stopping one from
| being created.
| po1nt wrote:
| Just don't buy Apple, John Deere or similar products. There are
| better alternatives and you're getting yourself into a trap where
| seemingly only government can help you, just because you wanted
| to buy more prestigious goods.
| zepto wrote:
| This. When pressed, people end up admitting that the reason
| they buy these products is that they are better.
|
| What they are missing is that they are only better because
| people buy them, thus funding the improvement of the next
| generation.
|
| If you want open alternatives, buy them. If you want them to
| get better, campaign for others to buy them.
|
| Trying to force companies whose business is based on closed
| products to do what you want, is not going to go well.
| FractalParadigm wrote:
| I just want to throw my 2C/ out there, as a mid-20's who went to
| a high-rural-population high school, there's an entire new
| generation of farmers who have a) accepted that Deere's need
| constant/regular service calls, and b) don't care to learn how to
| fix it (or older equipment) themselves. At the end of the day
| farming is just a business same as any other, it's the same
| reason why a lot of trucking companies lease their trucks or
| warehouses lease their forklifts, it's generally cheaper and less
| of a headache overall.
|
| I've tried to make pleas with some of my old friends who've
| complained about the locked-down nature of their JD equipment,
| explaining that other companies like Kubota _don 't_ have that
| same limitation, but the branding is just too strong ("the Kubota
| might be cheaper to buy, and cheaper to run, and I can easily
| maintain it myself, but, it's not a John Deere" - actual quote
| from a SW Ontario farmer)
| mikey_p wrote:
| Not sure what scale you're talking about, but Kubota doesn't
| really compete with Deere on larger tractors. I don't see any
| tracked options from Kubota and their tractors don't really go
| much over 200 horsepower.
|
| Deere and Kubota only really compete at the smaller/utility
| side of things.
|
| Also the reason people get locked into Deere isn't just the
| tractors, but the vertical integration. Can you run your John
| Deere NT or DB series planter with Greenstar 2 on a Kubota?
| Possibly, but you've got to buy the hardware from Deere and
| you'd have to add auto steer, etc. (FWIW Kubota doesn't even
| sell planters)
| mitchell_h wrote:
| I live in an extremely rural area. The Deere integrations are
| a huge reason. Another that's not talked about is Deere field
| service. It's just DAMN GOOD. If you're running a serious
| tractor(7-9 series ) and it's the middle of planting/harvest
| hours can be the difference between red and black margins.
| Deere will roll out a team with 30ft trailer of parts out in
| hours if you have an issue. CaseIH will sorta match this,
| kubota and New Holand will simply not.
| taylodl wrote:
| Exactly, and at the moment in time you don't care about
| "right to repair" - you need to get back up and running
| _now_. Which has led me to believe "right to repair" is a
| ruse, but for what?
| Cerium wrote:
| Right to repair tractors has become talking point because
| it is a use case that cannot be easily dismissed as
| "unimportant to real Americans" since many Americans
| value individualism, hard work, and their countries
| reputation for food production - all of which are
| idealized in the concept of the independent American
| farmer.
| supercheetah wrote:
| A ruse to give people flexibility in how they want to
| repair their own equipment? What a terrible thing.
| 8note wrote:
| In hours, aren't you already in the red? Is it tens of
| hours that makes the difference?
| swiley wrote:
| Lots of people don't care about their right to vote but we
| should all freak out when it gets taken away from them.
| freeopinion wrote:
| Maybe... Compare these different proposals:
|
| 1. Disenfranchise everyone who hasn't voted in the last 10
| years.
|
| 2. Require a two-year waiting period from the time you
| register as a voter before you can vote. Require
| registrations to be renewed every 6 years. Voting
| automatically renews an unexpired registration.
|
| It seems to me that both proposals should attract a lot of
| attention. But one is more alarming than the other. And you
| could water it down to be even less alarming and make some
| good arguments for your proposal. This is how you boil a
| frog.
