Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 405 posts

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#81

Post by fweespeech »

apricot wrote: post #48

Richard Stallman spent the last 30 years telling us this would happen. As soon as books become computer files, you don't buy them anymore, you lease usage rights. As soon as tractors contain computer code, you don't own them anymore, you are granted a license to use them. When will it stop? More and more everyday objects are incorporating software and firmware in many different forms. I remember reading Stallman's sh…

Some of us just don't buy DRM books and make copies for personal archival purposes.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#82

Post by Lawtonfogle »

bsimpson wrote: post #38
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #5

Why can't we simply ask if this could be done for 'mechanical programming' and apply the same logic. You don't own that full mechanical engine's construction, you just have a license to use it for the lifetime of the vehicle. If that wouldn't stand, then how is it any different than code except that code is on a much smaller and and more detailed level. At the end of the day, it is still physical components following…

The intangibility of code makes the marginal cost of a copy $0, which in turn raises the spectre of copyright law. You can't copy an engine made of steel, so copyright law is moot.

But you can. The cost is higher, but you can make a copy. So if the cost is really small (not $0, but small) it changes? Also to note, in these cases, we are talking about both the code and the rest of the machine. Is this to say that if any part of the machine can be copied for close to $0, we can remove ownership? Any single piece of that engine can be easily and cheaply copied, so once again, why the difference?

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#83

Post by sker »

apricot wrote: post #48

Richard Stallman spent the last 30 years telling us this would happen. As soon as books become computer files, you don't buy them anymore, you lease usage rights. As soon as tractors contain computer code, you don't own them anymore, you are granted a license to use them. When will it stop? More and more everyday objects are incorporating software and firmware in many different forms. I remember reading Stallman's sh…

What happens when we have computers implanted in our brains? Do I no longer own my brain?

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#84

Post by Qworg »

icebraining wrote: post #74
Qworg wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lock in and capital expense - the market is terrible at providing what is currently a financial service coupled with large equipment delivery. You need both halves - the sheet bending/engine manufacturing and the cash on offer to float the loan to the farmer. There's a lot of strength to being incumbent in both of these areas.

Why can't a manufacturer partner up with a financial company to provide the bundle?

They can and do at the low end, but the upper end market is dominated by Deere and a few others in a way that is hard to understand.

The manufacturer has to have the deep pockets and stomach for a protracted battle - lots of folks "bleed green" and will only buy Deere. Deere is everywhere in the countryside - big marketing campaigns.

Deere and others also have large dealer networks. That is where the sales are made. Many of these dealers have been around for a really long time and have all of the customer access. You'd have to break into the network somehow.

You'd have to not only be able to make it, but have the cash on hand to sustain more than a few years of incredibly low sales and lack of distribution.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#85

Post by protomyth »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #62
hharnisch wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. The family owned farmers care too. For the big equipment, like combines, there's a handful of people everyone pays to have their fields harvested. This person get's compensation in the form of money and other services (someone else will plow their field for instance). People own their own tractors and share time to get things done, otherwise you'd have to own all of the equipment (which is only justified wh…

Iowan here. There are almost no family farms left at all. My neighbor would desperately like to be a farmer. But the scrubby 40-acre field across from his house just sold for $400,000. He'd get maybe 120 bushels of corn off of it. Current price per bushel: $3.80. So $456 income per acre == $18,240 per year. That's half the mortgate payments. Not to mention the cost of working the field. So a lost cause. The 13 farmer…

"Iowan here. There are almost no family farms left at all."

We still have family farms in North Dakota, so I guess it might be a regional thing. Also, for those counting incorporations (like a couple of newspapers), you have to be stupid not to incorporate.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#86

Post by toufka »

jimmytucson wrote: post #59
sologoub wrote: post #35

An earlier article did a much better job layout why this is a huge problem for independent farmers: "The family farmer who owns this tractor is a friend of mine. He just wanted a better way to fix a minor hydraulic sensor. Every time the sensor blew, the onboard computer would shut the tractor down. It takes a technician at least two days to order the part, get out to the farm, and swap out the sensor. So for two day…

Why doesn't the market handle this? If John Deere is only willing to sell lifetime licenses to operate their vehicles, thus putting the farmer at risk in ways like you described, why do farmers still buy these "licenses"? Naively, they must represent some advantage (despite their shortcomings), otherwise John Deere wouldn't be able to sell these things.

John Deere was the Apple of tractors, 20 years before Apple was Apple. It's killed off all the competition [1] for their tractors' ability to "just work" - even at a premium. Deere coupled high quality hardware with high quality service, whereas most other tractors tried to compete on cost by dropping one. Apple vs HP; Deere vs Case. It served them well in the long run, if made things dicy early on. There is no competition any more. And the development lead and capital required to compete with their machines, and their repair/distribution network is immense.

[1] http://www.tennesseetractor.com/assets/Uploads/jd-timeline.j...

