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

John Deere Announces Strategic Partnership with SpaceX

deere.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 170 posts

Re: John Deere Announces Strategic Partnership with SpaceX

#81

Post by Larrikin »

iancmceachern wrote: post #65
arwineap wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with TaaS, or right to repair? Just because it has tons of sensors doesn't mean they shouldn't be replacable

They're not really tractors. They sell land prep, crop sowing, and harvesting solutions. It's not like a car. These things are used for a few weeks a year, and if they don't do their job during that time the farm looses all their income for the year. A better way to think of them is like construction equipment that you rent. Even big construction companies rent their equipment.

Why can't the farm have the server on premise instead of needing a subscription. So somebody can say they're meeting their KPIs and request more money?

Re: John Deere Announces Strategic Partnership with SpaceX

#82

Post by tastyfreeze »

voakbasda wrote: post #45
PedroBatista wrote: post #31

John Deere & SpaceX , a match made in hell. Hopefully the world will end before they spice up their marriage and extend the offer to Tesla. Technically it makes some sense, but most of the push is because for more "data, intelligence, cloud, AI" in order to get more "value" to big agrobusinesses or anyone who can pay to stay in the party. Agriculture is already a massive business only a few gigantic corporations can…

Small family farming is already dead unless (a) you are willing to turn a large fortune into a small one or (b) you are willing to live in poverty.

Farmers in every generation of my family's existence in the US. The current ones are decidedly not poor. Maybe not a lot of free time but not poor.

Re: John Deere Announces Strategic Partnership with SpaceX

#83

Post by mcbishop »

don_neufeld wrote: post #66
CuriouslyC wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not entirely true, small family farming can compete in niche, specialty and high end produce, they can capitalize on having a pretty farm (because "real" farms are incredibly ugly but people have pastoral fantasies), and farm stands can be profitable if they're in the right location.

That’s true, but it’s also exceptionally rare. In that version, you are fundamentally not a farmer, you are a marketer. Source: grew up in a farm town. Go Wheat Kings!

I disagree. If your soil is depleted and dead, under sprawling petrochemical monocrops... you are fundamentally not a farmer.

Re: John Deere Announces Strategic Partnership with SpaceX

#84

Post by NotSammyHagar »

iancmceachern wrote: post #65
arwineap wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with TaaS, or right to repair? Just because it has tons of sensors doesn't mean they shouldn't be replacable

They're not really tractors. They sell land prep, crop sowing, and harvesting solutions. It's not like a car. These things are used for a few weeks a year, and if they don't do their job during that time the farm looses all their income for the year. A better way to think of them is like construction equipment that you rent. Even big construction companies rent their equipment.

If I can’t drive to work, I won’t be paid, i’ll lose all my income. Thus, somehow the car company should prevent me from repairing my car, working with any independent qualified garage?

Re: John Deere Announces Strategic Partnership with SpaceX

#85

Post by mathgradthrow »

kube-system wrote: post #74
mathgradthrow wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS is ideally quite redundant, and the data from it is usable without an internet connection. GPS is fine.

Civilian GPS is not accurate enough for precision farming which is why these tractor manufacturers in my above link were using Inmarsat L-band to transmit correction information in addition to using GPS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarFire_(navigation_system)

I'm even less worried about the security of military GPS.

Re: John Deere Announces Strategic Partnership with SpaceX

#86

Post by NotSammyHagar »

Larrikin wrote: post #81
iancmceachern wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not really tractors. They sell land prep, crop sowing, and harvesting solutions. It's not like a car. These things are used for a few weeks a year, and if they don't do their job during that time the farm looses all their income for the year. A better way to think of them is like construction equipment that you rent. Even big construction companies rent their equipment.

Why can't the farm have the server on premise instead of needing a subscription. So somebody can say they're meeting their KPIs and request more money?

Because then they can’t control you and extract more money. John Deere is the worst.

Re: John Deere Announces Strategic Partnership with SpaceX

#87

Post by the_other »

turing_complete wrote: post #71
PedroBatista wrote: post #31

John Deere & SpaceX , a match made in hell. Hopefully the world will end before they spice up their marriage and extend the offer to Tesla. Technically it makes some sense, but most of the push is because for more "data, intelligence, cloud, AI" in order to get more "value" to big agrobusinesses or anyone who can pay to stay in the party. Agriculture is already a massive business only a few gigantic corporations can…

What's so great about a family farm? We're much better off without 90% of the population being poor, self-subsistence farmers.

That's like saying "what's so great about start-ups/bootstrapped tech firms?".

You really want a tiny handful of rich incumbents owning all the land? That's never worked out well before.

Re: John Deere Announces Strategic Partnership with SpaceX

#88

Post by sixothree »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #28
greenie_beans wrote: post #23

great, now he controls our food. legitimately, this might be the scariest musk news in history.

His companies keep creating the best of breed service on the market, which nobody else can come close to competing with.

More like we created a monster by giving him so much money.

Re: John Deere Announces Strategic Partnership with SpaceX

#89

Post by NotSammyHagar »

kube-system wrote: post #42
mathgradthrow wrote: post #34

It is of incredible strategic importance that tractors not become "online only". Some fucking John Deere licensing server should not become a single point of failure for the nations agriculture.

Already too late. Farmers already use quite a bit of connected technology in the field. Modern high-output farming and the cheap food we have really wouldn't be possible without it. e.g. https://www.smh.com.au/national/farmers-crippled-by-satellit...

connected is fine, gps is fine, but that is all separate from not letting you work on your own equipment.

Re: John Deere Announces Strategic Partnership with SpaceX

#90

Post by NotSammyHagar »

bluGill wrote: post #72
mathgradthrow wrote: post #34

It is of incredible strategic importance that tractors not become "online only". Some fucking John Deere licensing server should not become a single point of failure for the nations agriculture.

Farmers do not want that. John Deere collects a lot of opt-in data from tractors. That is the owner of the tractors chooses to upload that data because they get value from it. If the tractor is not online or the GPS isn't working the farmer will stay home to fix things as the data is too valuable to risk not having it uploaded. (you can export the data to USB, but that is a hassle). Farmers who don't get a good cell…

Those kinds of requirements are extremely anti-consumer. If farmers get benefit from that, then they will do it, pay you for it even. But making them do things is terrible. It’s just a way to control and get more money. It will take years but we will break through these coporate controls. Meanwhile, people will circulate hacks so they can fix their own equipment. With all due respect, you are wrong.
Post reply on HN