
U.S. Farmers Are Being Bled by the Tractor Monopoly - jelliclesfarm
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-23/u-s-farmers-need-a-better-way-to-fix-their-tractors
======
leroy_masochist
Farmer here - 200 head of grass fed cattle plus hay operation.

Just to be clear, the problem described in the article does not affect many
(probably most) farmers; it primarily affects large scale grain operations
that have harvest combines that use a lot of onboard computers.

It's a bit dramatic to frame this as "US farmers are being bled". Guys who
grow grain on huge farms in the Midwest are not happy about the implications
of the TOS they signed with Deere when they, grownups who can read, bought
their tractors a few years ago. There, fixed the headline for you.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Is there an alternative where they don't sign an equivalent TOS and still get
the same features? Perhaps they have to pay for the privilege? Or is this a
unilateral power grab by the manufacturers?

~~~
nordsieck
> Is there an alternative where they don't sign an equivalent TOS and still
> get the same features?

I mean, the clear alternative is to buy tractors without the same features.

I'm not sure why manufacturers are obligated to sell certain features without
a TOS.

> Or is this a unilateral power grab by the manufacturers?

How is this a power grab? That would only be true if the only tractor
manufacturer in the world is John Deere.

~~~
vajrabum
Can you legally fix your car or your older tractor? Has that always been true?
You can't legally fix these machines because the manufacturer says so. That's
new(ish) and a power (money) grab.

~~~
nordsieck
> Can you legally fix your car or your older tractor? Has that always been
> true? You can't legally fix these machines because the manufacturer says so.
> That's new(ish) and a power (money) grab.

Contracts that limit your ability to do things are very common.

If you buy a pure bred dog, you will typically be required to sign a contract
that requires you to not breed it and to get it neutered after a certain
period of time. If for some reason you need to give it up, you will have to
return it to the breeder.

If you buy a movie on DVD, you can enjoy it in your home, but you can't set up
an impromptu theater by projecting the movie on the side of a building.

The import thing, was the customer provided notice of this restriction at or
before the time of sale. It sounds like the answer to this question is: yes.

You may be tempted to to claim some sort of power imbalance, which I don't buy
in the general case, but in this particular case it is even less relevant.
Large farms that use automated machinery costing many hundreds of thousands of
dollars is the very definition of sophisticated customer, capable of hiring
legal help and evaluating options.

~~~
magduf
I don't know about tractors, but there's nothing legally preventing you from
fixing your car. The problem is technical: the diagnostic tools may only be
available to authorized dealers/repairpeople.

That said, despite all the crying about people not being able to work on cars
any more, I just don't see it. I change my own oil on my 2015 Mazda, and I can
easily change other parts on it too. Maybe there's certain brands that
intentionally throw up roadblocks? But I don't see it with mainstream Japanese
brands; these cars are very easy to work on.

------
bricej13
Disclaimer: My father worked as an engineer for John Deere for 35 years. I
interned at John Deere writing code that runs on the tractor controllers.

Discussions on this topic always end up one-sided and simplistic. Hopefully I
can shed some light on the more nuanced reasoning behind John Deere's
position.

Having the DRM in place allows Deere to reduce manufacturing expense and
increase platform flexibility. There is a very wide array of needs that
farmers have based on what they do. Deere allows buyers to customize tractors
to their needs for everything from engine horsepower, to wheel count, size,
and type, cab quality-of-life, to hydraulic hookups for implements. Some of
these changes are just a software change, while others are a software +
hardware change.

Engine horsepower, for example, can be increased by a software update.
Techincally, this is pretty cool. Designing and manufacturing engines is
expensive. This allows them to manufacture fewer different engines that can
cover a wider variety of use cases. It also allows farmers the flexibility to
upgrade their engine horsepower at a future date. If I remember correctly each
extra 50hp above the base costs ~10k, so the large configurations subsidize
the cost of the base configurations.

With that understanding, think of how this can apply to Deere's obligations to
the EPA or to warranties. Years ago, farmers found a hack where they could put
a resister in-line between the diesel temperature sensor and the ECU and
increase their horsepower. The hack spread like wildfire. This made the
engines run in a configuration that had not been tested by Deere or approved
by the EPA. Who would the EPA go after if it had caused emissions issues?
Should Deere honor the warranty in this case of those who did the hack? How
would Deere know if someone did the hack, borked the engine, then removed the
resistor?