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#87

Post by MRSallee »

jimmytucson wrote: post #59
sologoub wrote: post #35

An earlier article did a much better job layout why this is a huge problem for independent farmers: "The family farmer who owns this tractor is a friend of mine. He just wanted a better way to fix a minor hydraulic sensor. Every time the sensor blew, the onboard computer would shut the tractor down. It takes a technician at least two days to order the part, get out to the farm, and swap out the sensor. So for two day…

Why doesn't the market handle this? If John Deere is only willing to sell lifetime licenses to operate their vehicles, thus putting the farmer at risk in ways like you described, why do farmers still buy these "licenses"? Naively, they must represent some advantage (despite their shortcomings), otherwise John Deere wouldn't be able to sell these things.

It sort of is.

The Wired article mentions that some farmers are preferring to buy old tractors without the electronics. This demand increases the value for the used market and should depress the value of new tractors. There will likely be a growth in the business of maintaining old tractors and, potentially, enough public awareness of the benefits of tractors without electronics that another manufacturer can step in.

Or it might fizzle. Markets don't solve every problem, but they usually solve the problems people are willing to pay for.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#88

Post by up_and_up »

Loughla wrote: post #12

The people who have the money to buy the mega-tractors you see in the article don't care. That's why, unless someone outside the industry makes a stink, nothing will happen. These are giga-corporations who are 'family owned' in name only. If they don't rent, they operate that machine for a few years, play the tax game, and trade it even-money for a new one. To them, ownership doesn't matter. Their service contracts w…

> I am in my early 30's and I guarantee I live to see the death of the actual family farm.

Maybe the small corn and soybean farms. Which is a race to the bottom anyway.

Small farms are booming here in MI but they are all either in veggies, mixed livestock systems, fruit, dairy or specialty crops of some sort.

Small farmers need to think outside the box, adjust to the changing times and maximize their ROI/acre.

- software dev with agroecology background

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#89

Post by cc438 »

Loughla wrote: post #12

The people who have the money to buy the mega-tractors you see in the article don't care. That's why, unless someone outside the industry makes a stink, nothing will happen. These are giga-corporations who are 'family owned' in name only. If they don't rent, they operate that machine for a few years, play the tax game, and trade it even-money for a new one. To them, ownership doesn't matter. Their service contracts w…

"All they care about is whether or not it works."

Which is why they care more about this issue than someone without a mega-tractor. These vehicles need to be operational when they're called upon, every minute of downtime costs a substantial amount of money that adds up incredibly fast. Sure, they have service contracts but waiting on a technician and waiting even longer for a replacement part is out of the question. A broken sensor will disable a tractor even if it would run perfectly fine without it. Mega farms care about losing the ability to improvise repairs in the field and/or take the risk of long term damage if its outweighed by the cost of the short term downtime.

I've experienced the results of an ECU that can disable a perfectly functional vehicle. I had a ride day with one of our service technicians in our Class 7 truck. The "Check Engine" light had been coming on intermittently throughout the day but we ignored it as it came on inconsistently and we were already 2 hours behind. On our way back to our branch the light came on again at highway speed and 30 seconds later the engine went into "limp home" mode and then shut itself off. We came to a rest on the side of the highway, tilted slightly into a ditch. After calling the local service manager we were informed that the head gasket had blown and the last technician to drive the truck was supposed to refill the coolant and let us know about the issue. We hiked down the road with the empty coolant bottles the last tech left for us and brought back 20 gallons of water, filling the expansion tank. So we should be good as long as we kept tabs on the water level, right? Nope. The water level sensor was placed in in a position where we couldn't fill the tank high enough for it to read the tank as full due to the angle of the truck in the ditch. It wouldn't start without a "safe" reading from the sensor and we couldn't level the truck out without it's own power. That sensor left us stranded for 3 hours until a repair truck arrived and had us running in less than 10 minutes by jacking up the low side of the truck. Now imagine losing half a day during harvest for the same bullshit reason.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#90

Post by AJ007 »

Loughla wrote: post #12

The people who have the money to buy the mega-tractors you see in the article don't care. That's why, unless someone outside the industry makes a stink, nothing will happen. These are giga-corporations who are 'family owned' in name only. If they don't rent, they operate that machine for a few years, play the tax game, and trade it even-money for a new one. To them, ownership doesn't matter. Their service contracts w…

I wonder if it will ever make sense for full vertical integration of agriculture? Could one company own the seed DNA, land, all related equipment, and sell the outputted product directly to consumers?

Could technology ever give one company such a great advantage that they could buy land at a price which would be a great loss to everyone else? The answer could be less about technology and more about the subsidized enforcement of intellectual property law and the strength or weakness of anti-trust law.

We look at this from an IP right/wrong standpoint, but a lot of moral questions regarding food production sit outside that realm as long as many people are either not getting enough food or getting too much of food that is damaging their bodies.

Post reply on HN