Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors • Hacker News Board

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#31

Post by Ygg2 » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 9:53 AM UTC

louis___ wrote: post #8

antibuddy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand the incentive for people to innovate and make it accessible to anyone is often money. The criticism of capitalism is warranted, however the supposedly bad capitalist IP system is also the reason for innovation and cooperation.

This rethoric has been proven false in the software development ecosystem. Nowadays almost all new programming languages are open-source, and *nix OS softwares have won the cultural battle over Windows in the devops community. > the supposedly bad capitalist IP system is also the reason for innovation and cooperation For me this is as much a myth as the good old "the wealth trickles down from the rich to the poor"

> This rethoric has been proven false in the software development ecosystem.

Citation needed.

I like open source software, but let's just say often you don't want OSS community to design an interface or maintain it.

Inkscape is on one hand a great tool, on the other hand, it just bogs down doing routine things like zoom or rotate canvas.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#32

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 9:53 AM UTC

edulix wrote: post #24

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pleasse stop rehashing free market platitudes without any thinking. Look at the actual manufacturers, realise that noone is producing simple tractors any more, where are they going to come from?

So farmers would buy in mass simple tractors, making the manufacturer that does it alone rich amasing a huge segment of the market. But no manufacturer wants to do it. And no venture capital wants to finance such thing. Because.. I guess.. these evil capitalists just don't want to make more money. Is that the argument? That capitalists don't want to make more money?

[deleted]

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#33

Post by dncornholio » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 9:56 AM UTC

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..

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#34

Post by apples_oranges » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 9:57 AM UTC

patrickmclaren wrote: post #14

Glavnokoman wrote: post #10

In the end market should take of this. If repairability is a major concern for the farmers they would just eventually buy the tractors with less of a high-tech bells and whistles. And also cheaper I guess.

Can you expand on how this would come to be, in practice?

Well, it's not that hard to imagine, is it? Someone founds a company that produces tractors but they are simpler, cheaper and can be repaired. If that's what customers want, they _will_ gain market share. If not, then the demand isn't there.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#35

Post by hans1729 » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 9:57 AM UTC

w3news wrote: post #18

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…

>But i think the same problem is for cars, you cannot e.g. repair your Tesla everywhere, this is also very closed.

The repairment-strategy for Teslas in Germany seems to be pretty simple. You just buy a new one :-)

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#36

Post by theshrike79 » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 9:57 AM UTC

sackerhews wrote: post #6

Making something that only you can repair can be quite a lucrative business. This documentary is quite interesting: McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4

A similar thing is happening with EVs.

Many car dealers don't make their money from selling cars, they make most of their money from being the only authorized repair shop for said car model. And to keep the warranty valid, you need to service the car at an authorized shop.

EVs, by design, don't require as much maintenance or as often as ICE cars. This will result in a disruption in the existing chain at some point. We'll see what actually happens in 5-10 years.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#37

Post by buro9 » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 10:00 AM UTC

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.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#38

Post by brobdingnagians » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 10:01 AM UTC

beckman466 wrote: post #2

> 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. > Howeve…

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.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#39

Post by the_biot » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 10:03 AM UTC

There is a lot of misinformation about this. At face value, articles like this imply you're not able or allowed to fix mechanical issues, how dare they!

What they don't mention is that manufacturers protect their electronic gear i.e. the consoles inside the machine that use GPS to run a field, adjust the attachment acccording to various sensors etc. This is very sophisticated stuff, and farmers need and want this functionality.

Farmers aren't wanting their old 1950s-era tractors back. They want more control over the software -- and in particular don't want to pay for it. And while as an open source type myself I'm sympathetic to this, I'm suspicious about the outright bullshit in articles like this.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#40

Post by remirk » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 10:06 AM UTC

sackerhews wrote: post #6

Making something that only you can repair can be quite a lucrative business. This documentary is quite interesting: McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4

Great conclusion. This video could have been summarized in 10 minutes though. For the most part, no real information about the problem was given. I guess this is just how YouTube documentaires in 2021 are.