Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’

While this is great news; I unfortunately have to wonder how effective this is going to be. We need likely a much, much larger subset of farmers joining such a class action lawsuit - ideally from as many states as possible - to get this to change.

Out of their greed; John Deere will fight this with all they have.

I still think the best solution to this is still a startup that can create tractors that don’t require repairs by a first party. I understand the difficulties behind such an operation, but I’m unfortunately not sure how successful such a lawsuit will be in America without the hell of a lot more ‘ooomph’ behind it.

Some ideas:

If folks actually value "right to repair" support companies that offer right to repair.

If no tractor company exists that offer the type of open setup you want and you think this is critical - start a company up and take out Deere and others.

Deere's views on software changes by users in the field is pretty darn clear.

My own view - having watched individuals and dealers etc "tune" trucks etc (with all the endless problems involved) - is that for something like a 10,000 part count + heavy piece of equipment - Deere is going to want to keep stuff locked up tight to preserve brand value. Apple has done this with iphones, and the resale value after 5 years on an iphone is incredible compared to players pushing out android phones.

> I still think the best solution to this is still a startup that can create tractors that don’t require repairs by a first party.

You're still going up against massively entrenched and influential opposition that could likely undercut a startup's prices and then raise them again once the competition dies.

We saw it with the rideshare companies. Their business models are flexible enough to take losses when necessary in order to beat out alternatives and then programmatically raise the prices again once they've captured the market again.

> I still think the best solution to this is still a startup that can create tractors that don’t require repairs by a first party.

Do other tractor manufacturers have Deere-style DRM? I imagine some don't.

It was easier to pass an automotive right to repair passed in Massachusetts in 2012 than it was to start a successful auto company that could have anywhere near the same impact.

The car companies, threatened by having to comply with different laws in different states, came to an agreement that the car companies would follow the Massachusetts law across the US.

You can watch individuals and dealers etc "tune" trucks now as a direct consequence of that 10 year old law passing.

There's no obligation for the law to preserve brand value when considering an anti-monopoly case. Standard Oil wasn't broken apart because of gung-ho oil companies.