Liability is the enemy of automation. Deere has added some automation over the
years, allowing the tractors to drive straight down the field without
intervention, and executing perfect turns at the push of a button. This is
functionality that no companies would let end users change. Much like my dad,
a tractor is not a cell phone. Installing a custom rom on a cell phone is one
thing, updating the autonomous driving of a 10 ton tractor is quite another.

There's got to be some middle ground, but I don't know what it is.

~~~
count
Why are the tractors any different from cars? If I buy a car, I can do
anything aftermarket to it I want. If the car is in warranty, those mods do
not allow the manufacturer to not continue to support it (well established
case law), and the EPA doesn't care once it's been sold (individual states
like CA might have issue, but those are with the owner, not the manufacturer,
if it's been modified).

This is all well-settled in the automotive world, why is JD 'different'?

~~~
naikrovek
> This is all well-settled in the automotive world, why is JD 'different'?

Because laws were passed in the US that specifically allow these kinds of
things (like customer repairability and modification) for cars. Those laws do
not apply to tractors.

~~~
magduf
Yes, actually, they do. The Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 applies to
everything, not just cars, even though it was really aimed at cars. But it
applies to anything consumers might buy, whether it's tractors or TVs.

------
beauzero
I am for "right to repair" but one thing that has been left out of this
narrative/discussion, in this article, and elsewhere is that when making
payments there are insurance and/or warranty riders on these contracts when
John Deere is providing the financing. They do this because they want the
equipment repaired in a manner that meets JD's engineering specs. On the flip
side I have seen certified JD mechanics, at a dealership, break off something
as simple as the BlueDef/urea tank on a tractor because they didn't know how
to fix it, forcing the tractor to remain in the shop while parts were
reordered. In return they lent a similar tractor out at no charge because hay
was already on the ground and rain was coming. This works well when the
dealership is literally 6 miles down the road...not so good when its 60 or
160.

~~~
ZWoz
Sorry for being naive, I am not american. Can you tell, why those farmers
aren't buying tractors from other companies? Those news always contain Deere
name, I don't see similar critique against say Valtra or Belarus.

~~~
beauzero
John Deere tractors have held their value historically better than Kubota,
Mahindra, New Holland, and Massey Ferguson. These are the main dealers in our
area. I can't speak for the midwest.

~~~
Theodores
In some areas of tech people only buy Intel. AMD might sell cheaper chips but
people that place a premium on floating point performance, e.g. because they
do 3D modelling, aren't going to be interested. Your gamer who has similar
demands might go for price (so they can spend more money on games).

If it is the main tool for your job then you aren't going to want anything
less than the best. John Deere seem to have that going for their business
strategy.

The tractor business model reminds me of how workstations and mini-computers
were sold with vendor lock in. That market didn't survive the 1990's and the
onslaught of affordable PCs. There is nothing on the horizon to disrupt the
tractor business, it is not as if new affordable mega-tractors are going to
come along at ordinary car prices to encourage masses of people to go 'back to
the land' and put the likes of John Deere in difficulties.

Bigger and bigger agri-business can't go on forever though, it is built on
assumptions about the inputs. Half of the food on my plate tonight comes from
places too far away for me to ever fly to myself, but, if climate change
action is to happen then my diet and everyone else's will have to be a lot
more locally sourced.

~~~
hilbert42
> Half of the food on my plate tonight comes from places too far away for me
> to ever fly to myself, but, if climate change action is to happen then my
> diet and everyone else's will have to be a lot more locally sourced.

An excellent point that I've have views about for years. Reckon we need to
cover this under a separate topic as it's a huge one and covers such issues
about what is and is not or should not be permitted under capitalism and free
trade as we understand them today.

------
Trisell
Outside of the large corporate farms I think you are going to see an increase
in farmers continuing to refurbish older tractors that are pre computers and
then begin to retrofit those tractors with third party systems that won’t give
them complete vendor lock in. A good example is Welker Farms. They run Big Bud
tractors from the 70s refurbish them every decade or so. And have added in gps
guidance and other things as 3rd party mods. Also they have a great YouTube
channel[1].

1
[https://www.youtube.com/WelkerFarmsInc?uid=tKUW8LJK2Ev8hUy9Z...](https://www.youtube.com/WelkerFarmsInc?uid=tKUW8LJK2Ev8hUy9ZG_PPA)

~~~
thrower123
That's the thing. This big iron equipment doesn't just quit working and fall
apart after a few years. It's expensive enough that you rebuild engines, weld
up parts that break, redo seals in the transmission, etc, and keep it going
for decades.

