I just want to throw my 2¢ 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)
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
> I just want to throw my 2¢ 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.
> 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.
>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.
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.
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. :(
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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..
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,...
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
Farmers do not want to pay for anything. My dealings with people in the farming community is that completely devalue everything around as a négociation 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
> 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.
[+] [-] FractalParadigm|4 years ago|reply
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)
[+] [-] etempleton|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] randomdata|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] _wldu|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] mikey_p|4 years ago|reply
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)
[+] [-] dalbasal|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sybercecurity|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] swiley|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tabular-Iceberg|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dehrmann|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] hippari|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] kickout|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _the_inflator|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buro9|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] saurik|4 years ago|reply
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. :(
[+] [-] freeopinion|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] mikey_p|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tehaugmenter|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willtim|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] syshum|4 years ago|reply
Higher TCO, lower ROI, but hey those quarterly reports look great...
[+] [-] silicon2401|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] nimbius|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] gerbilly|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] MisterTea|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] selfhoster11|4 years ago|reply
Sounds like a market failure if there is money left on the table but no competitor who wants to grab it for themselves.
[+] [-] dncornholio|4 years ago|reply
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..
[+] [-] ajsnigrutin|4 years ago|reply
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,...
[+] [-] zepto|4 years ago|reply
The only explanation given in this thread seems to be ‘branding’.
[+] [-] tim333|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wscott|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] w3news|4 years ago|reply
But i think the same problem is for cars, you cannot e.g. repair your Tesla everywhere, this is also very closed.
[+] [-] sackerhews|4 years ago|reply
McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
[+] [-] po1nt|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MikeUt|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] bbsimonbb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petewailes|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] _wldu|4 years ago|reply
Late 80s and early 90s Toyotas will be sold at a premium as will any/all old Ford F-150 trucks.
[+] [-] hackbinary|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] beckman466|4 years ago|reply
> 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|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] GuB-42|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] maxerickson|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] newdude116|4 years ago|reply
http://belarus-tractor.com/en/company/news/2016/rare-soviet-...
[+] [-] VMtest|4 years ago|reply
1. https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/Main_Page
2. https://youtu.be/hl7lZZP21c8 | Open Building Institute - Introductory Video
3. https://www.youtube.com/user/marcinose/playlists | Marcin Jakubowski
4. https://youtu.be/S63Cy64p2lQ | Civilization starter kit | Marcin Jakubowski | TEDxKC
[+] [-] praptak|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _wldu|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdikatz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbg31415|4 years ago|reply
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|4 years ago|reply
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.