|
| Here's one nobody seems to care about:
|
| 3. Require people to join a private club to be able to vote
| in primary elections. Only allow candidates who were
| nominated by those private clubs. Allow the private clubs to
| be controlled by a handful of people.
|
| You know, now I think about it, right-to-repair has a great
| deal in common with right-to-vote.
| pnutjam wrote:
| Not all states require #3. Indiana does not, but you have
| to pick one.
| HPsquared wrote:
| People don't get to just buy a different brand of government
| though, unlike tractors.
| swiley wrote:
| Commodities tend to have very low profit margin. It
| wouldn't be surprising if organizations like John deer sell
| their tractors at a steep loss temporarily which could
| prevent farmers from being able to buy other brands.
| missedthecue wrote:
| John Deere MSRP is well above most competition.
| randomdata wrote:
| A friend of mine, one of the larger farmers in the area,
| purchased a new CaseIH tractor a couple years back. Even
| before it arrived in his yard, the Deere salesman caught
| wind of the purchase and arrived with "We can't be having
| that." Made my friend an offer he couldn't refuse and the
| CaseIH tractor was sold before even a single hour was put
| on it.
|
| A high MSRP means a lot of room to play with the numbers.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Fixing would mean hacking in this case.
| _wldu wrote:
| The issue is really about freedom. If you don't care that a
| company can decide whether or not you may farm, then rent their
| equipment. If you do care, then you want 100% control of that
| equipment. Or as close to 100% as you can get.
|
| It's sort of comparable to writing software in C (an ISO
| standard with many open source compilers) to run on your
| commodity x86 hardware versus writing an iOS Apple Store app.
| In one case, you have almost complete control of the HW and SW,
| in the other, you have no control and can be prevented from
| doing so at any moment for any reason.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| It's not that simple. There are features of these high end
| tractors such as automation and satellite guidance that allow
| you to change the scale of your operation. In a sense, you
| have to make a choice about what kind of business you're
| going to be at the same time as you're choosing your
| equipment.
| debacle wrote:
| There are aftermarket solutions for that as well. Deere is
| for people who want a deluxe brand that is all encompassing
| vs users who don't mind fiddling with their hardware.
| etempleton wrote:
| I also grew up in a rural high school with a large farming
| population. I categorize farmers into three types:
|
| 1. Professional - Usually highly educated, good business sense.
| Probably obtained an advanced degree in agriculture science,
| though not always, some self-educate very successfully. These
| farmers generally do not like John Deere and think they are
| overpriced, not as good as they once were, and find the lack of
| right to repair infuriating.
|
| 2. Uneducated - Likely barely passed high school due to a
| complete lack of effort, because they were going to be farmers
| and school, "couldn't teach them nothin." Farming is an
| identity for these individuals. Buying a John Deere is part of
| that lifestyle. Some kids grow up with a Ferrari on their wall,
| these kids had a John Deere tractor. The problem with these
| individuals as it relates to business is that they do not
| understand business or accounting and probably only have a
| rudimentary understanding of ag science. They overspend on
| equipment and their only basic ag science understanding leaves
| them unable to adapt as well as the pros to droughts,
| infestations, and other adverse conditions.
|
| 3. Gentleman Farmers - Usually educated, but perhaps in an
| unrelated field. Farming is a hobby. Perhaps a retirement
| "job." If they make money, great, if not, well, they have money
| to spare. They buy John Deere, because they can afford it and
| because it seems like the obvious choice. They are happy to pay
| their local dealer to fix or repair their tractor, it is
| something they don't have to worry about and costs are not a
| real going concern. Breaking even is a success.
|
| Both the less educated farmers and the gentleman farmers treat
| John Deere tractors as a status symbol (every other farmer know
| exactly how much a John Deere tractor costs). And when you know
| how much they cost it is like seeing someone drive by in a
| Ferrari or Lamborghini, because, well, they cost as much as a
| Ferrari or Lamborghini, if not more. The professional farmers
| could care less because they are running a business.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > Some kids grow up with a Ferrari on their wall, these kids
| had a John Deere tractor.
