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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’

#171

Post by shagie »

imgabe wrote: post #48
cletus wrote: post #40

The example is of course egregious ($600 for a software update for a wire that got wet, basically). I fully support being able to repair your own stuff but I have no idea how you regulate this so companies don't gouge "owners" for aftermarket services. Earlier today there was a thread about e-bike battery prices (tl'dr they're ridiculous expensive). I really wish rechargeable batteries had interchangeable form factor…

Apple can make the customer whole and then go sue the 3rd party manufacturer. Apple has far more resources and clout to hold manufacturers accountable than any one customer. “Don’t make crappy parts or Apple will send a team of lawyers to bankrupt you” would be a credible threat.

I don't see it working out well for Apple to become the USB charger and cord enforcer for the world.

If this is a counterfeit Apple charger, then yes. If this is a charger that was purchased from Apple as the distributor, then yes.

However, if this was a 3rd party charger purchased from a street vendor or online merchant (that has difficulties with counterfeit products) that could be used for anything from the cat water fountain pump to an Apple iPhone - then no.

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

#172

Post by bluGill »

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…

I didn't say anything about testing. I've never heard of anyone doing emissions testing on tractors after it leaves the factory. I said that the EPA will get mad if someone changes the emissions. The EPA has already hinted that making it possible for random people to violate emissions by changes the software will be a bad thing. Not sure how this will turn out in court and laws, but it is a factor.

When I press people on what parts of their tractors they can't do now it generally comes down to something that would make the tractor not pass emissions if it was tested. Parts and computer test equipment is readily available.

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

#173

Post by AnthonyMouse »

random314 wrote: post #166
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why are VCs not lining up to create a dozen new dating sites and take all of Match Group's buyout money? 1) Make a non-ruined dating product. 2) Get users. Should be easy because the incumbents are intentionally ruined and turnover is high. 3) Profit. (Match Group buyout) Worst case they run out of money and you have a successful dating product which continues to siphon their users because it's the non-ruined one.…

You can't click your fingers to produce a dozen new dating sites every year because of network effects. There can be at most one new successful dating site every year, which the 30B$ match group can buy out for 300M$. The math you are proposing simply doesn't work.

> There can be at most one new successful dating site every year, which the 30B$ match group can buy out for 300M$.

Then why aren't they asking for more money? Match Group to maintain their $30B enterprise has to buy you out or you by being a non-ruined dating site will destroy their entire company by out-competing them. That should be worth substantially more than 1% of the company. (It also seems to be that it is; Tinder got $3B.)

Match Group owns more than 45 subsidiaries. Obviously the size of the network necessary to be viable would support more than one other challenger. But if there were 15 each of size similar to their own subsidiaries, they'd still have to buy all of them or whichever ones they didn't buy would continue to eat their market share by being non-ruined, and then have to be bought for a higher price later.

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

#174

Post by AnthonyMouse »

adrianN wrote: post #162
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free markets have a well established, well understood "tendency towards monopoly." There is actually a lot of debate about what causes this. The argument on one side is, of course companies unconstrained by laws would collude with each other to fix prices etc. The argument on the other side is, as soon as they start doing this it becomes profitable for someone else to enter the market. Is the cartel charging $40 fo…

Entering a market is not free. Suppose you want to start a chip business because the small handful of existing manufacturers have formed a cartel. To be competitive you need hundreds of billions in starting capital and you must be able to survive price dumping longer than the members of the cartel.

This is the purpose of the contract. You have to spend $200B, so you go to several large customers and sign contracts contingent on your ability to supply which will guarantee you $300B in future revenue. Now you can raise funding against the guaranteed revenue and the dumping can't change that because the contracts are already signed.

To prevent this the incumbents could go in and undercut you before you actually build anything, but that's not much of a cartel anymore then. Anyone could "compete with them" just by threatening to raise funding.

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

#175

Post by AnthonyMouse »

heavyset_go wrote: post #159
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free markets have a well established, well understood "tendency towards monopoly." There is actually a lot of debate about what causes this. The argument on one side is, of course companies unconstrained by laws would collude with each other to fix prices etc. The argument on the other side is, as soon as they start doing this it becomes profitable for someone else to enter the market. Is the cartel charging $40 fo…

> The argument on the other side is, as soon as they start doing this it becomes profitable for someone else to enter the market. Is the cartel charging $40 for something that should cost $20? 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. Then you have enough guaranteed customers to pay off your new factory,…

> The Phoebus cartel[1] existed for quite some time, and its operation contradicts this argument. They captured the world-wide light bulb market with agreements between manufacturers. It took WWII to put a dent in it.