I've driven Cat D6 bulldozers that were older than I was when I was in
college, and they are still going, a decade later.

Particularly the stuff that is built for heavy usage has to be used hard,
patched together with limited repair facilities in remote places, and handled
by inexpert operators.

------
VonGuard
This is a HUGE problem. If John Deere were to go out of business tomorrow, a
huge swath of our world's farmers would be unable to produce anything thanks
to tractors turning off and not working properly. Remember that old game you
like with online validation for single player mode? Remember how it stopped
working when the servers went offline. There's a DMCA fair use exception to
allow you to circumvent that DRM thanks to the EFF and the MADE, but there is
no such fair use allowance for tractors....

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
Surely some party would come in and fill the gap, reverse engineer the thing,
whatever is necessary. Food security is a national security priority for the
United States. We wouldn't go hungry if John Deere went under instantly. There
would be a response.

~~~
CoffeeDregs
That is certainly the _hope_. What is the _plan_?

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
People are already hacking JD equipment with firmware found online. I don't
have an exact answer to your question, but this thread seems over-blown.
Somebody will know how it works, or learn how to work on it. I trust the
ingenuity of this nation wouldn't leave us with an unmaintainable or
unhackable tractors without "John Deere" the business existing, in the same
way the technique for jailbreaking the latest version of iOS comes relatively
quickly. The country that went to the moon can reverse engineer a tractor.
It's not like we need to prove P = NP or not to start getting people fed
again, to fix the problem.

~~~
grawprog
I personally agree the problem's being overblown here, and I agree with what
you say about technology like that, but, just to counter a bit, when it comes
to agriculture, time's not always available. Depending on when that
theoretical stopping of Deere's servers were to occur. There could be massive
crop failures. It's all well and good to get everything back up again, but by
this time a loaf of bread costs $50 and everyone's flipping their shit.

Not that I think any of this is ever likely to happen, but even small
disruptions to the food supply can have large consequences.

------
module0000
This is stranger than fiction. I would have laughed 15 years ago if someone
suggested DRM and electronic licensing would ever be applied to a _tractor_.

~~~
Someone1234
This comment might apply to cars 15 years from now.

Tesla is likely the closest to "car as a service" but it has been coming along
for a few years across the entire auto industry.

~~~
mrguyorama
My understanding is that ford is really really bad for this as well, requiring
incredibly expensive computers, software packages, and training to repair even
basic things without it pissing off the ECU

~~~
stochastic_monk
This is why I will never again own a Ford. (That, and the endless recalls.)

~~~
jacquesm
And the bits falling off the car within the warranty period, that turn out not
to be part of the warranty after all. In my case: a transmission brace that
broke under light use in under a year on an F150.

~~~
mywittyname
Or the aluminum hood on my car that has a massive paint defect that isn't
covered by the paint warranty because it needs to "rust" through for them to
cover it. They added that clause to the warranty agreement knowing that
aluminum will never rust, rather than fixing an issue they knew about for over
a decade.

------
donatj
The real problem I see for modestly sized farms's is they are massively
underserved by modern tractors. They are over complicated and over priced.
Most of the farmers I know still use tractors from the 1950s-1970s as their
primary workhorses because they're simple and reliable. No one builds tractors
like that anymore, in part due to the shrinking demands and in part due to
regulation.

Why would I pay $50k+ for a new tractor that does way more than I really need,
breaks down often and I can't service when I can get an old but just as useful
tractor for $3-5k.

The companies that have sprung up to build parts for these ancient tractors is
absolutely fascinating. Outside of perhaps some of the larger cast pieces, you
can replace almost everything with new parts.

~~~
Loughla
>The companies that have sprung up to build parts for these ancient tractors
is absolutely fascinating. Outside of perhaps some of the larger cast pieces,
you can replace almost everything with new parts.

There is a literal workforce dedicated to fixing or fabricating these old
parts.

Find your nearest custom machine shop. One-job shops. They exist to build or
fix a million things one time, instead of production machining where they
build one thing a million times.

These people are mad-geniuses at reverse-engineering and figuring out how to
make things based on burnt-out or broken pieces.

Source; My father is a master machinist at one of these shops. He has worked
on everything from re-building hydraulic cylinders for local guys to one-off
parts for prototype cars that we can't discuss the name of to rebuilding
structural supports on a bridge.

