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

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

startribune.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 511 posts

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

#211

Post by LgWoodenBadger »

minikites wrote: post #96
Vesuvium wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These companies are losing customers. That is never good for business. Eventually, someone will take the matter into his own hand and start making 80s-like tractors, so these companies will lose even more customers. They could do the same, but at this point they lost the trust of their customers, so it will be very hard to gain them back.

Really? Which products are getting more repairable with time? Nobody is bringing back easily repairable washing machines or easily repairable automobiles.

Lots of products are more repairable now, by the owner, primarily due to the internet (YouTube specifically), along with websites dedicated to providing schematics and parts lists/ordering (Appliance Parts Pros, etc.).

I've personally repaired a broken dishwasher (temperature sensor's solder busted), the hot-surface ignitor of a gas-fired water heater, the water-filter socket of my frig, and helped a friend repair the ignitor in his gas-fired dryer.

All thanks to Youtube videos with instructions/tutorials, and the availability of parts.

Prior to these, I would have had to call a repairman, and then he'd probably say "you need a whole control board" or "the unit's dead."

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

#212

Post by dekhn »

I work with CNC and 3D printing, but I still enjoy my chisels and plane. There's something satisfying knowing the tool you're using is one people have used for thousands of years (with minor incremental updates to the technology) and it's still the best tool for the job.

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

#213

Post by 8note »

earlINmeyerkeg wrote: post #189
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.

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.

how much of that is government subsidies?

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

#214

Post by StanislavPetrov »

minikites wrote: post #90
brenden2 wrote: post #16

The 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…

>I hope in the future there are more companies that try to align incentives with their customers Sometimes the invisible hand is invisible because it's not there. I don't understand how "fewer regulations" is supposed to address problems like these, or really any market failure state.

Perhaps if you consider "regulations" like the DMCAA, "intellectual copyright" laws, patent laws and a host of other laws and regulations that criminalize the repair or alteration of machinery or other items that have been purchased you might garner a better understanding. If farmers weren't prevented by law from repairing or altering the equipment they've purchased this problem largely would not exist.

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

#215

Post by ngneer »

This may be the single most important information security problem worth solving on our planet. This is not about who gets to see the latest movie at what resolution, it is about vendors and farmers fighting for control of the plant, in this case the tractor, and indirectly its yields. I think the world needs an open source tractor, or else am hoping the right to repair movement addresses these difficulties.

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

#216

Post by jay_kyburz »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #54
sneak wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If customers don’t want this stuff, why isn’t there a competing company offering non-DRM tractors?

> If customers don’t want this stuff, why isn’t there a competing company offering non-DRM tractors? Because modern capitalism is not a system that will magically fulfill customer needs, despite propaganda to the contrary. The way the system actually works is that the wants/needs of the capital-holders take priority over the wants/needs of other stakeholders (e.g. customers and workers). The other stakeholders are of…

I wonder how many presales a company would need to collect to make it worthwhile spinning up a tractor manufacturing plant.

Deere would need to decide whether to drop DRM to prevent your presale campaign.

If they do the consumer wins, and the new company can refund the presales and walk away.

If they don't you get your tractor manufacturing setup build and are then in the game.

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

#217

Post by jv22222 »

earlINmeyerkeg wrote: post #128
macinjosh wrote: post #98

My grandfather, rest his soul, was a 3rd generation rancher and farmer. He bought 2 John Deere tractors in the '80s and used them for 35 years. They are still being used to this day on the ranch. Growing up, I visited the ranch regularly. Farming and ranching is very hard on equipment so the tractors often needed repair. My father and grandfather could seemingly fix anything on the tractor without even needing to go…

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.

I heard somewhere that the greatest innovation (the most impactful at the particular stage of our evolution) was the bicycle, because, it enabled human cross breeding over much larger distances at a much faster rate than possible before.

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

#218

Post by jay_kyburz »

skywhopper wrote: post #57
sneak wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If customers don’t want this stuff, why isn’t there a competing company offering non-DRM tractors?

Because it would be really expensive to start a new tractor manufacturing business; it would take years to even get prototypes up and running; you'd still have to prove that your tractors were as good as or better than these 40 year old antiques (which they probably wouldn't be at first); you'd have to be able to make something that could meet safety and efficiency standards of today while giving up the advantages of…

Could you not simply copy the 40 year old tractors almost exactly. Any patents should be expired.

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

#219

Post by logfromblammo »

Diederich wrote: post #85
svachalek wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I also put large household appliances in this category. They've been getting more expensive and more fragile for decades, without much real progress other than energy efficiency which is unrelated to the fragility afaik.

Do you think normal gas powered cars have have been getting less reliable? I agree with what many others here have said about how hard it is to service new vehicles. After he died, I kept my grandpa's 1970 Chevy C-10 pickup going for years. It was simple and very easy to fix/work on. But it needed a lot more attention than modern cars, and I think that while the age played a factor, it was just inherently less reliab…

The individual parts have been getting more reliable, but they keep adding more points of failure.

Like airbags. First, there was an airbag on the steering column. Then, there was one added to the passenger-side dashboard. Then they added side-curtain bags for head and hips. If you move the air bag reliability from 95% to 99%, but then add six more air bags, that's a 93.2% chance none will be bad. And if you cut the price of one airbag to 30%, but then add six more, that's still spending twice as much on airbags total. In some cars, an airbag deployment event totals the car. Cheaper to buy a new one than to replace all the air bags. Never mind the body damage.

If you made a car with 1980 features out of 2020 parts, it would be lighter, cheaper, and more reliable. But it would also have 1980 gas mileage and safety features, and you'd be back to hand-cranked windows.

Some of the newer features are worth the weight and complexity. Others are not. There could definitely be a market for a $5000 new car that requires little servicing, that can all be done at home without special tools, and 30 miles to the gallon--not from complex engine designs, or tricks like shutting down 2 cylinders in a 6 cylinder engine, but just from being lightweight with a good engine design.

Anyone else remember when the car radio only had one speaker? When you could see around the A columns without moving your head? When the automatic part of the transmission was just pneumatically controlling the clutch for the paddle-shifted manual?

We have the technology now to make a crapbox deathtrap that only needs to slow down to under 15 mph somewhere near a quicklube every 15000 miles, in order to last 500000 miles. The stripped-down car concept is explored by Polaris with the Slingshot, which is legally classified as a motorcycle, in order to build to a lower passenger safety standard. You're going to wear a helmet in your car, right? [wink]

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

#220

Post by quacked »

earlINmeyerkeg wrote: post #189
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.

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.

Your choice unfortunately affects the greater world. Which would you rather have- a locally-produced society that's expensive to live in, or a Walmart society that's convenient to live in?
Post reply on HN