"Right to repair" isn't some kind of little negotiated contract fiddling. A company can't agree to a 5-year right to repair. Right to repair is a normal freedom, like speech, like using everyday objects you buy or make, generally walking around, meeting people, etc. Don't let's get all twisted up here and start thinking some dumb-ass business plan is the starting point in our basic conceptualization of humanity.
jamienk
I've learned that I'm just not cynical enough. Here's the relevant Peter Girnus post[1], he tells the underlying truth through satire.
10 years. We report our compliance every 60 days, then once a year, which is to say we have turned handing you your own machine into a paperwork schedule that runs through 2036. Any new repair tool we build, we only have to share once more than 50% of our dealers already have it. We decide when a dealer has it. We build the clock and we wind the clock.
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.
MarkMarine
Fifty years ago the average guy buying a tractor had a family farm with a few hundred acres. Equipment was smaller and had less frills because the John Deeres of the world were catering to those small time customers. There were a lot of them.
Those small time farms mostly don’t exist anymore. Today farming is done on an industrial scale, and equipment manufacturers are catering to the big players. They need big, efficient equipment that is profitable to operate at scale and they’re willing to pay for it. Only the big farms can.
I wonder how much of this is just the manufacturers making more high end, complex equipment that is just difficult to repair in general as opposed to them maliciously designing things to be difficult to fix.
Keep in mind, increasing the cost to repair something lowers its market value. There’s a reason Toyotas are more expensive than Dodges. The market prices these inconveniences. It’s not in the manufacturer’s interest to do this.
I think the real risk here is that the equipment manufacturers will use these settlements and regulations to build crazy reporting and compliance requirements that give them a moat that prevents upstart companies from competing with incumbents in the industry. What they really fear is competition, not the loss of a few percentage points on their part sales and service profits.
MisterMower
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.
ggoo
It was always crazy to me that farm equipment was locked down. I almost understand yuppie buying an E-Class not working on their own car, but a farmer not able to work on his own tractor just felt so wrong. It made me wonder how John Deere was still so popular and seemingly beloved.
al_borland
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.
dreambuffer
> 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.
taurath
1 million dollars? Like, less than 1 tractor after financing? How will they recover from this?!
comments (10)
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
Cider9986
jamienk
mikewarot
MarkMarine
Those small time farms mostly don’t exist anymore. Today farming is done on an industrial scale, and equipment manufacturers are catering to the big players. They need big, efficient equipment that is profitable to operate at scale and they’re willing to pay for it. Only the big farms can.
I wonder how much of this is just the manufacturers making more high end, complex equipment that is just difficult to repair in general as opposed to them maliciously designing things to be difficult to fix.
Keep in mind, increasing the cost to repair something lowers its market value. There’s a reason Toyotas are more expensive than Dodges. The market prices these inconveniences. It’s not in the manufacturer’s interest to do this.
I think the real risk here is that the equipment manufacturers will use these settlements and regulations to build crazy reporting and compliance requirements that give them a moat that prevents upstart companies from competing with incumbents in the industry. What they really fear is competition, not the loss of a few percentage points on their part sales and service profits.
MisterMower
ggoo
al_borland
dreambuffer
$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.
taurath
xgulfie