My understanding is that farming equipment is quite specialized, but I fail to see how no entrepreneur has capitalized on making "old school" tractors today. The immediate retort is that John Deere's approach is maximally profitable-- but is it? Sketchy websites host hacked firmware giving farmers the freedom to work on their own tractors anyways. The equipment manufacturers have lost their goodwill with farmers. From the ashes could rise a new firm that doesn't try to act so, well, crony. Even if they didn't end up as big as the incumbents, there's no doubt a profitable business exists with ephemeral sales of farming equipment that don't mandate expensive maintenance from your company's people.
For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
21–30 of 511 posts
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#22The technology itself is not the issue, the problem is that companies are at war with their customers. These companies will go to any length to extract as much revenue as possible. Milking your customers is not good for business, especially if you drive them into insolvency. I hope in the future there are more companies that try to align incentives with their customers, such that their business practices help custome…
If customers don’t want this stuff, why isn’t there a competing company offering non-DRM tractors?
Because the bigger companies forced them out of business or acquired them.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#23The technology itself is not the issue, the problem is that companies are at war with their customers. These companies will go to any length to extract as much revenue as possible. Milking your customers is not good for business, especially if you drive them into insolvency. I hope in the future there are more companies that try to align incentives with their customers, such that their business practices help custome…
If customers don’t want this stuff, why isn’t there a competing company offering non-DRM tractors?
Because there is no competition in the US.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#24The technology itself is not the issue, the problem is that companies are at war with their customers. These companies will go to any length to extract as much revenue as possible. Milking your customers is not good for business, especially if you drive them into insolvency. I hope in the future there are more companies that try to align incentives with their customers, such that their business practices help custome…
If customers don’t want this stuff, why isn’t there a competing company offering non-DRM tractors?
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#25There is probably a sizable market for building out software and technology for 'upgrading' older farm equipment to modern principals, such as self driving, variable rate fertilization, variable rate planting, etc. When I was more involved in ag research I met several farmers who DIY built themselves variable rate fertilization drills. While its not ubiquitous, the farming community has a very long culture of DIY out…
I've heard of farmers going so far as to make their own GPS guidance systems, enhanced before they were widely available and reasonably priced. I'm not sure how accurate and repeatable they were.
Going to any farm that's been around for 20+ years, you'd see so many custom solutions that are really functional.
Farmer one-off solutions are kind of like homebrew Excel applications - they're infinitely customizable, the end user knows exactly how it should work and can reasonably make it happen, and it's a small fraction of the cost of a commercial/IT SOLUTION. It may not be as reliable, but it's good enough.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vote with your wallet.
Vote with your vote. As far as I know only two candidates in the presidential primary race support right-to-repair: Sanders and Warren.
Because the shortest path to fixing anything is always electing a politician who knows nothing about that thing, in order to have them approve legislation written by other people who know nothing about that thing, that demands that companies do a thing. That always works great.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vote with your vote. As far as I know only two candidates in the presidential primary race support right-to-repair: Sanders and Warren.
Yet, farmers will keep voting against their interests and vote for a Republican who is being lobbied by these same companies taking away their right-to-repair.
That remains to be seen, but if all that's on offer are corporate-backed candidates then the Republican strategy of focusing on cultural issues will definitely win in rural areas.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#28The technology itself is not the issue, the problem is that companies are at war with their customers. These companies will go to any length to extract as much revenue as possible. Milking your customers is not good for business, especially if you drive them into insolvency. I hope in the future there are more companies that try to align incentives with their customers, such that their business practices help custome…
Farmers are doing the same thing, especially big midwest grain operations.
The family farmers are dinosaurs that will be out of business anyway. The regulatory framework, market consolidation and finances work against them. The only way to thrive is to be really big or really small.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#29Right to repair laws need to be put in place.
American corporations are trying to reach a point where you don't own products. You are merely long-term renting or leasing products from them. And any alterations or repairs will come with a heavy price.
It's already hard enough to repair your own vehicle without taking it to a dealership. How long until small car shops can't even fix any cars if they don't have the tools or software.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#30"These things, they’re basically bulletproof. You can put 15,000 hours on it and if something breaks you can just replace it.”
Amen.
It is true that there is always someone saying "Things were better back then."
But that doesn't always mean that they are wrong.