|
| John Deere has a significant toy business that has to pay off
| big time considering how many of these customers they produce
| (and the toys themselves are quite expensive IIRC).
| autokad wrote:
| I also grew up in rural areas, and I agree with throwaway.
| your comments are condescending and also inaccurate. The more
| 'uneducated' farmers took pride in fixing their equipment,
| especially their tractors. Your comments are so far off I
| wonder if you even grew up in such an area or if you didn't
| really know your classmates at all.
|
| For one thing, who in the heck lives in a rural area knows
| that many types of farmers. Farms are huge and school
| district areas are small.
| silexia wrote:
| We all need to fight for legislation that gives us the
| right to repair everything from our iPhones to our
| tractors.
| randomdata wrote:
| 4. The BTO (Big Time Operator). Deere has been known to give
| them very compelling deals that the other manufacturers
| cannot match. The smaller farmers are more likely to buy used
| equipment, so this also ensures that when the largest farmers
| buy Deere, green equipment is what is found on the used lot.
| boringg wrote:
| The biggest operators get it on a deal but the small to mid
| tail of the curve needs to pay full price but they aspire
| for the better product - which is where the margins are.
|
| Almost a veblen good but not quite by traditional
| definitions.
|
| FWIW the lock-in for farming in terms of equipment and seed
| product is so bananas to me. Really feels like the large
| corpos have got everyone squeezed.
| etempleton wrote:
| This is a good point. I also wonder if the service
| agreements start to make a lot more sense for the BTOs due
| to scale and so they are less likely to be concerned about
| the right to repair.
| randomdata wrote:
| A lot, I dare say even most, of the new equipment is
| leased to the first generation customers. They will run
| them for a year, two tops, and then it will go out on the
| used market for the 'regular' farmers to buy. You won't
| find much concern about ownership agreements when they
| are renting the equipment.
| throwaway292893 wrote:
| Wow. What an incredibly offensive comment. I love how HN
| understands the right to repair when it comes to their
| gadgets, but when it comes to tractors it's probably because
| the farmers are uneducated hicks. Please tell me more how
| they don't understand AG science enough, but you have such a
| strong grasp on it.
|
| JD tractors were and are reliable and top tier in quality,
| that's why they are popular and that's why people stick to
| the brand. I've built Kioti tractors when I was teenager.
| They'd do the job if you had to use it, but it's no JD in
| terms of quality.
|
| Farmers just want the quality they've always had with JD but
| the ability to fix simple stuff like they used to without it
| costing them an arm and a leg.
|
| The stereotypes you listed off don't sound like anyone I've
| ever experienced. They sound like caricatures you painted in
| your head with your lack of understanding.
| debacle wrote:
| Deere does not have a monopoly on quality. Yes, if you
| compare them to Kioti (a discount brand), they are
| superior, but there are other manufacturers (NH, Mahindra,
| Kubota, etc) where they stand up just as well.
| throwaway292893 wrote:
| Try sitting in a Kubota for 12 hours vs a JD. Your ass
| will be able to tell a difference.
|
| At this point it's better to buy a Kubota to avoid the
| lock-in, but JD is still far superior when it comes to
| the attention to detail.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| Relax. This commenter is speaking in generalities and it's
| like you're interpreting it as a personal attack.
|
| They simply said that there exist a category of farmers who
| do not participate in the normal schooling system and
| choose brands based only on status. This phenomena exists
| for nearly all brands. You can't possibly be disputing that
| these people exist?
|
| Keep away from ad hominem attacks, they only serve to
| dilute your argument.
| etempleton wrote:
| I am sorry you took offense to the comment, it was not
| meant to be offensive. I never claimed to have any grasp on
| agriculture science. And I never called anyone a "hick."
| And of course I am speaking in generalities. Simply
| observing what I saw growing up. I grew up on a small farm
| (though I certainly would never call myself a farmer) and
| grew up with farmers of all types and all income levels.
