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John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement

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Re: John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement

#61

Post by ajkjk »

GuB-42 wrote: post #47
ggoo wrote: post #7

Bananas that stuff like this needs to get litigated in our society - if you asked 100 random people "should farmers be able to repair their equipment", you would get 100 yes's.

Except it is not the right question in a market economy like ours. The right question is "what is the value (in dollars) of the right for farmers to repair their equipment". If John Deere values it more than farmers, then they will sell tractors that farmers can't repair on their own, hoping to earn more on repairs rather than easier to repair tractors that are more expensive up front. Basic market economy. It only n…

It is the right question to ask. The idea that moral questions should have a market value is itself a moral failing, so assuming you want moral principles to rule over the design of your economy (which.. you'd better; otherwise slavery is permissible), you should not allow such things to be up for debate.

Although perhaps your disagreement is over whether this is a moral issue, in which case, fine, but let's be clear that that's what we're disagreeing over.

Re: John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement

#62

Post by mnadkvlb »

Cider9986 wrote: post #16

Shout out to Louis Rossmann for doing a ton of work on Right to repair. He started a website called Consumer Rights Wiki to document anti-consumer practices. https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Main_Page He's also involved with FULU Foundation which has a bounty of 25k to get Ring cameras working without Amazon's servers. https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties/ring-video-doorbells

he is one of the very few people who inspires me today.

Re: John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement

#63

Post by Grombobulous »

tjohns wrote: post #50
syntaxing wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP but I went through some data and John Deere makes 5B NET profit for the worse years. 10B for their best (only looking back 10 years). I wouldn’t be surprised these anticompetitive (as in anti “consumer”) has netted them north of 10B.

While I suspect this is actually profitable for them, you can't attribute 100% of their profit to anti-repair activities. At a minimum, you'd have to break out profit from equipment sales vs service contracts.

This concept of percent of profits shouldn't be considered in the context of fines. For regulations to have teeth, punishments shouldn't just slap you on the wrist just because harmful practices weren't responsible for a lot of profit.

In that scenario, a lot of growth companies or just poorly performing companies could just say "sorry, we don't make any profit, so our maximum fine is $10," and obviously that wouldn't be fair at all.

Fines should really be about "what size fine will be a deterrent for this company?"

Re: John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement

#64

Post by hekkle »

tjohns wrote: post #50
syntaxing wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP but I went through some data and John Deere makes 5B NET profit for the worse years. 10B for their best (only looking back 10 years). I wouldn’t be surprised these anticompetitive (as in anti “consumer”) has netted them north of 10B.

While I suspect this is actually profitable for them, you can't attribute 100% of their profit to anti-repair activities. At a minimum, you'd have to break out profit from equipment sales vs service contracts.

Well 500 million alone would come from "software". Which is "required" to be up to date for diagnostics, to fix anything else. https://www.thedailyupside.com/industries/tractor-giant-john...

Re: John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement

#65

Post by koolba »

Grombobulous wrote: post #63
tjohns wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I suspect this is actually profitable for them, you can't attribute 100% of their profit to anti-repair activities. At a minimum, you'd have to break out profit from equipment sales vs service contracts.

This concept of percent of profits shouldn't be considered in the context of fines. For regulations to have teeth, punishments shouldn't just slap you on the wrist just because harmful practices weren't responsible for a lot of profit. In that scenario, a lot of growth companies or just poorly performing companies could just say "sorry, we don't make any profit, so our maximum fine is $10," and obviously that wouldn'…

> Fines should really be about "what size fine will be a deterrent for this company?"

To a degree. But it also has to be commensurate to the actual market size and impact. If an Amazon releases a defective dog toy that is bought by 10 people, it’d be unreasonable to fine them $100 billion dollars just because they’re a huge company.

Re: John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement

#66

Post by gleenn »

Cider9986 wrote: post #16

Shout out to Louis Rossmann for doing a ton of work on Right to repair. He started a website called Consumer Rights Wiki to document anti-consumer practices. https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Main_Page He's also involved with FULU Foundation which has a bounty of 25k to get Ring cameras working without Amazon's servers. https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties/ring-video-doorbells

Extra props for tilting thw windmill that is tech behemoths funneling data to government agencies without oversight. Aiming at Amazon is certainly something not to be taken lightly.

Re: John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement

#67

Post by srejk »

Cider9986 wrote: post #16

Shout out to Louis Rossmann for doing a ton of work on Right to repair. He started a website called Consumer Rights Wiki to document anti-consumer practices. https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Main_Page He's also involved with FULU Foundation which has a bounty of 25k to get Ring cameras working without Amazon's servers. https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties/ring-video-doorbells

I appreciate everything he stands for - he's on the right side of just about every issue. I just wish he could make more succinct and effective videos.

Re: John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement

#68

Post by bothers »

koolba wrote: post #65
Grombobulous wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This concept of percent of profits shouldn't be considered in the context of fines. For regulations to have teeth, punishments shouldn't just slap you on the wrist just because harmful practices weren't responsible for a lot of profit. In that scenario, a lot of growth companies or just poorly performing companies could just say "sorry, we don't make any profit, so our maximum fine is $10," and obviously that wouldn'…

> Fines should really be about "what size fine will be a deterrent for this company?" To a degree. But it also has to be commensurate to the actual market size and impact. If an Amazon releases a defective dog toy that is bought by 10 people, it’d be unreasonable to fine them $100 billion dollars just because they’re a huge company.

[dead]

Re: John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement

#69

Post by de6u99er »

Cider9986 wrote: post #16

Shout out to Louis Rossmann for doing a ton of work on Right to repair. He started a website called Consumer Rights Wiki to document anti-consumer practices. https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Main_Page He's also involved with FULU Foundation which has a bounty of 25k to get Ring cameras working without Amazon's servers. https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties/ring-video-doorbells

Wouldn't it be easier to build an open hardware/source alternative to Ring cameras.

Re: John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement

#70

Post by jauntywundrkind »

acters wrote: post #51
taurath wrote: post #6

> Deere must pay $1 million collectively to the five states for antitrust enforcement costs and will be subject to strict compliance oversight for the next 10 years. $1 million fine for probably $10 billion in profit. I know what lesson I'd learn if my only personal value was maximizing shareholder value. The compliance part can be dealt with later.

The biggest loss to them is the right to repair stuff. They will be still making it exceptionally difficult to repair their stuff, and might even dip into exotic materials to make cheaper parts fail more often, but this is a bigger loss to them in the long run. Unfortunately, I hate that they got away with such a low AF fine.

They only have to behave for 10 years before they can go back to being hostile parasitic vultures.
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