The very concept of IP was a mistake. I understand it helped make a lot of work possible. But virtually nothing useful came from nothing, and the reservoir of human knowledge belongs to all of us. Unless you are Isaac Newton, you took a good idea and made it better or more applicable. Pretending like you own it is just dishonest.
> Deere must pay $1 million collectively to the five states for antitrust enforcement costs and will be subject to strict compliance oversight for the next 10 years.
$1 million fine for probably $10 billion in profit. I know what lesson I'd learn if my only personal value was maximizing shareholder value. The compliance part can be dealt with later.
Can you expand on this number or is it vibes-based? I'd be surprised if $10b profit was made from Service Advisor.
Anecdata; we've had a handful of problems with our tractor "computers" recently, and we haven't been charged a dime by the dealer. Our newest is 2018 model so definitely not covered by warranty.
Not OP but I went through some data and John Deere makes 5B NET profit for the worse years. 10B for their best (only looking back 10 years). I wouldn’t be surprised these anticompetitive (as in anti “consumer”) has netted them north of 10B.
Bananas that stuff like this needs to get litigated in our society - if you asked 100 random people "should farmers be able to repair their equipment", you would get 100 yes's.
Until you tell them how easy it makes it to bypass emissions restrictions. My tractor was shipped with a screw turned down to <25hp to bypass emissions controls. I could turn that screw back up and have a ~35hp tractor, but of course, that would be illegal and make lots of environmentalists cry.
Opening up John Deere tractors for right to repair virtually assures they will ~all be doing emissions deletes. Part of their lock-down was profit seeking, but the other half is that different vendors had different ideas interpretations of the law about how locked down the system had to be to prevent emissions tampering, and domestic companies more subject to US law were generally far more paranoid about it.
Right to repair doesn't change any of that. Farmers were adjusting that screw anyways, that was the entire point. I'm not mad at farmers for doing it, I'm mad at John Deere at cheating the system.
It's not John Deere that was doing that, just some Korean companies exploring the opportunity and importing to the US. John Deere is located in the US and too afraid of the whimsical interpretations of regulators to try something like that, I think.
There was no "screw" for the commercial John Deere tractors with emissions controls, that I know of.
If we could get our operators to just run regen when they should, it wouldn't be an issue. They don't mind filling DEF and we don't mind paying for it.
Tractors are legal above 25hp but it requires DPF, and at I want to say about 75, possibly more than that. Farmers generally hate DPF systems and will disable them the microsecond they get the right to repair.
>Then why even manufacture them and cripple them?
They cripple them because they know people want bigger tractor without emission control so they sell it as a less powerful tractor and then just expect people to break the law and turn the screw, and everybody is happy.
Thankfully, it's not illegal to own a screwdriver and nothing changes there. There's absolutely no relevance between right to repair (not right to break emission laws!) and the situation you describe.
If you're a US company the vagueness of emissions law likely prevents a US company from hazarding doing it and instead locking down the repair of their power trains to ensure emission compliance. Korean companies get away with it because they don't give much a shit if they're banned from import, it can always be washed through another foreign company. John Deere can't try that sort of thing since being a household-name US company is their bread and butter for commanding a premium in the first place.
======= re: below due to throttling ========
>You pretty clearly said everyone is currently bypassing this, otherwise companies would not be putting in larger engines.
Everyone is doing it on the import tractors with the screws. They are not doing it with John Deere tractors, which are locked down for emission compliance. John Deere is handicapped by the fact they're located in the US and regulators have more leverage on them to prevent the sort of right-to-repair which would enable emission bypassing.
Great news, the fine is so small doesn’t matter, but curing the wrong does. My hope is this standard will apply to modern cars as well, repair manuals and the software tools to interact with the cars are also heavily restricted by the manufacturers.
As much as I hope this is a turning point, I’m not holding my breath.
John Deere was one of the most egregious offenders in the right-to-repair movement, especially with how expensive their tractors are. There’s definitely a difference paying for the repair of a ten of thousands of dollars machine versus having to buy new AirPods.