| Some chose to be willfully ignorant and not really learn
| how to run the family business even though that was their
| end goal and some did. I don't think this was a matter of
| capacity of the individuals. Some of those that were
| willfully ignorant were quite well off and some were not
| quite as well off. Some took a formal route to education,
| some self studied. It is simple anecdotal observation that
| some of the more successful farmers I know a). Educated
| themselves one way or another. b). Those same farmers, for
| the most part, have started or have already moved away from
| John Deere. Largely due to the right to repair issues, in
| part due to the premium cost, but some of the farmers that
| I have talked to have relayed to me that they feel the
| quality has dropped, which is perhaps not reality, simply
| their perception based on frustrations surrounding right to
| repair. John Deere has also rapidly expanded their product
| categories and not all of their new products share the same
| famous reliability as their ag products, which could
| negatively impact overall perception of the brand.
| throwaway292893 wrote:
| The tone of your comment changed dramatically in this
| reply. You didn't have to say hick, you implied it with
| your uneducated rant. You simply don't understand why
| they want a John Deere, and it's not because they are
| uneducated.
|
| Also, maybe never try to shove people into categories,
| especially only 3 categories. Especially one category
| being "uneducated". You reached all that from a topic
| about repairing tractors and their choice of brand. Think
| about that.
|
| Your "anecdote" doesn't match my experience and it lines
| up with an outsider perspective with a dash of elitism.
| You said you don't know anything about AG science, so how
| could you judge others knowledge of it?
| etempleton wrote:
| I appreciate your feedback. I phrased poorly. By
| uneducated I never meant formal education exclusively.
| There are many ways to learn and I personally find self
| study to be the most effective.
|
| And I am sorry I came across as elitist, I grew up lower
| to lower-middle class, and my parents grew up dirt poor.
| As my mother would say, "you come from a long line of
| poor farmers."
|
| I judge because those students who actively refused to
| learn were my peers...sometimes my relatives. Again, I
| would say it was 50/50. Some of those individuals were
| very well off, and now struggle to manage the farm they
| inherited. Others grew up in poverty and now have
| advanced degrees, or have otherwise educated themselves
| and run a very successful farm or now own a very
| successful farm.
| throwaway292893 wrote:
| > 'Likely barely passed high school due to a complete
| lack of effort, because they were going to be farmers and
| school, "couldn't teach them nothin."
|
| > The problem with these individuals as it relates to
| business is that they do not understand business or
| accounting and probably only have a rudimentary
| understanding of ag science.
|
| > their only basic ag science understanding leaves them
| unable to adapt as well as the pros to droughts,
| infestations, and other adverse conditions."
|
| So please tell me, how did you come to realize these
| faults in these people you met. Did they explain to you
| that their accounting was bad, did you see their books,
| did you test their soil, did you see them struggle with
| an infestation, or are you simply guessing and hurling
| insults?
|
| Since you prefixed your statement with "probably" I'm
| going to guess that you're using the #2 category to shit
| on a group of people while the #1 category is used to
| argue your point that smart farmers support your
| conclusion that john deere = bad.
|
| This situation has nothing to do with "uneducated
| farmers" and everything to do with JD being the top tier
| brand but also shafting its customers by not allowing
| them to repair their product.
|
| Kubota doesn't come close to JD, especially in larger
| tractors and integrations.
| sybercecurity wrote:
| (not to pile on)
|
| Right to repair also covers independent/third party service.
| People may not want to repair the hardware themselves, but they
| may want to take it to a cheaper/closer third party to repair
| it. The local JD service may be in the next county, but there
| may be a local mechanic that could repair the tractor, but
| cannot due to restrictions, licensing, etc.
|
| Of course you may not want the local guy to try because they
| may not be competent enough, but people think that should be
| the owner's decision, not the manufacturer's.
