[HN Gopher] Right to Repair Groups and Farmers Unions File FTC C...
___________________________________________________________________
Right to Repair Groups and Farmers Unions File FTC Complaint
Against John Deere
Author : pseudolus
Score : 99 points
Date : 2022-03-05 12:31 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
| ford wrote:
| I know close to nothing about tractors - but I see posts about
| John Deere on here quite frequently.
|
| Are there competing tractor companies? Or is the issue that
| people have already purchased tractors and can't repair those,
| and given the opportunity they'd swap out their existing John
| Deere for some other brand
| HWR_14 wrote:
| There are other brands, but Deere controls more than half the
| market. But as importantly, tractors aren't dumb machines.
| There are inputs in material and labor designed to work with
| them. So it might be that the farmers would have opted into the
| entire other ecosystem, but it also might be that due to
| escalating network effects they cannot do so without moving to
| a new farm in a different area.
|
| > Or is the issue that people have already purchased tractors
| and can't repair those
|
| They also claim that Deere made some promises in 2018 about
| changing the repairability. And that if they were false-
| advertised to. But "swapping" is difficult, because the
| machines are huge and expensive as well as part of a bigger
| ecosystem.
| CivBase wrote:
| Kinze, Case IH, New Holland, Massey Ferguson... yeah, there are
| many competitors to John Deere in the tractor industry. Sort of
| like how there are many competitors to Apple in the smartphone
| industry.
|
| Saddly, "repairable" just isn't all that competitive of a
| feature. Probably because it's really hard to measure before
| you purchase a product.
| mattlondon wrote:
| I would have thought that repairable was a _huge_ competitive
| selling point for agriculture.
|
| From what little I know of farming, these machines work very
| hard and are indispensable. Often it appears there are very
| tight deadlines (harvest, weather etc) where you have like a
| 24-72 hour window to get something done otherwise the whole
| year's work is wasted.
|
| If a machine can't be easily fixed, then you are up shit
| creek and your entire livelihood could be on the line.
| sowbug wrote:
| The issue is whether you can repair your machinery
| yourself, not whether it can be repaired.
| mindslight wrote:
| Speaking as someone who has no farming experience, but lots
| of general DIY experience, I would guess the two are seen
| as dichotomous. If you're buying older equipment, then
| repairability is very important (it's probably already got
| broken bits, which is why it's being sold). Whereas if
| you're buying a new extremely expensive John Deere, you
| want something that "just works" and the upkeep you're
| planning for is the financing. You're not looking down the
| line planning to repair it yourself, because if you were
| going to do that you would just buy an older machine and
| repair it today.
| foepys wrote:
| The other replies mentioned tooling and equipment but it's also
| very, very important for farmers to have mechanics and spare
| parts available nearby. Farmers often only have one or two days
| to harvest and when stuff breaks down, it needs to get fixed
| asap. Every hour counts and a day long delay can result in
| losses in the tens of thousands of dollars. So a competitor not
| only needs to make better tractors and equipment but also needs
| a tight supplier network across the region or country.
|
| Plus tractors are just computers on wheels nowadays. The amount
| of technology in modern machinery is mind boggling. Some German
| (and possibly others) farmers are streaming their day work on
| Twitch and give interesting insights into modern farming.
| adreamingsoul wrote:
| Tractors are considerably expensive. Yes, there are other
| brands, but they too have issues.
|
| Finding the right tractor for a farm is a time consuming task,
| and currently it will take 6+ months to receive a new tractor.
|
| Swapping a tractor requires having another tractor for farm
| tasks, or delaying farm tasks until the swap is complete.
| Delaying farm tasks is not really an option, as that can
| negatively impact the overall operation.
|
| Another thing to think about is all the tooling, equipment, and
| accessories that are used with a tractor. These also have
| requirements of what type of tractor is used, and which
| features it has.
| mrbadideas wrote:
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-03-05 23:02 UTC)