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Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

farms.com

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Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#141

Post by natmaka »

saurik wrote: post #116
buro9 wrote: post #37

No-one wants to sell hardware any longer, it's not as profitable as providing it on a subscription (dare we say "rent") and forcing all support, maintenance and additions to go through your channels as part of the subscription package. Unfortunately this trend is everywhere now. It happened to servers, media, has started to happen to cars... but it's happened already to agricultural hardware. Super profitable if you…

> No-one wants to sell hardware any longer... Then they should stop selling hardware and start renting it; but they don't do that, as that signals an honest intention to the customer and I'm pretty sure comes with a bunch of legal restrictions, both obvious and subtle. Instead, they want all the money and lack of liability that comes from selling something outright to someone else, and yet they still somehow want to…

Some underlying fundamentals are known for quite a long time: "All in all, wealth consists more in use than in possession; for the actualization of the potentialities of such things and their use is wealth" -- Aristotle’s On Rhetoric

> "voting with your dollars" has become all but impossible

If possessing is more often than not the best way someone may understand it and also understand when smart farmers will also understand it, then develop an adequate offering, and if it performs better most will understand. It is only "more profitable to build in all of these locks" when you have customers. Am I delusional?

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#142

Post by hippari »

FractalParadigm wrote: post #49

I just want to throw my 2¢ out there, as a mid-20's who went to a high-rural-population high school, there's an entire new generation of farmers who have a) accepted that Deere's need constant/regular service calls, and b) don't care to learn how to fix it (or older equipment) themselves. At the end of the day farming is just a business same as any other, it's the same reason why a lot of trucking companies lease the…

>At the end of the day farming is just a business same as any other

Being a business is the reason you want right to repairs. If a single vendor can bankrupt your business then it's not a sustainable business. Right to repair give you cheaper options for repairing your tools.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#143

Post by gruez »

mhb wrote: post #15
sackerhews wrote: post #6

Making something that only you can repair can be quite a lucrative business. This documentary is quite interesting: McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4

Or maybe not. Extensive discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26936774

Yeah, the non-sinister explanation is that mcdonalds decided to go with a self-cleaning machine to reduce the possibility of workers messing up the cleaning cycle, taylor implementing that badly, and no one else using self-clean machines.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#144

Post by CivBase »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #95
dncornholio wrote: post #33

I mean, if two of the biggest companies of the world, Apple and Tesla can get away with it, why not the rest of the markets? This trend needs to stop. I cannot fathom how anyone thought preventing farmers, FARMERS for crying out loud, the people who grow our goddamn food, from repairing their equipment is way, way beyond me..

The problem with modern large farmers is the same as with richer tesla owners... you buy a car/tractor with 5y warranty, you service it at a dealer (to keep your warranty), and after 5y, you trade it in for a new one. It's same as with most other devices like that.. even a mercedes... who cares about data/plans/parts/... for a 3yo mercedes? ..it's under warranty, so they'll deal with it. Same with phones... new phone…

> The problem with modern large farmers is the same as with richer tesla owners... you buy a car/tractor with 5y warranty, you service it at a dealer (to keep your warranty), and after 5y, you trade it in for a new one.

I don't think that's how that works. My grandparents own and operate a very respectable size farm for being independent and they definitely do not trade in their tractors like that. I'd be skeptical that mega-farms do this too. Even with cars the majority of the market buys second-hand, which is why the few who buy new every 5 years have someone to sell to. Tractors are an order of magnitude more expensive and independents who might consider paying good money for second-hand equipment are vanishing quickly.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#145

Post by maest »

Casperin wrote: post #135
randomdata wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must know my neighbour. He was running a Kubota for a year or two, but it didn't take him long to replace it with a Deere. I have most of the major brands in my shed. I don't particularly care much about what colour I'm using. Purchases have been made based on cost, which has included some green equipment when a great auction find has been found. My experience says that JD has the UX nailed. When you're spending…

This made me think of how many developers (who spend 10 hrs/day in front of their screen) choose Apples products. A linux machine might be better on performance, maintainance, and all that, but Linux does not care about UX the way Apple does.