| tartoran wrote:
| This is a big problem, you can have a used JD part but it
| won't work because JD needs to squeeze every once of profit
| from their customers. This service based trend is the worst
| type of rent seeking I've seen in years
| dalbasal wrote:
| So... I think your right. Underlying a lot of trends eroding
| user/owner rights are practical benefits. This as true for
| ipods as it is for for tractors.
|
| My grandfather had an old Massey, and several others for parts.
| It's easy to idealize this from afar (I do), but young farmers
| often don't want it.
|
| That said, the individual preference and the systemic trend are
| two different things. The right to repair, is also the right to
| have a 3rd party repair. Competition, choice. At some point
| along the trend, it's about more than that. There comes a point
| where "who actually owns this farm" starts to be a question. JD
| might exercise the same power over farmers that Apple exercises
| over app developers. A my way or the highway world.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > At the end of the day farming is just a business same as any
| other
|
| Is your core competency farming or tractor repair? That said, I
| am sympathetic to farmers who want to repair their equipment.
| There's a scale where you have enough free time that with
| simple enough equipment, it does make sense to repair it
| yourself.
| kickout wrote:
| This is correct and will probably only be broken from a crazy
| differentiating hardware offering (like a self-driving
| tractor). It's coming...
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| > I just want to throw my 2C/ out there, as a mid-20's who went
| to a high-rural-population high school, there's an entire new
| generation of farmers who have a) accepted that Deere's need
| constant/regular service calls, and b) don't care to learn how
| to fix it (or older equipment) themselves.
|
| They should still want right to repair for the same reason that
| most of the internet wants to run on GPL software. Almost all
| the companies pay some vendor for it, but unlike the farmers
| they can just take their business elsewhere if a vendor turns
| bad.
| hippari wrote:
| >At the end of the day farming is just a business same as any
| other
|
| Being a business is the reason you want right to repairs. If a
| single vendor can bankrupt your business then it's not a
| sustainable business. Right to repair give you cheaper options
| for repairing your tools.
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| A lot of businesses live entirely within major tech company
| walled gardens, from the iOS App Store to the Azure
| Marketplace, where vendors have zero control over the
| platform. A precarious position to be in, perhaps, but hardly
| unsustainable.
| pnutjam wrote:
| Not just cheaper, any option. If the tech is busy because
| everyone is harvesting at the same time; your screwed.
| randomdata wrote:
| You must know my neighbour. He was running a Kubota for a year
| or two, but it didn't take him long to replace it with a Deere.
|
| I have most of the major brands in my shed. I don't
| particularly care much about what colour I'm using. Purchases
| have been made based on cost, which has included some green
| equipment when a great auction find has been found.
|
| My experience says that JD has the UX nailed. When you're
| spending 12 hour days in the seat, the little things do start
| to make a big difference. I am not sure it is fair to be
| dismissive of it as being a result of great branding. The
| equipment is meant to be used and the experience and comfort
| while using it can most definitely be worth a premium to many.
| dehrmann wrote:
| This is old, but I remember my grandpa saying he didn't buy
| Deere because "everything's backwards." Not sure if he meant
| the controls or mechanics, or how literal he was being.
| Beyond that, he didn't seem to care about brand all that
| much, and he had great luck with his Kubota.
| Casperin wrote:
| This made me think of how many developers (who spend 10
| hrs/day in front of their screen) choose Apples products. A
| linux machine might be better on performance, maintainance,
| and all that, but Linux does not care about UX the way Apple
| does.
| maest wrote:
| What about all the developers (who spend 10 hrs/day in
| front of their screen) that choose unix machines?
| iratewizard wrote:
| You're not going to convince someone in the cult of Apple
| that their overpriced machine isn't worth the premium.
| flerchin wrote:
| The ux for the things I _actually do_ is way better on a
| linux machine.
| randomdata wrote:
| Are any of the unixes[1], other than macOS, commonly used
| as the system powering the screen?
