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Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’

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Re: Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’

#131

Post by asdff »

thelittleone wrote: post #63

Am I being overly cynical in concluding that a growing % of companies will screw over their customers for their own gain. Doesn't this myopic "screw the customer" mentality damage brand reputation? Sure does for me. The growing discontent amongst a companies customer base is creating a new market opportunity for a competitor. When I feel screwed by a company like this, I find a good alternative, then jump ship and NE…

This isn't anything new to be fair. Marketing books from the early 1900s talk about the strategy of attracting your flock of customers with a product but then cutting costs by offering a substandard product after you've created a reputation with the initial quality product.

Re: Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’

#132

Post by matheusmoreira »

rafale wrote: post #45

John Deere will just claim they never sold him a tractor, but rather signed a custom contract with him that gives him access and custody of one in return of some constraints he agreed upon. If the government intervenes, it would undermine the free market. But you could argue it's already undermined, both by the government itself and the fact that somehow John Deere managed to achieve a monopoly in a sector critical t…

> If the government intervenes, it would undermine the free market

If "custom contracts that give access and custody but have constraints" are the sort of thing the free market enables, it should be undermined. People are supposed to own things. This "you own nothing" bullshit needs to end.

Re: Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’

#133

Post by Diesel555 »

jlcoff wrote: post #129
Diesel555 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish more people understood that markets include government regulation to ensure they operate in a competitive way. In a competitive market there must be so many buyers and sellers so that each has a negligible impact on the market price [1]. Obviously governments try to prevent monopolies to uphold this assumption. Regulation must also prevent market failures. Such failures occur with externalities. The most famou…

Quoted post unavailable.

You in no way responded to the content in my post.

"free speech" and "free markets" are completely separate topics which may or may not be mutually exclusive, both of which are studied well academically. I make no claims on free speech. I simply provided a basic academic background to markets in microeconomics.

Then you provide random sayings to try to discredit my post which have no logical connection to my content.

There is a lot of ignorance in economics. And while ignorance is okay, I am ignorant in a lot of fields, ignorance without recognizing what you do not know is dangerous. This is a well studied field and America's founders even agreed government should have some say in markets. Here is a well cited source for that, search for "free markets". Of note definitions are important and clearly the authors of the link below include government regulation in a "free market" which the definition I gave and the one you responded to do not.

https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/the-econom...

Re: Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’

#134

Post by asdff »

cplusplusfellow wrote: post #111
Imaiomus wrote: post #11

My question is what is wrong with the other brand? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGCO

Some of this equipment weighs 150,000 pounds. The dealership lets you demo the machine for a certain number of hours and then you get used to it. It’s hard for an area to support more than a few dealerships because this equipment isn’t rotated out very often (10-20 years?). It’s hard to unseat an entrenched player, but loss of right to repair is a big step towards an upstart moving in.

They should do what lab supply companies do who have similar constraints (hard to support dealerships for niche microscopes and such, expensive to ship and time consuming to set up sensitive microscopes and such): Salespeople. Have them make the rounds to the customers like these farmers. If there is interest among the farmers in a given area, you could then organize a demo day, email your clients about it, and interested parties would make time for it, especially if you are offering them a potential out from John Deere's yoke.

Re: Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’

#135

Post by hiptobecubic »

athrun wrote: post #120
heavyset_go wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government didn't force anyone to give AAA ratings to junk financial assets.

Forced no, but that's the issue with complex regulations, they all interact in subtle ways and no one can fully predict the side effects. One can argue that public agencies created bad incentives with regulations that mandated ratings agencies' assessments, and then shielded various parties from any accountability by bailing them out, thus removing the main feedback loop of the system (ie: you mess up, you fail).

If you swap out "regulations" with "financial instruments" your first comment makes a lot more sense.

Re: Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’

#136

Post by vvanders »

stickfigure wrote: post #88
jacquesm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for answering. I lived in a area where there were a lot of small and fairly poor farmers. I also had a machine shop. You can see where this is going: come harvest time tons of stuff that had been sitting for a year suddenly had to work 16 hours per day and predictably quite a bit of it would break in the field, usually simple stuff, bearings, shafts, welds. So once word got around that I was an ok welder wi…

Tightening emissions rules are having an effect on this, at least here in the US. My small late-model Kubota has a diesel particulate filter and a fair bit of electronics to manage it. I've been told that if you don't follow the emissions instructions, the system will shut down and a Kubota official will have to come out to "unlock" your tractor.

Having owned both CUT without any emissions control(1981) and a Kubota w/ DPF, I'll take the DPF every day. It's quieter, cleaner and the emissions controls are even more straightforward than other modern diesels. If you have a full DPF, you just regen it for 10-15(usually while you're working) and you're good to go.

Re: Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’

#137

Post by hiptobecubic »

rasz wrote: post #95
bluGill wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about after the tractor is sold to someone else? The EPA also doesn't like the idea of people making things not pass emissions.

In most states (all?) this happens thru OBD II, so not a real test, with tons of exemptions depending on car weight/engine type/age. This https://www.wep-inc.com/inspection-maintenance-programs/texa... is hilarious. You arent testing car emissions, you are reading car computer self report. In EU, NZ/AU and probably many more places Tailpipe gas emissions test is routine. There are even mobile units with portable Emis…

They do for older cars.

Re: Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’

#138

Post by hiptobecubic »

GnarfGnarf wrote: post #113

Would "right to repair" also apply to software companies that lock up their customers' data in password-protected databases, which is only known to the company?

How would it? What have you purchased and what are you repairing?

Re: Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’

#139

Post by CamperBob2 »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #47
ChrisLomont wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how patents work. Each claim is not a patented thing. A chain of claims forms the patented thing. There's at least 9 dependent claims hanging on that first one.

Right. It’s best to think of the claims in a patent as a set of DAGs (a single patent can contain multiple “inventions”). To infringe, you have to go from a starting node to a connected ending node and implement/match all nodes along the path.

Have to admit I've never heard this in my life. If this is the case, then TIL, thanks!

I will say that my point largely stands, though: the leaf nodes of this particular DAG are places where you will almost inevitably end up if you want to implement robotic farm machinery. Deere averages a couple hundred patents a year, so if you don't step on this specific land mine, another one will get you.

Re: Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’

#140

Post by jquery »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #118
fn-mote wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Go around to all the customers and tell them you'll sell to them for $25 tomorrow if they agree to a long-term contract today to buy from you at that price. This argument seems tenuous. I see the customer's risk. Where is your risk? A source with details of this argument would also help. If you have are an economist, please mention it - I'll take the argument more seriously on your say-so.

> This argument seems tenuous. I see the customer's risk. Where is your risk? The purpose of the contract is to reduce your risk. The original problem was that if you built the factory intending to sell for $25, the incumbents could reduce the price to $20 or $15, i.e. below your cost. Then you could never recover your initial investment and the high probability of that happening would deter you from entering the mar…

Companies hire economists and pay them handsomely. They do no such thing with psychics or astrologers. So the market sees value in economists.
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