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Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

farms.com

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Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#191

Post by throwaway292893 »

etempleton wrote: post #186
throwaway292893 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. What an incredibly offensive comment. I love how HN understands the right to repair when it comes to their gadgets, but when it comes to tractors it's probably because the farmers are uneducated hicks. Please tell me more how they don't understand AG science enough, but you have such a strong grasp on it. JD tractors were and are reliable and top tier in quality, that's why they are popular and that's why people…

I am sorry you took offense to the comment, it was not meant to be offensive. I never claimed to have any grasp on agriculture science. And I never called anyone a "hick." And of course I am speaking in generalities. Simply observing what I saw growing up. I grew up on a small farm (though I certainly would never call myself a farmer) and grew up with farmers of all types and all income levels. Some chose to be willf…

The tone of your comment changed dramatically in this reply. You didn't have to say hick, you implied it with your uneducated rant. You simply don't understand why they want a John Deere, and it's not because they are uneducated.

Also, maybe never try to shove people into categories, especially only 3 categories. Especially one category being "uneducated". You reached all that from a topic about repairing tractors and their choice of brand. Think about that.

Your "anecdote" doesn't match my experience and it lines up with an outsider perspective with a dash of elitism. You said you don't know anything about AG science, so how could you judge others knowledge of it?

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#192

Post by taylodl »

mitchell_h wrote: post #171
mikey_p wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what scale you're talking about, but Kubota doesn't really compete with Deere on larger tractors. I don't see any tracked options from Kubota and their tractors don't really go much over 200 horsepower. Deere and Kubota only really compete at the smaller/utility side of things. Also the reason people get locked into Deere isn't just the tractors, but the vertical integration. Can you run your John Deere NT o…

I live in an extremely rural area. The Deere integrations are a huge reason. Another that's not talked about is Deere field service. It's just DAMN GOOD. If you're running a serious tractor(7-9 series ) and it's the middle of planting/harvest hours can be the difference between red and black margins. Deere will roll out a team with 30ft trailer of parts out in hours if you have an issue. CaseIH will sorta match this,…

Exactly, and at the moment in time you don't care about "right to repair" - you need to get back up and running now. Which has led me to believe "right to repair" is a ruse, but for what?

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#194

Post by sybercecurity »

FractalParadigm wrote: post #49

I just want to throw my 2¢ out there, as a mid-20's who went to a high-rural-population high school, there's an entire new generation of farmers who have a) accepted that Deere's need constant/regular service calls, and b) don't care to learn how to fix it (or older equipment) themselves. At the end of the day farming is just a business same as any other, it's the same reason why a lot of trucking companies lease the…

(not to pile on)

Right to repair also covers independent/third party service. People may not want to repair the hardware themselves, but they may want to take it to a cheaper/closer third party to repair it. The local JD service may be in the next county, but there may be a local mechanic that could repair the tractor, but cannot due to restrictions, licensing, etc.

Of course you may not want the local guy to try because they may not be competent enough, but people think that should be the owner's decision, not the manufacturer's.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#195

Post by shagie »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #60

If John Deere were being honest they wouldn't sell tractors, but lease them with the cost of repair built into the yearly fee. If "parts and repairs are up to six times more profitable than selling the equipment itself" eventually they will ruin their brand and people will purchase other brands.

That approach might work... if they were leased the same way that airplane engines are - by hours running. ( https://www.rrpf-leasing.com/home )

If you lease it with a calendar time instead, it would make it uneconomical for either JD (in the case of multiple farms sharing the same equipment and logging #x times more hours on the equipment) or for smaller operators (where JD prices it for the 'its running 7 days a week' when its only running 1 day a week).

It would also be necessary to make sure that there's no way to circumvent that running time clock on the devices with 3rd party software.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#196

Post by skeeter2020 »

markhahn wrote: post #193

Not just farmers and tractors eh? Perhaps we should push beyond merely protecting the right to repair, but figuring out how to incentivize standardization and open protocols.

we got to this point building almost entirely on incentivized standards and open protocols. It's only in the past ~20 years that we've started to replay the telephone company cycle that required the intervention and kicked off the greatest innovation anyone alive has ever seen. I'm not confident that the same governments are prepared to do this again with the current crop of "to big to fail" effective monopolies, which could mean a sea change in global competition.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#197

Post by Boxxed »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #70
wscott wrote: post #67

People also want control over the information collected from their farming equipment and sent to headquarters. The machines collect information about exactly how much of which crops are planted and then at the end of the year it knows exactly the yield as it is being harvested. Knowing yields before anyone else is very valuable.

oh now that is interesting. And possibly the first real 'privacy' issue I have seen that has serious teeth.

Apple/Google and friends have just as much power. Seeing where people are shopping is the same thing -- I bet they had evidence of the decline of malls before anyone else, for instance.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#198

Post by skeeter2020 »

mhb wrote: post #15
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

Or maybe not. Extensive discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26936774

McDonalds has very strong incentives to reduce labour costs to zero. This started with very clear & limited roles which meant cheap rates, but now means reducing the number of employees. At $5/hour it's cheaper to train and manage people to do the job; @ > $15/hr you can justify an army of machines and a few technicians, even if your ice cream machine seems to be broken a lot of the time.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#199

Post by missedthecue »

swiley wrote: post #177
HPsquared wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't get to just buy a different brand of government though, unlike tractors.

Commodities tend to have very low profit margin. It wouldn't be surprising if organizations like John deer sell their tractors at a steep loss temporarily which could prevent farmers from being able to buy other brands.

John Deere MSRP is well above most competition.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#200

Post by etempleton »

throwaway292893 wrote: post #191
etempleton wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry you took offense to the comment, it was not meant to be offensive. I never claimed to have any grasp on agriculture science. And I never called anyone a "hick." And of course I am speaking in generalities. Simply observing what I saw growing up. I grew up on a small farm (though I certainly would never call myself a farmer) and grew up with farmers of all types and all income levels. Some chose to be willf…

The tone of your comment changed dramatically in this reply. You didn't have to say hick, you implied it with your uneducated rant. You simply don't understand why they want a John Deere, and it's not because they are uneducated. Also, maybe never try to shove people into categories, especially only 3 categories. Especially one category being "uneducated". You reached all that from a topic about repairing tractors an…

I appreciate your feedback. I phrased poorly. By uneducated I never meant formal education exclusively. There are many ways to learn and I personally find self study to be the most effective.

And I am sorry I came across as elitist, I grew up lower to lower-middle class, and my parents grew up dirt poor. As my mother would say, "you come from a long line of poor farmers."

I judge because those students who actively refused to learn were my peers...sometimes my relatives. Again, I would say it was 50/50. Some of those individuals were very well off, and now struggle to manage the farm they inherited. Others grew up in poverty and now have advanced degrees, or have otherwise educated themselves and run a very successful farm or now own a very successful farm.

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