Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors • Hacker News Board

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#261

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

etempleton wrote: post #186

throwaway292893 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. What an incredibly offensive comment. I love how HN understands the right to repair when it comes to their gadgets, but when it comes to tractors it's probably because the farmers are uneducated hicks. Please tell me more how they don't understand AG science enough, but you have such a strong grasp on it. JD tractors were and are reliable and top tier in quality, that's why they are popular and that's why people…

I am sorry you took offense to the comment, it was not meant to be offensive. I never claimed to have any grasp on agriculture science. And I never called anyone a "hick." And of course I am speaking in generalities. Simply observing what I saw growing up. I grew up on a small farm (though I certainly would never call myself a farmer) and grew up with farmers of all types and all income levels. Some chose to be willf…

Generally when someone is calling another uneducated it’s offensive. You can probably safely remove that word from online discourse and people wouldn’t react that way.

Talking about anybody’s education level, specifically when saying they can’t do or understand something because of it, is extremely offensive and hateful.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#262

Post by Casperin » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

randomswede wrote: post #259

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.

An actual VT4xx or VT5xx is the best terminal. An xterm window is a decent substitute (and if it comes with the optional Tek emulator, has some small extra whistles, but I think that has mostly been ripped out of all xterms by now). The MacOS terminal is... so-so. I mean, it's not horrible, but it is also not great. I am not convinced that Apple kit has the best UX (and I am in the same room as two macs that I altern…

I run i3/tmux/xterm wherever I can (also back when I was doing frontend). I definitely prefer this over anything Apple has been able to offer me in terms of user experience.

My comment above was just a reflection of a connection I hadn't made before. :)

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#263

Post by 542354234235 » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 3:47 PM UTC

olyjohn wrote: post #246

theshrike79 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar thing is happening with EVs. Many car dealers don't make their money from selling cars, they make most of their money from being the only authorized repair shop for said car model. And to keep the warranty valid, you need to service the car at an authorized shop. EVs, by design, don't require as much maintenance or as often as ICE cars. This will result in a disruption in the existing chain at some point. W…

I keep hearing this thing about EVs not needing as much maintenance. Apparently nobody has looked at their maintenance schedule on their cars. Most cars don't need anything except a few oil changes by 100,000 miles. So many dealers throw in free oil changes now... and you can still have them done by Jiffy Lube if you want for about $50. People regularly hit 200k miles just doing oil changes, and changing out all the…

>Apparently nobody has looked at their maintenance schedule on their cars.

Pot, meet kettle. EVs and Plug-in Hybrids cost less to maintain than ICE vehicles. [1] Over 200k miles, ICE vehicles are about double the maintenance cost of EVs or Plug-in hybrids.

At 50k miles; EVs $600, Plug-in $1,050, ICE $1,400.

100k miles; EVs $2,000, Plug-ins $2,600, ICE $4,400.

200k miles; EVs $6,300, Plug-ins $5,900, ICE $12,300.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/owning-an-electric-car-...

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#264

Post by mikey_p » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:11 PM UTC

taylodl wrote: post #192

mitchell_h wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in an extremely rural area. The Deere integrations are a huge reason. Another that's not talked about is Deere field service. It's just DAMN GOOD. If you're running a serious tractor(7-9 series ) and it's the middle of planting/harvest hours can be the difference between red and black margins. Deere will roll out a team with 30ft trailer of parts out in hours if you have an issue. CaseIH will sorta match this,…

Exactly, and at the moment in time you don't care about "right to repair" - you need to get back up and running now . Which has led me to believe "right to repair" is a ruse, but for what?

In one of my other comments I noted that disabling emissions controls would probably be top priority for most of the farmers complaining about not being able to modify how their tractors work.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#265

Post by msrenee » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

GuB-42 wrote: post #167

msrenee wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to have any kind of sympathy for a manufacturer who wants to offer a worse product for more money. Especially when that directly translates to higher food costs for everyone. I'm not saying communism is the answer, but a free market where your choices are a crappy "cheap" product or an acceptable product for twice the price isn't something to be proud of. Oh, the market will solve the pr…

By the option that suits people the most, I didn't mean "best". The free market is actually a science, and the "invisible hand of the market" is formalized by game theory. And it often result in optimal solutions, but not always. The prisoner's dilemma is the best-known counter-example. There is mathematical proof that a free market is not perfect, but currently, in practice and when supplemented by relatively light…

Your example was a $50k tractor that you couldn't work on or a $100k tractor you could fix yourself. To me that means that by buying the $100k tractor, you're giving them an extra $50k to make up for the money they would otherwise make off repairs. It's whether it's reasonable for a company to sell you a product and then expect any loss in profits to be made up at a later date with maintenance. Almost like a loss leader.