------
snazz
As a Minnesotan (but not a farmer), I’m extremely exited to see so much
progress with Right-to-Repair legislation (see [0]), especially since it
should benefit consumers nation- or even world-wide. If one US state passes
the bill, we're unlikely to tech companies create a “Minnesota Edition” device
with repair manuals only accessible to Minnesota residents. More likely,
compliant businesses will offer this information freely and benefit everyone.

[0]: [http://www.startribune.com/right-to-repair-bill-appears-
head...](http://www.startribune.com/right-to-repair-bill-appears-headed-for-
first-time-to-floor-of-minnesota-house/507485152/)

Also:
[https://states.repair.org/states/minnesota/](https://states.repair.org/states/minnesota/)
and [https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2019/04/24/minnesota-could-
be...](https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2019/04/24/minnesota-could-be-the-first-
state-to-pass-a-right-to-repair-bill/)

~~~
kwiens
We're down to the wire in Minnesota. If you want to see the bill happen, call
your reps today. A vote could happen as soon as tomorrow, but only if the
noise level is high enough.

~~~
snazz
Living in the 3rd congressional district, I’m assuming that I would be
contacting [solved and redacted; I realized how closely this tells you of my
location]. I haven’t done this before for any issue while living in this
state.

I also found the full text of the bill, which is very easy to read and a lot
shorter than I expected! I see nothing about when the bill might be voted
upon, but I’m very hopeful it will get passed.

[https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=HF1138&type...](https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=HF1138&type=bill&version=1&session=ls91&session_year=2019&session_number=0)

------
toomuchtodo
Related:

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-american-
farme...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-
hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware) (Why American Farmers Are
Hacking Their Tractors With Ukrainian Firmware)

[https://tractorhacking.github.io/](https://tractorhacking.github.io/)

~~~
chicob
_" The project is through California Polytechnic State University’s Capstone
I/II class and sponsored by iFixit. Material on this site is protected from
DMCA takedown by a DMCA exemption granted by the US Copyright Office."_

Yes.

------
olivermarks
[https://www.ft.com/content/ff8abbc2-7302-11e9-bf5c-6eeb83756...](https://www.ft.com/content/ff8abbc2-7302-11e9-bf5c-6eeb837566c5)
Good Rana Faroohar piece that touches on this:

'concentration of power in agribusiness has been a bigger and certainly a
longer-term problem for American farmers than China. As a few companies gained
control of key areas of the food supply chain, spending on research and
development fell, input costs rose, and margins for individual farms went
down. The CAP report also documents small farmers being forced into opaque
contracts and held up by ridiculous rules, such as those forbidding them to
repair their machinery without permission from John Deere or other large
manufacturers'

------
yason
If you can't fix or tinker with it then it's not yours, and if it isn't yours
it's not worth "buying" it but rather renting. Does JD lease their equipment?
Or do they hope to?

On another take, I can imagine old, repairable tractors going up in value at
some point. You can traditionally keep those going for decades.

~~~
Loughla
For smaller operations like mine, those older tractors are already valuable. I
run Massey's from the 70's and 80's that I can fix on my own as long as I can
find parts.

For large operations (and the way the entire ag economy is moving is large
operations) this doesn't matter. They lease their machinery anyway, so what
does it matter if they can't work on them? JD will come to the field to fix it
if it breaks down. It's a cost savings for them.

This is just another nail in the coffin of rural america/family farms.

And before the next person tells me 'most farms are family farms', I need your
citations, and I want to see it broken down by family owned corporations v
actual family farms.

------
jmpman
I worked in another industry with an effective monopoly in a subset of the
market. When setting our prices, we evaluated behavioral game theory, and
determined that we could claim 60% of the gains produced by our technology
innovations without upsetting our customer. As we planned for that financial
model, we realized that GMO seeds had a similar ability to extract fractions
of their productivity gains. We planned to investigate just what fraction they
were extracting, and expected it to be a much higher percentage, as Monsanto
doesn’t need to worry about upsetting a single customer, they could extract
90% of the gains, and any farmer who didn’t settle for those remaining 10%
would be our competed by their peers. Does anyone know how much GMO seeds cost
relative to their standard cousins, and how much the cost of growing each and
the productivity of each type? The Tractor companies are simply following the
seed companies models.

------
ltbarcly3
Please don't take this comment as "there is nothing wrong" and don't take it
as "there's nothing to talk about here". Clearly this is a problem that needs
to be discussed and brought to people's attention. This is a response to
people taking this article and interpreting it as though there is some
injustice being done to farmers and that we need some sort of government
intervention:

How is it a monopoly? There are like 8 or 9 different major tractor brands to
choose from. The word is out on the street (or fields?), and I've seen
articles like this for well over 5 years now.