|
| [1] https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/
| emidln wrote:
| The only reason most devs I work with don't use a Linux
| laptop is that our corporate security, vpn, and auditing
| software isn't available for Linux. We settle for garbage-
| tier UX from docker + x11.app so we can do our jobs, not
| because Apple cares about anything.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| I actually don't know any engineers that use apple. A lot
| of graphic artists and designers for sure.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| >Linux does not care about UX the way Apple does.
|
| What UX? A terminal?
|
| Linux is also only an operating system kernel.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Hi, I worked on the new (as of ~2014) CommandArm touch screen
| and joystick. :)
|
| Developing software at John Deere was frustrating, but they
| have some really fun, interesting problems and other, larger
| political/cultural problems.
| _wldu wrote:
| Old tractors are bringing top dollar at auctions (and have been
| for some time now). IMO, the same thing will happen with old
| cars/trucks some day. Now, they are mostly hobby cars for
| collectors and auto enthusiasts, but some day will be widely
| sought after due to more people wanting/needing to repair them.
|
| Late 80s and early 90s Toyotas will be sold at a premium as will
| any/all old Ford F-150 trucks.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| In the year 2121, the Toyota Hilux will still be the go-to
| choice for aspiring warlords. The difference is that they may
| have competition from Americans who want a repairable vehicle.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| By that yardstick, Thailand will be the richest country on
| earth in terms of value of cars owned because I have never
| seen a higher concentration of HiLux cars anywhere else in
| the world.
| pvaldes wrote:
| They are not transferable to a new owner after 40 years here by
| law. If is older the tractor can't be sold, and if sold
| privately couldn't pass the vehicle inspection test later (that
| must be passed each six months, if I'm not wrong).
|
| Things can be different in your country.
|
| The main promoters of this idea are the independent diagnostic
| car machines makers. For the brand is a lot of risk and
| possible bad publicity.
|
| For the farmer the results can vary. Messing with its
| electronics could turn the tractor into a pile of garbage.
| Allowing the owner to mess with safety systems will typically
| lead to somebody realizing that can delay the repair for some
| months just inactivating the warning lights. People do the same
| all the time with car airbags. As farmers typically earn money
| after the harvest, they could be working for many months with a
| fake sense of safety. And as people love to brag, this could
| became quickly a popular option and a big mess
| hackbinary wrote:
| Farmers do not want to pay for anything. My dealings with people
| in the farming community is that completely devalue everything
| around as a negociation tactic. They do not want to pay anymore
| than they have to for anything. In general, I don't work for or
| with them anymore because of the horrible way I have been treated
| by them. (bit generalised, but I spend 10 years working in the
| community)
|
| JD is moving to a Tractor as a Service model. JD does not want to
| open up their systems because before not long, you just hire a
| robotic service to come and plow or harvest your fields. JD sees
| this coming and wants to be in the best possible position to
| market its services to land owners.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| > JD sees this coming and wants to be in the best possible
| position to market its services to land owners.
|
| You may be right, but, if so, this is just another move by a
| massive corporation to create a vertical monopoly, and extract
| all the rent in the space. For at least a couple of decades,
| companies with massive fleets of tractors sweep through the
| country, working farm fields for the owners, as the seasons
| change across the states. Your statement makes it seem as if JD
| could be muscling in on this already-muscled market. Tractors
| have already been priced out of a lot of farmer's businesses.
| They may as well cut out these middlemen.
| hackbinary wrote:
| Yes, I think so. I believe it is Cat and Rio Tinto have some
| form of arrangement at one of RT's mines in Aus. The dump
| trucks are driverless and run from RT's HQ elsewhere.
|
| Cutting out intermediataries is what cloud computing is all
| about. I don't really see this as any different.
| CivBase wrote:
| > Farmers do not want to pay for anything. [...] They do not
| want to pay anymore than they have to for anything.
|
| Who wants to pay more than they have to for anything? Who wants
| to pay for anything at all? How does a desire to save money
| make farmers different from the rest of us?