You continue to argue that because this is what the market has come up with, there is no better way to do it. You can absolutely, as suggested in the article, make it illegal to make it either illegal to do your own repairs or impossible without purchasing certain software or licenses. But because the market hasn't decided that and it's a form of regulation, then it must not be a good solution. I'm sure there are plenty of unintended consequences to legislation like this, but the consequence of no regulation is a situation where you can't repair your own equipment and the dealership can charge however much they want for the repairs, as you have no recourse.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#266

Post by VMtest » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 12:45 AM UTC

Not sure if anybody has mentioned this regarding open source hardware, they are really doing a great job repairing on their own

1. https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/Main_Page

2. https://youtu.be/hl7lZZP21c8 | Open Building Institute - Introductory Video

3. https://www.youtube.com/user/marcinose/playlists | Marcin Jakubowski

4. https://youtu.be/S63Cy64p2lQ | Civilization starter kit | Marcin Jakubowski | TEDxKC

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#267

Post by randomswede » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 6:58 AM UTC

Casperin wrote: post #262

randomswede wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An actual VT4xx or VT5xx is the best terminal. An xterm window is a decent substitute (and if it comes with the optional Tek emulator, has some small extra whistles, but I think that has mostly been ripped out of all xterms by now). The MacOS terminal is... so-so. I mean, it's not horrible, but it is also not great. I am not convinced that Apple kit has the best UX (and I am in the same room as two macs that I altern…

I run i3/tmux/xterm wherever I can (also back when I was doing frontend). I definitely prefer this over anything Apple has been able to offer me in terms of user experience. My comment above was just a reflection of a connection I hadn't made before. :)

I somewhere between like and REALLY like the laptops. Still not convinced by the touch bar on the work 16" MacBook Pro. But, it does seem kind of neat in many ways. At some point, I may experiment with its tex suggestions, for surrealism, if nothing else.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#268

Post by tweetle_beetle » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 8:19 AM UTC

throwaway292893 wrote: post #191

etempleton wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry you took offense to the comment, it was not meant to be offensive. I never claimed to have any grasp on agriculture science. And I never called anyone a "hick." And of course I am speaking in generalities. Simply observing what I saw growing up. I grew up on a small farm (though I certainly would never call myself a farmer) and grew up with farmers of all types and all income levels. Some chose to be willf…

The tone of your comment changed dramatically in this reply. You didn't have to say hick, you implied it with your uneducated rant. You simply don't understand why they want a John Deere, and it's not because they are uneducated. Also, maybe never try to shove people into categories, especially only 3 categories. Especially one category being "uneducated". You reached all that from a topic about repairing tractors an…

We would struggle to discuss anything of any significant size if simplified models were not used. John Deere forecasted earnings of $5 billion this year and statistics about the education of all of their customers presumably don't exist.

You may disagree with the model used, but it was clearly an opinionated one based on personal experience. If you have a different one, then we can all compare, contrast and hopefully continue a curious conversation.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#269

Post by throwaway292893 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #268

throwaway292893 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tone of your comment changed dramatically in this reply. You didn't have to say hick, you implied it with your uneducated rant. You simply don't understand why they want a John Deere, and it's not because they are uneducated. Also, maybe never try to shove people into categories, especially only 3 categories. Especially one category being "uneducated". You reached all that from a topic about repairing tractors an…

We would struggle to discuss anything of any significant size if simplified models were not used. John Deere forecasted earnings of $5 billion this year and statistics about the education of all of their customers presumably don't exist. You may disagree with the model used, but it was clearly an opinionated one based on personal experience. If you have a different one, then we can all compare, contrast and hopefully…

An anecdote is not a simplified model. They were stereotypes.

He shoved "uneducated farmers" into the same group of people that idolized John Deere for the brand alone, but did not offer any connection between the two.

Typical HN elitism. My anecdotes do differ, and it's mostly generational. Either you're a younger farmer that has gone to A&M and you're heavy into Ag Science or you're more old school and you use techniques passed down. Or you're a big time operator and none of this applies.

Nothing to do with what OP said.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#270

Post by throwaway292893 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

bananabreakfast wrote: post #232

throwaway292893 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. What an incredibly offensive comment. I love how HN understands the right to repair when it comes to their gadgets, but when it comes to tractors it's probably because the farmers are uneducated hicks. Please tell me more how they don't understand AG science enough, but you have such a strong grasp on it. JD tractors were and are reliable and top tier in quality, that's why they are popular and that's why people…

Relax. This commenter is speaking in generalities and it's like you're interpreting it as a personal attack. They simply said that there exist a category of farmers who do not participate in the normal schooling system and choose brands based only on status. This phenomena exists for nearly all brands. You can't possibly be disputing that these people exist? Keep away from ad hominem attacks, they only serve to dilut…

His categories are false. You think all the farmers that don't have an education are the same ones that choose the brand based on status?

No, education is generational. Most younger farmers have gone to a good ag science school like A&M. Most older farmers don't have an education but have tons of experience and use techniques passed down that are essentially the same as what is taught in schools.

Whether you brand whore or not is not based on your education status, which is what OP suggested.