Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

uspirg.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 439 posts

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#81

Post by kempbellt »

steve19 wrote: post #56
kempbellt wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm for right-to-repair, but I'll give it a shot in defense of manufacturers. A lot of people assume it's just "evil-corp" greed. All of these reasons are money based, but not necessarily malicious. Liability: If a customer repairs a machine improperly and it causes more problems, or someone gets hurt, it can paint the manufacturer in a bad light. Many farmers know how to operate a tractor safely, but might not know…

> liability When has any company been held liable for a customer modifying it. > distribution channels It might be annoying to create but they won't lose money on parts, it would likely be a profit center, just not as big a center as doing the repairs themselves. They already distribute parts to dealers around the world who service the tractors. > documentation They already have repair documentation that they distrib…

> When has any company been held liable for a customer modifying it.

All the time. Regardless, the liability is to their brand. If someone hears that a John Deere tractor blew up and set a field on fire, they avoid the brand. Even if it was caused by an improper repair.

> They already distribute parts to dealers around the world who service the tractors.

Just guessing here, but I imagine they do this in bulk to local service centers, via a regular distribution chain (on a semi-truck to many service centers) to manage cost. Distributing a part to an individual, or service centers they don't own, would require remodeling their distribution chain. My point is, it's doable, but not cheap, and customers will end up paying for this convenience in the price of the product.

> They already have repair documentation that they distribute to dealerships around the world.

That are used internally... Are your internal docs customer friendly enough to help them repair the most minute problem?

Like I said, I am for right-to-repair and I'd like to see manufacturers move towards these types of models, but it's typically basic market forces that cause manufacturers to act the way they do. Unless I see evidence that someone consciously chose the "No, lets screw over our customers for more money" option, I'm not going to assume mal-intent and start screaming "they're holding customers ransom!" from the hilltops.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#82

Post by OrgNet »

korabas wrote: post #8

Honest question: what would be the rationale to prevent farmers from repairing their machinery themselves instead of through the manufacturer (in this case, Deere)? To my mind, from the point of view of the "user" (i.e. the farmer), that can be seen as somewhat monopolistic. I tried to find similarities between this situation and that of Apple not letting users tamper with their hardware, but it could be argued that…

They can screw the people who know how to repair their stuff and prevent the ones that don't know what they are doing from screwing something up, I guess (none of it make sense)... but of course they make more money this way.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#83

Post by nerdponx »

kaffeemitsahne wrote: post #65
dbcurtis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the early days, farm tractors were pretty simple, and many farmers did a lot of their own work. As machines got bigger, most used local repair shops that could always order from parts depots. But as electronics has invaded tractors (for many good reasons) it has gotten to the point where you really need the diagnostic equipment. So this is a lot like what auto repair was in the early days of the diagnostic plug-in…

I still don't get from your description what the point or motive would be. Who is locking in whom, for what purpose?

Manufacturer locking end users in to the manufacturer's chosen parts and maintenance shops. Like how Apple tries to pretend the only place you can repair a Mac is at the Apple Store.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#84

Post by CharlesColeman »

mschuster91 wrote: post #42
korabas wrote: post #8

Honest question: what would be the rationale to prevent farmers from repairing their machinery themselves instead of through the manufacturer (in this case, Deere)? To my mind, from the point of view of the "user" (i.e. the farmer), that can be seen as somewhat monopolistic. I tried to find similarities between this situation and that of Apple not letting users tamper with their hardware, but it could be argued that…

> Honest question: what would be the rationale to prevent farmers from repairing their machinery themselves instead of through the manufacturer (in this case, Deere)? Simple: an old tractor or truck - give me a decent shop with tools, lifts and a crane, and I can repair almost everything that is broken. Some light doesn't work, engine doesn't turn on? Hand me a multimeter and I can troubleshoot it. Modern cars, truck…

> Good luck for average Joe Farmer troubleshooting why the hydraulic valve doesn't work? Can be everything from a faulty valve or cabin switch over broken shielding somewhere along the CAN (or other) high speed bus leading to garbled transmissions to a software bug somewhere in the control unit. The farmer can easily fix a broken component - but good luck finding the issue in the latter two failure modes, I doubt it's even possible for a small freelance shop as it requires HF communications or IT knowledge combined with specialized tooling (signal analyzer, some kind of debugging tool for the CU).