I’m no expert in US law, but my understanding is an FTC settlement doesn’t create any precedent like a court case would, so I don’t anticipate this leading to other offenders, like in tech, being held accountable. Their support is too important right now.
Ultimately, I think the underlying motive for the administration is scoring a win for a core constituency, farmers. Tariffs and immigration enforcement have really harmed the viability of their farms, but at least the admin can say the did something for them.
Nevertheless, I’m glad that John Deere is being forced to provide parts and information to individuals and repair shops.
There's a cognitive dissonance on this site where everyone claims to hate this attempt at regulatory capture, yet they would do it too if it was their tech company and call it a "moat", and many are actively working towards that.
Most movements don't start out big. They are won by small steps. Personally I want a law that allows people to bypass security measure after a company stop supporting the device. I have unsupported amazon echo, google home, and apple ipads that work perfectly well and I would love add custom software or even put a different os too.
"...Deere will now be required to make diagnostic and repair tools available to equipment owners and independent repair shops..."
This is only the tip of the iceberg. They make the parts deliberately proprietary to prevent competition. The classic example is curved cabin windows instead of flat commodity glass.
Laissez-faire capitalism is efficient at extraction not productivity.
The very concept of IP was a mistake. I understand it helped make a lot of work possible. But virtually nothing useful came from nothing, and the reservoir of human knowledge belongs to all of us. Unless you are Isaac Newton, you took a good idea and made it better or more applicable. Pretending like you own it is just dishonest.
> Deere must pay $1 million collectively to the five states for antitrust enforcement costs and will be subject to strict compliance oversight for the next 10 years.
$1 million fine for probably $10 billion in profit. I know what lesson I'd learn if my only personal value was maximizing shareholder value. The compliance part can be dealt with later.
>probably $10 billion in profit
Can you expand on this number or is it vibes-based? I'd be surprised if $10b profit was made from Service Advisor.
Anecdata; we've had a handful of problems with our tractor "computers" recently, and we haven't been charged a dime by the dealer. Our newest is 2018 model so definitely not covered by warranty.
Not OP but I went through some data and John Deere makes 5B NET profit for the worse years. 10B for their best (only looking back 10 years). I wouldn’t be surprised these anticompetitive (as in anti “consumer”) has netted them north of 10B.
Bananas that stuff like this needs to get litigated in our society - if you asked 100 random people "should farmers be able to repair their equipment", you would get 100 yes's.
Because they don't ask it like that. It'll be "Woke communists want to confiscate the money of enterprising businesses."
Until you tell them how easy it makes it to bypass emissions restrictions. My tractor was shipped with a screw turned down to <25hp to bypass emissions controls. I could turn that screw back up and have a ~35hp tractor, but of course, that would be illegal and make lots of environmentalists cry.
Opening up John Deere tractors for right to repair virtually assures they will ~all be doing emissions deletes. Part of their lock-down was profit seeking, but the other half is that different vendors had different ideas interpretations of the law about how locked down the system had to be to prevent emissions tampering, and domestic companies more subject to US law were generally far more paranoid about it.
Right to repair doesn't change any of that. Farmers were adjusting that screw anyways, that was the entire point. I'm not mad at farmers for doing it, I'm mad at John Deere at cheating the system.
It's not John Deere that was doing that, just some Korean companies exploring the opportunity and importing to the US. John Deere is located in the US and too afraid of the whimsical interpretations of regulators to try something like that, I think.
There was no "screw" for the commercial John Deere tractors with emissions controls, that I know of.
Lot of armchair quarterbacking going on, on both sides. I'd love to hear an actual farmer weigh in on this.
Anyone in the room care to volunteer?
tractorbynet is one of the better forums for info on opinions on tractors by people that use them regularly
If we could get our operators to just run regen when they should, it wouldn't be an issue. They don't mind filling DEF and we don't mind paying for it.
I don't understand, are 35hp tractors illegal under emissions rules? Then why even manufacture them and cripple them?
Tractors are legal above 25hp but it requires DPF, and at I want to say about 75, possibly more than that. Farmers generally hate DPF systems and will disable them the microsecond they get the right to repair.
>Then why even manufacture them and cripple them?