|
| > JD is moving to a Tractor as a Service model. JD does not
| want to open up their systems because before not long, you just
| hire a robotic service to come and plow or harvest your fields.
| JD sees this coming and wants to be in the best possible
| position to market its services to land owners.
|
| If JD wants to sell their equipment as a service, there's
| nothing stopping them from doing just that. But it sounds more
| to me like they want to retain the rights they would have in a
| service model while continuing to charge the prices they do for
| a product model. They cannot just sell their tractors as a
| product and treat them like a service when it's convenient.
| syshum wrote:
| >>They do not want to pay anymore than they have to for
| anything
|
| So let me ask you, when you take your car in for service and
| the mechanic says "that will be $100", do you say "no no I can
| afford $150 so that is what I am going to pay"?
|
| it seems odd to me that you believe only farmers do not want to
| pay "more than they have to for anything", I am pretty sure
| that applies to all persons, and all businesses
| dagw wrote:
| No, but if I take my car to two mechanics and one quotes me
| $100 and the other $150, then I might very well go for the
| one quoting me $150 for many different reasons.
| saurik wrote:
| > JD is moving to a Tractor as a Service model.
|
| Then they should be honest about it and rent the tractors
| rather than pretending to sell them.
| bluGill wrote:
| JD leases tractors for those who prefer that model.
| spinningslate wrote:
| > They do not want to pay anymore than they have to for
| anything.
|
| Farmers are also being squeezed by their customers - prices for
| farm produce have been steadily falling for over a century, see
| e.g. [0].
|
| JD's commercial model requires both capital outlay in
| purchasing equipment, _and_ committing to a maintenance
| contract that the farmer can 't influence. So the farmer loses
| control of maintenance costs whilst also under pricing pressure
| for their produce.
|
| I can't speak to your experience obviously, but farming for
| many is a (very) low margin business.
|
| [0]: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-
| gallery/gallery...
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| That chart doesn't mean it's a low margin business. The
| manhours needed to produce a bushel/pound/acre of X has
| plummeted over the past 100 years.
| hackbinary wrote:
| Yeah, I get that. But also, there is no end in the claim of
| how hard the Range Rover driving, fee (private) school
| paying, huge farm house owning farmers in the UK have it.
|
| The vitriol that was extended by a couple of the associates
| (middle managers) to one of my programmers who was vegan was
| absolutely amazing. He just would ask if there was any dairy
| in something a they would go off on him. Around that time I
| also stopped having dairy for health reasons, but that was
| okay. I had previously been sympathetic to farmers and the
| dairy community, but after that, I was appalled. Farmers are
| getting what they deserve.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Most people don't want to pay more than they have to for
| things. This phenomenon often intensifies when talking about
| major inputs to their business.
| checkyoursudo wrote:
| > They do not want to pay anymore than they have to for
| anything.
|
| Who wants to pay more than they have to? I usually want to pay
| even less than I have to.
| hackbinary wrote:
| There is a difference between dehumanising people and making
| them feel worthless and negotiating in good faith, and then
| reneging on agreements.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| > JD is moving to a Tractor as a Service model.
|
| Part of the problem here is that in any other sort of
| <blank>-as-a-service model, you'd be paying MUCH less for the
| "service" than the <blank>. In this case, you're buying the
| capital equipment, and then being forced to buy a service
| contract in order to use it as expected, and keep it running.
| It'd be like buying an iPhone, needing to rent iCloud storage
| to make it convenient, not being able to service it (in any
| meaningful way), and then only being able to run apps from the
| App Store. Oh, wait. It's the same problem, with the same
| ethical and moral conundrum. In our society, a lot of us have
| accepted this deal for a $1,000 phone. However, it's a bit
| different when you're shelling out upwards of half a million
| for a modern tractor.
| newdude116 wrote:
| I don't find the article anymore, but I read that this is the
| reason why US farmers were buying Belorussian tractors
|
| http://belarus-tractor.com/en/company/news/2016/rare-soviet-...
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