There's a simple solution for farmers that don't want the costs (and benefits
presumably) of these restrictive deals: don't buy a tractor that has these
restrictive terms of service.

~~~
ergothus
I agree that what we are seeing is not really a monopoly. The issue is better
defined as "industry realities prevent effective use of voting with their
wallets".

> There's a simple solution for farmers that don't want the costs (and
> benefits presumably) of these restrictive deals: don't buy a tractor that
> has these restrictive terms of service.

...and lose compatibility with a large number of add on equipment and related
software. Much like the AAA games industry moving towards micro-transactions,
your ability to avoid suppliers that require that is limited and you are the
one that ends up losing out.

How do we solve these issues? No idea. But expecting farmers (in this case) to
take the hit themselves in the hopes that enough of their peers do the same to
create a big enough financial incentive for vendors to change their ways is
unlikely to succeed.

~~~
ltbarcly3
I appreciate your points, I just really dislike paternalism, especially when
it means treating farmers who are probably pretty savvy and creative like they
are helpless.

I'm fairly certain that building compatible equipment is totally legally
protected in the US. It would seem like a huge opportunity for some people
living in farm/manufacturing country to start building adapters or other
compatibility mechanisms to use add on equipment across tractor brands if the
tractor manufacturers aren't interested in doing it. If Henry Ford could build
a car in his garage, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that could
make a combine work with a tractor that doesn't have the right logo on the
side.

~~~
ergothus
> I'm fairly certain that building compatible equipment is totally legally
> protected in the US

Once software is involved, this isn't true. And software is rapidly involved
in every device.

Sure, you could go back 100 years and use equipment from then - but yields are
increased since then for a reason, and variable-rate-seeders, planters that
adjust depth based on soil type (from data), charting your harvester yields
and planting density, a crap ton of interactions with fertilizer
application/herbicide/fungicide, etc, are a part of that reason. Farmers are
perfectly savvy enough to know this, but their options are (1) get the new
equipment with the restrictive terms, (2) not get any of that new tech, or (3)
change into a new field and try to build what they would want, taking on the
big giants that are perfectly willing to Embrace/Extend/Extinguish, etc. Of
those options, the savvy person will do #1.

Your listed proposal of adaptors isn't legal if software and EULAs are
involved, which is where the whole right-to-repair movement gets involved.

------
PeterCorless
It's not a "monopoly," technically. It's an oligopoly. John Deere having 53%;
CNH (International Harvester, New Holland) having 35%, AGCO 7%, and
miscellaneous players fighting over the last 5%.

Article: [https://www.farm-
equipment.com/articles/15962-manufacturer-c...](https://www.farm-
equipment.com/articles/15962-manufacturer-consolidation-reshaping-the-farm-
equipment-marketplace)

Image: [https://www.farm-
equipment.com/ext/resources/images/issues/2...](https://www.farm-
equipment.com/ext/resources/images/issues/2018/FE-
September-2018/MarketShare.jpg)

------
toss1
Been long outraged at this kind of lock-in problem, wherever it is found. My
first thought on reading this kind of article is "what a great opportunity for
a startup".

Then, I immediately realize that there are likely no VCs that would fund such
a thing.

It seems that every (ok, a vast majority) new business models that gets funded
either start with or soon add some kin of lock-in even when completely
unnecessary. they tout it as a "cloud" feature, but in reality it is just a
DRM lockup.

The real problem is VCs and founders failing to truly compete on features, and
instead trying to compete on network effects and lock-in to build an
extractive business model -- just lock 'em in and charge the highest
rent/rates you can.

------
PorterDuff
I can't think of why this would be unique to farmers, perhaps aside from a
push towards autopilot systems.

Mining equipment, road building, all of that hyper-specialized stuff for
slicing and dicing trees, I would think they all have this issue. Perhaps it's
the greater prevalence of owner-operators.

I've probably bought the newest car I ever will (which is now 15 years old),
so it would be nice to steer clear of the dealer-only craziness and the
inevitable spying on you that new vehicles are going to accrue. I can just
imagine how ticked I'd be if the tech juggernaut was messing with my income in
a bad way.

~~~
analog31
An amusing anecdote: At my workplace, the software developers decided that I
didn't deserve to have a "seat" of their magnificent development tools. I
downloaded a copy of Python. Now my entire work group runs on Python.