They cripple them because they know people want bigger tractor without emission control so they sell it as a less powerful tractor and then just expect people to break the law and turn the screw, and everybody is happy.
Thankfully, it's not illegal to own a screwdriver and nothing changes there. There's absolutely no relevance between right to repair (not right to break emission laws!) and the situation you describe.
I don't understand what you're trying to say. Is this prevented today or not by the denial of the right to repair?
It sounds like you are saying everyone is doing it today, so denying the right to repair doesn't affect the situation.
If you're a US company the vagueness of emissions law likely prevents a US company from hazarding doing it and instead locking down the repair of their power trains to ensure emission compliance. Korean companies get away with it because they don't give much a shit if they're banned from import, it can always be washed through another foreign company. John Deere can't try that sort of thing since being a household-name US company is their bread and butter for commanding a premium in the first place.
======= re: below due to throttling ========
>You pretty clearly said everyone is currently bypassing this, otherwise companies would not be putting in larger engines.
Everyone is doing it on the import tractors with the screws. They are not doing it with John Deere tractors, which are locked down for emission compliance. John Deere is handicapped by the fact they're located in the US and regulators have more leverage on them to prevent the sort of right-to-repair which would enable emission bypassing.
Do what? What is not happening today that you think would happen if people were given the right to repair?
You pretty clearly said everyone is currently bypassing this, otherwise companies would not be putting in larger engines. Is that wrong?
Doing that is already illegal and should be enforced using appropriate tools. We shouldn't be relying on unrelated technical measures to enforce laws.
Shout out to Louis Rossmann for doing a ton of work on Right to repair.
He started a website called Consumer Rights Wiki to document anti-consumer practices.
https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Main_Page
He's also involved with FULU Foundation which has a bounty of 25k to get Ring cameras working without Amazon's servers.
https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties/ring-video-doorbells
The settlement changes nothing [0]
[0]: https://fighttorepair.substack.com/p/this-doesnt-break-the-m...
Great news, the fine is so small doesn’t matter, but curing the wrong does. My hope is this standard will apply to modern cars as well, repair manuals and the software tools to interact with the cars are also heavily restricted by the manufacturers.
As much as I hope this is a turning point, I’m not holding my breath.
John Deere was one of the most egregious offenders in the right-to-repair movement, especially with how expensive their tractors are. There’s definitely a difference paying for the repair of a ten of thousands of dollars machine versus having to buy new AirPods.
I’m no expert in US law, but my understanding is an FTC settlement doesn’t create any precedent like a court case would, so I don’t anticipate this leading to other offenders, like in tech, being held accountable. Their support is too important right now.
Ultimately, I think the underlying motive for the administration is scoring a win for a core constituency, farmers. Tariffs and immigration enforcement have really harmed the viability of their farms, but at least the admin can say the did something for them.
Nevertheless, I’m glad that John Deere is being forced to provide parts and information to individuals and repair shops.
There's a cognitive dissonance on this site where everyone claims to hate this attempt at regulatory capture, yet they would do it too if it was their tech company and call it a "moat", and many are actively working towards that.
Good. It's a tractor, not some tiny glued-together tech gadget.
Shouldn't we be able to repair a tiny glued togethee tech gadget as well?
This is only getting this level of scrutiny because it's related to big ag, and John Deere is the worst example.
They're a political football now and it's more of a feel good measure.
Most movements don't start out big. They are won by small steps. Personally I want a law that allows people to bypass security measure after a company stop supporting the device. I have unsupported amazon echo, google home, and apple ipads that work perfectly well and I would love add custom software or even put a different os too.
"...Deere will now be required to make diagnostic and repair tools available to equipment owners and independent repair shops..."
This is only the tip of the iceberg. They make the parts deliberately proprietary to prevent competition. The classic example is curved cabin windows instead of flat commodity glass.
Laissez-faire capitalism is efficient at extraction not productivity.
Having operated a ~1995 7800 with flat glass and a ~2015 7270 with curved, I know which one I'm picking.
Are automobiles using curved windshields so they have a stranglehold on the replacement windshield market?
Your example doesn't pass my sniff test.
How is a curved window better on a tractor?