What about all the developers (who spend 10 hrs/day in front of their screen) that choose unix machines?

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#146

Post by freeopinion »

swiley wrote: post #122
FractalParadigm wrote: post #49

I just want to throw my 2¢ out there, as a mid-20's who went to a high-rural-population high school, there's an entire new generation of farmers who have a) accepted that Deere's need constant/regular service calls, and b) don't care to learn how to fix it (or older equipment) themselves. At the end of the day farming is just a business same as any other, it's the same reason why a lot of trucking companies lease the…

Lots of people don't care about their right to vote but we should all freak out when it gets taken away from them.

Maybe... Compare these different proposals:

1. Disenfranchise everyone who hasn't voted in the last 10 years.

2. Require a two-year waiting period from the time you register as a voter before you can vote. Require registrations to be renewed every 6 years. Voting automatically renews an unexpired registration.

It seems to me that both proposals should attract a lot of attention. But one is more alarming than the other. And you could water it down to be even less alarming and make some good arguments for your proposal. This is how you boil a frog.

Here's one nobody seems to care about:

3. Require people to join a private club to be able to vote in primary elections. Only allow candidates who were nominated by those private clubs. Allow the private clubs to be controlled by a handful of people.

You know, now I think about it, right-to-repair has a great deal in common with right-to-vote.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#147

Post by dncornholio »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #95
dncornholio wrote: post #33

I mean, if two of the biggest companies of the world, Apple and Tesla can get away with it, why not the rest of the markets? This trend needs to stop. I cannot fathom how anyone thought preventing farmers, FARMERS for crying out loud, the people who grow our goddamn food, from repairing their equipment is way, way beyond me..

The problem with modern large farmers is the same as with richer tesla owners... you buy a car/tractor with 5y warranty, you service it at a dealer (to keep your warranty), and after 5y, you trade it in for a new one. It's same as with most other devices like that.. even a mercedes... who cares about data/plans/parts/... for a 3yo mercedes? ..it's under warranty, so they'll deal with it. Same with phones... new phone…

Leasing and/or renting: Fine.

But making a monopoly on providing parts and services is not a good thing. People end up paying 2000 dollar for a 2 dollar repair.

Imagine the world when buying a new car/truck/tractor is less expensive than replacing the brakes for example. This is how the world works right now.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#148

Post by CivBase »

tim333 wrote: post #92
dncornholio wrote: post #33

I mean, if two of the biggest companies of the world, Apple and Tesla can get away with it, why not the rest of the markets? This trend needs to stop. I cannot fathom how anyone thought preventing farmers, FARMERS for crying out loud, the people who grow our goddamn food, from repairing their equipment is way, way beyond me..

Apple's not that bad really. Typed from an 8 year old Apple with replaced battery, ssd and keyboard.

Who replaced those parts for you and what sort of hell did they have to put up with to facilitate those repairs? And how viable are those same repairs for a modern MacBook in comparison?

Apple's goal (same with other manufacturers like JD) isn't to eradicate independent repair. They just want to make it economically in-viable so that third-party repair disappears and most consumers choose to buy new.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#149

Post by iratewizard »

maest wrote: post #145
Casperin wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This made me think of how many developers (who spend 10 hrs/day in front of their screen) choose Apples products. A linux machine might be better on performance, maintainance, and all that, but Linux does not care about UX the way Apple does.

What about all the developers (who spend 10 hrs/day in front of their screen) that choose unix machines?

You're not going to convince someone in the cult of Apple that their overpriced machine isn't worth the premium.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#150

Post by randomdata »

maest wrote: post #145
Casperin wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This made me think of how many developers (who spend 10 hrs/day in front of their screen) choose Apples products. A linux machine might be better on performance, maintainance, and all that, but Linux does not care about UX the way Apple does.

What about all the developers (who spend 10 hrs/day in front of their screen) that choose unix machines?

Are any of the unixes[1], other than macOS, commonly used as the system powering the screen?

[1] https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/

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