A couple years later, same story with the embedded systems developers. Now we
all develop on Arduino.

My side business, manufacturing a hardware gadget, runs entirely from open
source tools.

------
ngneer
Information asymmetry. I would humbly posit that this is one of the biggest
challenges that the information security community has to tackle on the face
of the planet, and it is not just a technological one. Farmers are at the
mercy of equipment manufacturers, who are centralizing control. A model with
distributed control is more robust in the long run, and should be an option
for consumers. Are there any competitive open source tractors out there?

------
Circuits
It must not be that huge of a problem because farmers are continuing to
purchase the most up-to-date tractors with all the wing-dings, bells and
whistles they can afford. The guidance consoles are not tied into the machine
and don't care how old the equipment is, so why again do you need that brand
new $200k tractor? Perhaps this will be a wake up call. Stop buying new
equipment and fix your already existing, already purchased, old equipment.

~~~
colechristensen
The fixable equipment without electronic black boxes is several decades old
and increasingly difficult to come by.

New farm equipment is financed with loans/leases, trade ins and depreciation
in ways that make it a sort of trap that is difficult to escape buying new
things all the time.

~~~
Circuits
Not the first time I have heard that and yet I see thousands of machines in
hundreds of machine graveyards where old equipment has been sitting for
decades collecting rust spread accost the country side. The same can be said
about cars and the people who own the old equipment are basically giving it
away if not paying people to take it... The problem, imho, is that people
actually don't want to be able to fix their machines themselves because they
don't want to spend the time it takes to do it. They want to be able to pay a
guy to do it for them and even then they complain about the cost or the hassle
involved in making that happen. Today's farmers are not the farmers of 20
years ago. They are the same as everyone else, to busy playing angry-birds to
learn how to fix a carburetor.

~~~
Loughla
From experience - it's not that simple.

I run 70's and 80's Masseys. I have to fix them constantly, by myself. The
biggest hassle is waiting for parts. The last time I needed a part from an
implement or salesman that I couldn't get from a junkyard took 2 weeks for
delivery, once they found it. It was 20 days total from breakdown to fix, and
all but 12 hours of that was out of my control.

So, put yourself on a broken down tractor in harvest season with rain in the
forecast for two days from now. That white glove treatment you get with new
machinery looks pretty nice when that happens.

That being said, I agree that people want to complain more than they want to
fix anything. I enjoy working with my hands as a hobby, so I'm odd, I think.
Most people just want their machines to work, with no inputs.

~~~
Circuits
Agreed but as the article noted finding yourself on a broken down tractor
during harvest season isn't dependent on having a new machine. In fact, I
would argue you are MORE likely to find yourself in that position with one of
these new machines.

At least in your position you knew what was wrong, you knew what part you
needed and you knew how to install it. These new machines are specifically
being designed so that a layman such as yourself can't fix them.

Big AGG isn't stopping there either. They aren't just trying to cut you out.
There trying to cut out the repair guys and the suppliers. They want to own
everything: the repair shops, the delivery shops, the manufacturing plants...
their even trying to purchase the intellectual properties. Truth is no one
needs a brand new machine just like no one needs a brand new car or a brand
new house, imho.

------
loons2
I'm not a farmer, but I wouldn't even buy a John Deere lawn mower for exactly
this reason. The tractor I did buy is a Branson. The engine comes from the
same factory that Cummins engines come from (matter of fact, some JD engines
come from the Kukje factory) and everything is built with durability in mind.
Yes, the dealer is 135 miles away, but since I'm not really depending on the
machine to make a living, I can live with that.

------
hippich
I got a small old grey-market tractor made by Mitsubishi. Most of the wiring
is shot, only ignition, sparkplugs and battery-to-starter is working. The rest
is destroyed by someone previously. (alternator is probably also dead). And it
works awesomely! Just gotta charge the battery once in a while in the garage.
That is tractor.

What is sold by JD - is semi-authonomous sophisticated machines with equally
sophisticated service network, not a tractor :P

------
hilbert42
How did we ever get into the situation where we cannot repair our own
stuff—stuff that we have actually purchased ourselves? The situation that
we've now reached where technology is now being locked up and out of sight in
large corporations is frankly damn disgraceful and we really need to act and
to do something about it ASAP. This new trend is deskilling the workforce and
population generally and it's not in the national interest for society to
allow this to continue. …And that's just for starters.

