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For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

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Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#181

Post by jessant »

andrepd wrote: post #177
earlINmeyerkeg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greatest innovation in the history of mankind was a land consolidation. It took what 100 peasants all making enough food for subsistence living to 100 peasants be able to make enough food for thousands of people. It's not sad, it's progress.

Land consolidation can be done through communes/co-ops, in which case the benefits of increased productivity are fairly distributed, or through private corporations, in which case profits are privatised and concentrated on a small owner elite class.

Nothing stopping people from doing that.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#182

Post by miker64 »

jerf wrote: post #134
asdff wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much all audio equipment falls into this as well. A vintage marantz stereo is going to sound better than nearly anything on the floor at best buy today, and if something goes wrong you either pop in a new part and take the thing to someone who can solder a wire and read a schematic. Unlike a modern stereo that's a hunk of junk if a piece of critical plastic snaps in half or a cheap quality solder on the silico…

But how does the "vintage marantz" sound compared to something you can buy with, say, an hour's research with an internet search engine? Including price? I don't know the answer to that. But I do know from experience that while your average $15 headbuds are total, absolute, utter garbage, that if you do your research there are $15 headbuds that sound pretty good. They may not be $100+ quality headphones, but for some…

> But how does the "vintage marantz" sound compared to something you can buy with, say, an hour's research with an internet search engine? Including price?

Considerably better in the sub $300 range, and depends at the $600+ range. I'd personally go with the Marantz still, but I'd want to do some serious a/b testing.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#183

Post by metalliqaz »

matmann2001 wrote: post #170
scarmig wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Milking your customers is not good for business, especially if you drive them into insolvency. It clearly is good for business, even if it's bad for customers and society at large. Pretending it's bad for business just encourages complacency because it suggests that the natural discipline of the market will drive the milkers out of business and encourage good business practices. But that doesn't happen, and if we w…

It's great for business, in the short term. And that's all that really matters to shareholders.

in the short term... and in the long term often enough, because those short term gains can be used for all kinds of naughtiness later on. monopoly, regulatory capture, rent-seeking, and so on.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#184

Post by masonhensley »

gen220 wrote: post #147

We recently had to bin a beloved TV, and were looking for a "simple" 4k TV (i.e. not a smart TV ) to replace it, and were surprised to find that they simply don't exist! We ended up uncovering a 6 year old 1080p TV that was still in the box at Best Buy. All in all, this problem might present an opportunity -- there might be new markets for these types of devices (dumb TVs, tractors, refrigerators, air conditioners, t…

The Sceptre TV's available at Walmart don't have smart features in them (yet).

https://www.walmart.com/browse/electronics/sceptre-tvs/3944_...

- 65 inch (4k) - $350

- 55 inch (4k) - $240

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#186

Post by vibrolax »

josephorjoe wrote: post #48
lostgame wrote: post #18

This is one of the single best examples of the ludicrous nature of the recent pattern of loss of right-to-repair with regards to software and hardware control. John Deere is literally bottom-barrel scum of, well, I guess, now - the tech industry - and it's their own fault that farmers are turning to purchasing older models. '“There’s an affinity factor if you grew up around these tractors, but it goes way beyond that…

I'm not a farmer and I am a software engineer, but I'm with the famers here. I want as little software in my products as possible. I've been shopping for some audio equipment, and noticed that the latest version of an audio interface I'm interested in has replaced hardware switches on the device with software controls run from an attached computer. I was immediately turned off by the new version and will likely buy a…

Exactly. Many years before everyone started buying computer controlled home audio playback devices, hobbyists and pros built or bought their digital audio workstations whose buss interfaces and device drivers made them subject to rapid forced obsolescence. One doesn't mind replacing working hardware so much when new models offer better performance. But once the tech matures, one resents _upgrades_ forced by firmware / OS / application software issues. Especially so when the performance becomes worse for one's use case.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#187

Post by VRay »

catalogia wrote: post #169
solatic wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In today's market, your argument doesn't hold water. A new brand would need to start from smaller than scratch? So what? People start new companies every day. It would require tens of millions of dollars of investment? So what? We keep being told how capital markets are just sloshing with cash looking for investment opportunities; that one of the reasons for rising inequality is due to the dearth of investment opport…

Manufacturing industrial equipment is a far cry from your typical ycombinator style mobile-app startup.

Imagine, they could be the next WeWork!

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#188

Post by cmcd »

wolco wrote: post #172
sl1ck731 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could be said for robots displacing humans in factories or trucks or anywhere else. That doesn't make it less sad for people's whose livelihoods depend on those positions just because its technological progress.

What is the fear around robots? Machines have been displacing human labour for the last 100 years.

During the industrial revolution hard labor jobs transitioned to maintenance work for the machines. The problem is as we improve at automation the need for non-technical maintenance decreases.

A small team of engineers can displace thousands or tens of thousands of workers without creating any new opportunities.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#189

Post by earlINmeyerkeg »

andrepd wrote: post #177
earlINmeyerkeg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greatest innovation in the history of mankind was a land consolidation. It took what 100 peasants all making enough food for subsistence living to 100 peasants be able to make enough food for thousands of people. It's not sad, it's progress.

Land consolidation can be done through communes/co-ops, in which case the benefits of increased productivity are fairly distributed, or through private corporations, in which case profits are privatised and concentrated on a small owner elite class.

There are dairy co-ops where I live that do this sort of thing. That's why they're so huge. However the small ma and pop ones that have local well known businesses charge an arm and a leg for half a gallon of milk. Yeah sorry, I'll pay half that cost for a gallon at walmart, thanks.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#190

Post by ahoy »

jessant wrote: post #181
andrepd wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land consolidation can be done through communes/co-ops, in which case the benefits of increased productivity are fairly distributed, or through private corporations, in which case profits are privatised and concentrated on a small owner elite class.

Nothing stopping people from doing that.

There is an enormous body of law in the US that incentivizes a top-down corporate business structure and disincentives a co-op business structure.
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