If the machine was built for reparability, it could have built-in diagnostics that could greatly help troubleshoot those kind of problems.

For instance, couldn't broken shielding leading to garbled transmissions be partially diagnosed if error rates over the cable are tracked and a warning displayed that identifies the part in question?

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#85

Post by hathawsh »

trenning wrote: post #74
wiremine wrote: post #58

Disclaimer: I'm a VP for an IoT software company. I also grew up in farming communities. I'm all for the right to repair, but I'm concerned we're creating a bit of false hope for famers. As more and more software gets injected into the equipment, "fixing" things requires touching both the physical devices and the software. Obviously, the right to repair for non-software related problems is easy to understand. I'm won…

Look to the automotive industry then. I owned a shop as a mechanic for several years working on euro cars mainly as well as a lot of track cars. The software in cars has gotten insanely advanced, and yet independent shops are still able to service cars because there's support from 3rd parties on diagnostic equipment from companies like Snap-on who make diagnostic equipment. Look at the auto enthusiast market for stan…

Is communication with the ECU encrypted in some cars? Will it be in the future? If that happens, it will become much harder to replace components with aftermarket devices.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#86

Post by nwallin »

yobananaboy wrote: post #9

I'm shocked someone actually voted no. What would their justification for that vote be? Legit curious if they had a proper argument, didn't understand the issue, or if it was some type of corporate influence.

They might be running old equipment whose only electronic equipment is the spark plugs and headlights. The people who don't upgrade old equipment tend to fall very heavily in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" camp, and this applies equally to legislation as well as farm equipment.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#87

Post by bdamm »

hathawsh wrote: post #85
trenning wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look to the automotive industry then. I owned a shop as a mechanic for several years working on euro cars mainly as well as a lot of track cars. The software in cars has gotten insanely advanced, and yet independent shops are still able to service cars because there's support from 3rd parties on diagnostic equipment from companies like Snap-on who make diagnostic equipment. Look at the auto enthusiast market for stan…

Is communication with the ECU encrypted in some cars? Will it be in the future? If that happens, it will become much harder to replace components with aftermarket devices.

It seems to me that it must be, since we're going to have self driving cars depending on all the components in the car working within a tight specification. How can manufacturers assure that the customer's car is still safe and won't randomly kill people or become weaponized? This is presumably a liability issue, and obviously a marketing issue as well. (And instead of "encrypted" I read "authenticated".) Does right to repair also come with feature reduction? By this I mean... go ahead and fix your car and put in whatever components you want, but know that as soon as you put in non-official parts, the car won't drive itself any more.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#88

Post by yorwba »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #70
vorpalhex wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lineage depends on the community to issue device specific builds. For instance, my dual sim traveling phone has no official Lineage support, but is well supported through the community (and indeed, everything works quite well). I do wish Lineage had a way to promote and adopt community versions more officially.

> I do wish Lineage had a way to promote and adopt community versions more officially. They do. That's what official support is. https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ But they're a dead project.

Last change 4 minutes ago: https://review.lineageos.org/q/status:open

Looks quite alive to me.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#89

Post by bdamm »

squish78 wrote: post #61
wiremine wrote: post #58

Disclaimer: I'm a VP for an IoT software company. I also grew up in farming communities. I'm all for the right to repair, but I'm concerned we're creating a bit of false hope for famers. As more and more software gets injected into the equipment, "fixing" things requires touching both the physical devices and the software. Obviously, the right to repair for non-software related problems is easy to understand. I'm won…

Less reliance on the tech sector for hardware solutions, and more research in logistics and supply chain. Let farmers farm. They are proving that it can be done with more profitability acre-for-acre with hand tools than tractors https://www.neversinkfarm.com/

That is patently absurd. There is a reason why nearly every corn and wheat farm has a combine.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#90

Post by squish78 »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #75
squish78 wrote: post #59

This is excellent news, and good awareness for the ag sector. The most existential threat to human survival is the consolidation of the farm sector. If any industry needs to be decentralized (for the sake of resiliency) it's agriculture. We don't want to create single points of failure in the food supply Urban USA doesn't can't comprehend the fact that famine is a logistical possibility if finance/tech fucks up farmi…

Many people will argue that finance / tech have already fucked up farming.

I would agree, but we're not yet to the point of massive famine and crop failures - although it seems closer year after year. Every farmer I talk to is worn out and tired of the bullshit.
Post reply on HN