They had intended the cartel to last for thirty years (1925 to 1955). The cartel ceased operations in 1939 owing to the outbreak of World War II.

So they didn't actually last all that long.

Both organisations co-ordinated the trading of patents and market penetration.

Patents are a government-granted monopoly.

> Neither cartel relied on regulatory capture

This is not remotely true for Apple and Google. The laws are written to allow them to exclude competitors. Why doesn't Amazon buy a bunch of iPhones and modify the software to include the Amazon App Store and then sell them to customers? Laws prohibit this.

And then it's the same situation again -- copyright too is a government-granted monopoly. Finding that a monopoly exists where the government prohibits anyone from competing with them was the original theory. Let's have 14 year copyrights again and see how the monopoly holds up when Apple has to compete with a fork of the original iPhone which would be out of copyright by now.

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

#176

Post by jlcoff »

A_non_e-moose wrote: post #167
jlcoff wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can argue as must as you want about the legitimacy of my comment. "Regulations" and "free market" are mutually exclusive.

Consider this: a) literally zero government intervention. b) some government intervention, to keep the market competitive, as described above. c) total government control. What do you, jlcoff, call a)? If I understood you correctly, it's "free market". What would you call b) and c) then? There is no doubt that a) is strictly incompatible with any government regulation or intervention. Label those two concepts however…

b) and c) are either socialism or cronyism, or a variant of fascism (which is in its core a non-USSR controlled / nationalistic socialism).

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

#177

Post by random314 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #173
random314 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't click your fingers to produce a dozen new dating sites every year because of network effects. There can be at most one new successful dating site every year, which the 30B$ match group can buy out for 300M$. The math you are proposing simply doesn't work.

> There can be at most one new successful dating site every year, which the 30B$ match group can buy out for 300M$. Then why aren't they asking for more money? Match Group to maintain their $30B enterprise has to buy you out or you by being a non-ruined dating site will destroy their entire company by out-competing them. That should be worth substantially more than 1% of the company. (It also seems to be that it is;…

I am not really sure where you are going with this, but the reality speaks for itself.

Match makes shitty products optimized for revenue. Good dating products optimized for users have low revenue and valuation. Match acquires virtually all of them and keeps its monopoly alive and thriving.

There is no point arguing with reality.

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

#178

Post by thelittleone »

asdff wrote: post #131
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.

It's like the Lord of the Rings.... the power of the ring (greed in the system) is too powerful for most (companies) to bare. The world needs more Frodos.

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

#179

Post by AnthonyMouse »

random314 wrote: post #177
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There can be at most one new successful dating site every year, which the 30B$ match group can buy out for 300M$. Then why aren't they asking for more money? Match Group to maintain their $30B enterprise has to buy you out or you by being a non-ruined dating site will destroy their entire company by out-competing them. That should be worth substantially more than 1% of the company. (It also seems to be that it is;…

I am not really sure where you are going with this, but the reality speaks for itself. Match makes shitty products optimized for revenue. Good dating products optimized for users have low revenue and valuation. Match acquires virtually all of them and keeps its monopoly alive and thriving. There is no point arguing with reality.

The premise isn't that someone with a lot of money can't buy up all the existing participants in a given market. It's that if they do, new competitors will keep appearing. Which we see happening.

The question is, how does that turn out? The theory says people should keep creating dating products to make Match buy, because it costs less to do than they have to pay. That doesn't mean it happens instantaneously. It doesn't mean they can't buy some of them. But it's an evolutionary process. They buy the ones they can buy, until one shows up they can't. Maybe because there are too many of them. Maybe one gets too big too fast. Maybe the owners are some stubborn purists who refuse to sell. It hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't.

Apparently Facebook is getting into the dating game. They already have the network effect and Match doesn't have the money to buy them. Facebook sucks, but now where's your monopoly?

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

#180

Post by random314 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #179
random314 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not really sure where you are going with this, but the reality speaks for itself. Match makes shitty products optimized for revenue. Good dating products optimized for users have low revenue and valuation. Match acquires virtually all of them and keeps its monopoly alive and thriving. There is no point arguing with reality.

The premise isn't that someone with a lot of money can't buy up all the existing participants in a given market. It's that if they do, new competitors will keep appearing. Which we see happening. The question is, how does that turn out? The theory says people should keep creating dating products to make Match buy, because it costs less to do than they have to pay. That doesn't mean it happens instantaneously. It does…

You are arguing using a hypothetical future which doesn't even remotely exist.

And what's to stop FB dating from sucking. So the final solution is to replace one monopoly with an even bigger one? That's just talking out of both sides of the mouth.

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