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

apnews.com

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

#281

Post by mikewarot »

I've learned that I'm just not cynical enough. Here's the relevant Peter Girnus post[1], he tells the underlying truth through satire.

  10 years. We report our compliance every 60 days, then once a year, which is to say we have turned handing you your own machine into a paperwork schedule that runs through 2036. Any new repair tool we build, we only have to share once more than 50% of our dealers already have it. We decide when a dealer has it. We build the clock and we wind the clock.
https://x.com/gothburz/status/2075211022198096180

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

#284

Post by MisterMower »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #228
MisterMower wrote: post #136

Fifty years ago the average guy buying a tractor had a family farm with a few hundred acres. Equipment was smaller and had less frills because the John Deeres of the world were catering to those small time customers. There were a lot of them. Those small time farms mostly don’t exist anymore. Today farming is done on an industrial scale, and equipment manufacturers are catering to the big players. They need big, effi…

It can be in their interest if their model assumes certain revenue from sales and service. Most brands of cars can be repaired by independent technicians. Toyotas are more valuable because they are reliable -- because they are repaired less often.

Buyers discount the equipment price based on the expected cost of repairs, and manufacturers capture more profit when they consistently produce equipment that is more reliable or easier to repair.

In the short term they can increase their profits by reducing quality and designing their product so that it must be serviced at an OEM shop, but this will come at the expense of future sales when customers take these increased repair costs into account and buy from other manufacturers who don’t engage in these tactics.

This is why competition is so important: without it, buyers have no alternative and manufacturers have no incentive to provide value instead of fleecing thier customers by providing an inferior product with expensive repair options only.

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

#285

Post by davkan »

throw2ih020 wrote: post #97
dataflow wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share his videos here but nobody seems to see them and/or care enough to vote; all I get is crickets. It's baffling to me. Examples: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48802162 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48395520 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47043208

HN audience prefers text to video; videos rarely do well here compared to other sites.

I watch plenty of videos but it doesn’t coincide with my reading of HN.

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

#286

Post by throwaway27448 »

gbacon wrote: post #246
moffkalast wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The emissions restrictions were meant to get the likes of Deere to design and use smaller, more efficient engines, not to keep doing whatever they were with a slightly more restricted fuel hose.

“The purpose of a system is what it does.”

Sure, if you completely ignore the meaning of "purpose". What an asinine sentiment.

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

#287

Post by throwaway27448 »

criddell wrote: post #202
yason wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emission controls are the best scapegoat for Deere and others to lock down systems as tight as possible for profit. They don't care about emissions, the farmers don't care about emissions, the emissions happen on a fscking large field out of nowhere instead of rush hour city traffic, and tractors usually run at high power which makes a cleaner combustion with less soot (but higher nox): all in all, the world doesn't…

Judging by what I've seen on Reddit lately, lots and lots of people have stopped caring about their personal impact on the environment. Why should we set the AC to 80 or be diligent about turning off lights when billionaires are flying in a private jet to go watch a football game and datacenters are popping up like Starbucks? How can anybody tell a farmer they should probably care more about emissions?

Expecting individuals to care about anything is likely not going to end well. Large issues should be tackled in collectivized, centralized manner if you actually want to make a dent.

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

#288

Post by [deleted] »

Manuel_D wrote: post #243
9dev wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure what you mean when you say John Deere was cheating the system. Instead of selling tractors with more powerful, but limited motors, they should have sold tractors with less powerful motors and no screw. There is no need to do any of this in software. They were purposefully avoiding the regulation by telling farmers, "do not loosen that screw, or you'll break the law, wink-wink!"

I'm no mechanical engineer, but can't any motor be run with greater power if the fuel mixture settings are remapped? Is it possible to design a motor that runs at 25 horsepower at leaner emissions-compliant settings, but can't run at higher power if a user changes the fueling settings to a richer mixture? I'm skeptical if it's even possible to design an engine that runs at 25 horsepower when complying with emissions…

[deleted]

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

#289

Post by ActorNightly »

al_borland wrote: post #57

It was always crazy to me that farm equipment was locked down. I almost understand yuppie buying an E-Class not working on their own car, but a farmer not able to work on his own tractor just felt so wrong. It made me wonder how John Deere was still so popular and seemingly beloved.

I wouldn't feel too bad about farmers. These assholes expect socialism in the form of farm subsidies, but then overwhelmingly vote in favor of harming others.

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

#290

Post by fleroviumna »

mothballed wrote: post #8
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.

Until you tell them how easy it makes it to bypass emissions restrictions. My tractor was shipped with a screw turned down to Opening up John Deere tractors for right to repair virtually assures they will ~all be doing emissions deletes. Part of their lock-down was profit seeking, but the other half is that different vendors had different ideas interpretations of the law about how locked down the system had to be to…

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