There was a time early in my career when anyone who purchased any hi-tech
equipment would have expected to receive a comprehensive operational manual
with the equipment and optionally a proper service manual with a comprehensive
description of equipment's operation and procedures to fix it. And of course
spare parts would have been available as a matter of course. It was so common
that no one would have ever thought it possible not to be able to get
maintenance manuals.

My introduction to electronics and technology generally was by way of
equipment manuals and I learned a great deal from them.

Home appliances such as radios and televisions often had the circuit diagrams
inside the back of the case at the time of purchase. Mechanics manuals were
always available for cars and other vehicles and so on.

I recall quintessential examples of this with manuals from companies such as
Tektronix whose oscilloscopes manuals were a remarkable sight—they were truly
wonderful.

For the younger generation who has never experienced what is was actually like
to be able to get detailed information from a manufacturer then download this
Tektronix oscilloscope 7834 manual dated 1977 from the Internet Archive:
[https://archive.org/details/tektronix_7834](https://archive.org/details/tektronix_7834).
(I actually purchased several of these instruments so I've firsthand
knowledge.)

Even if you don't understand a word of this manual nevertheless even just a
glance at it will show you what we've actually lost as a society by
manufacturer's refusing to release information.

It's a nonsense when manufacturers claim that they shouldn't have to release
proprietary information as it would aid competitors. Clearly, the release of
this information by Tektronix never affected its bottom line. In fact, this
instrument reigned quite supreme at what it did for years. In fact, hiding
circuit information and obfuscating source code has been detrimental for
security and other reasons. If Volkswagen had not obfuscated its embedded code
then it wouldn’t have faced the multibillion dollar fines that it's had to
endure.

BTW, IBM provided circuit schematics and BIOS source code for its first
PCs—the XT and AT.

Oh, how times have changed for the worse.

~~~
lotsofpulp
>How did we ever get into the situation where we cannot repair our own
stuff—stuff that we have actually purchased ourselves?

People purchased items that they cannot repair, for myriad reasons, and did
not purchase items they could repair. I don't know anyone that wants to fix
their phone, they want to walk into a store with a broken one, and walk out
with a working one and restore their settings. That's a relatively small value
item, but same applies for home appliances and automobiles.

~~~
pessimizer
> People purchased items that they cannot repair, for myriad reasons

The primary reason being that they are 97% of the available items, forcing any
repair shop to get by through fixing the 3%. This results in a tug-of-war
between repair shops being too far away (fewer of them) or too expensive,
closing in on the price of a new disposable item.

Right-to-fix isn't about me being an expert on how to fix things, it's about
me being able to get things fixed by someone other than the manufacturer. This
increases the number of repairmen, which increases the attractiveness of
repairable items in a virtuous circle.

edit: also in a lot of these manufacturer repair situations you're talking
about _mailing_ the item somewhere, not walking to a store and walking out
with a new one. A world in which you arrive at a familiar repair shop, they
transfer your data to a loner phone, and you get your phone back in a day or
two and rsync the diff back - that doesn't sound radically different for the
customer than the status quo, just radically cheaper and more environmentally
friendly.

~~~
hilbert42
> it's about me being able to get things fixed by someone other than the
> manufacturer

Right, it is about manufacturers being in a monopolistic position to dictate
after sales service, sales of spares, etc. When manufactures gain control over
the after sales service they essentially double-dip—they benefit from both the
profit from the sale as well as the after sales service.

When manufacturers turn after sales service with them from being optional to
compulsory, they are effectively adding a rent factor to their product. There
are several issues here:

(a) Monopoly laws should be strengthened to stop such practices. This would
effectively force a return to the past status quo where it was accepted
practice for third parties to repair equipment/supply spares etc.

(b) If that is not possible—that's to say that copyright, patent and contract
law cannot be changed and thus permit this situation to continue—then in my
opinion it should be unlawful for the seller not to make this fact fully clear
to the buyer/owner upfront.

(c) It follows that it should be unlawful for manufactures to lock out users
or repairers with electronic locks that prevent them maintaining their
equipment and or using spares and consumables supplied by third parties (for
instance, printer manufacturers locking out ink cartridges from third party
suppliers).

(d) Moreover, it should be unlawful for manufacturers/sellers to force
conditions of sale or use onto the buyer/user that would permit them (the
manufacturers) to gather data about the consumption of spares, consumables,
ways of use or application, owners' names and other personal data without
explicit permission of the buyer/owner. (It should be noted that manufacturers
are not paying users for this information). Such a change in the law would
again only return us to the status quo before the on-line era.

It is not only the 'ownership' of tractors where users experience these
problems; they are appearing everywhere these days. For example, again,
printer manufactures engage in blatant and outrageous price gouging for ink
consumables (where the price of ink per ounce approaches that of expensive
perfumes).

------
Gustomaximus
What I dont understand is why farmers are still being brand loyal to companies
like John Deere. There are quality tractor brands from Italy, Germany,
Finland, Japan and Korea etc.

Would jumping to these brands be a easy fix or is there an issue with dealer
networks and part there?

Seems to me while getting right to repair rules are still important, farmers
of an area should be setting up coops for parts and swapping brands. Is that
over-simplifying things?

------
dv_dt
It's just one case of many in a system where financialization and extraction
have taken precedent over companies competing to provide fundamental values to
consumers. There isn't enough competition, there isn't enough access or
willingness for capital to take risks (how many farmers with deep understaning
of the ag market have access to capital to start a rival tractor company?).

------
jelliclesfarm
John Deere is also buying or investing in automated farming equipment(Blue
River Tech being their biggest acquisition) and farm robotics. They now have a
Silicon Valley VC/investment arm in San Francisco.

A lot of new technologies that are being developed are bought out by the big
fish and banished to a dark vault to die to kill competition.

Net net..farmer never wins.

------
JoblessWonder
This is just another example of the increasing "___ as a Service" model that
is flowing through many, many industries. Manufacturers and service providers
are trying to manage their cash flow in a different way by getting people to
pay regular ongoing fees instead of larger, one time fees at intermittent
intervals.

------
bsbechtel
At one point, there was talk of the industry moving to a pay per hour of
horsepower model or something similar where you are basically paying for
guaranteed uptime. I don't know if there is still an effort to move towards
that or not, but that would change this discussion quite a bit.

~~~
colechristensen
Just a little supporting fact most people wouldn't be aware of, when you're
buying a used tractor the "odometer" you look at isn't in miles but hours
which is tracked in the same way.

------
eledumb
Foreign import knock off tractors will take care of this problem and then U.S.
manufacturers will be crying unfair "foreign competition" and then they will
get bailed out, time and time again until they can no longer compete even with
the bail out.

------
new-day-rising
Large scale grain farms (aka commercial farms - not the historical family
farm) typically run combines 24-7 during harvest and use the combines for 1
harvest only. They lease them and don't own them. Smaller operations buy them
refurbished...

------
downrightmike
Farm and ranch families comprise just 2 percent of the U.S. population.
[https://www.fb.org/newsroom/fast-facts](https://www.fb.org/newsroom/fast-
facts)

~~~
squish78
... and they keep the other 98% alive

------
canada_dry
> U.S. consumers may be unaware of the farmers’ plight

Sadly, the vast majority of the US population only really care about things in
their own home/backyard. The concept of awareness at even a national level is
lost on most.

~~~
jartelt
Many farmers in the Midwest are actually millionaires that own large swathes
of land. Yes, they work very hard, but they also like to complain a lot
despite the fact that many of them are better off than many non-farmers in the
Midwest.

------
thomasedwards
Sounds like it’s a really great time to be a farmer in the US.

~~~
cmiles74
I suspect you're being sarcastic and I agree. The US has been a tough place to
be a farmer since the 80s.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/14/us/farmer-suicide-rate-
sw...](https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/14/us/farmer-suicide-rate-swells-
in-1980-s-study-says.html)

[https://www.motherjones.com/media/2018/07/the-cdc-just-
retra...](https://www.motherjones.com/media/2018/07/the-cdc-just-retracted-
its-farmer-suicide-data-that-could-be-terrible-news-for-farmers/)

------
shmerl
Another example how DRM is a crooked tool that should be banned.

------
mymythisisthis
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO5EWOFpV1E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO5EWOFpV1E)
Matthias explains what makes a good farm tracker.

------
0x262d
this was predicted by Lenin in Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, a
good portion of which is dedicated to the unstoppable gradual rise of
monopolies and cartels. more people here should read it.

~~~
JohnFen
Or, for those who are allergic to Lenin, Adam Smith made pretty much the same
point in "The Wealth of Nations".

~~~
hilbert42
Whether a generation takes Smith's or Marx's line, lessons learned will be
forgotten within a generation or two and the arguments start over again.
Tragically, this is a part of the human condition and it is not just limited
to politics and the economy but also applies to many other fields of human
endeavour.

