I recently left a major part supplier for a good portion of the heavy equipment industry and Deere was one of our biggest customers. They were truly despicable to work with.
On every bid we sent them the #1 requirement was Proprietary Fit. There had to be some sort of IP lockout (always disguised as a valuable design feature, but it never was) to prevent end users from procuring replacement parts anywhere else. In many cases it even made the parts significantly worse, as useless bumps or ridges were added to the industry standard to make them physically incompatible.
The old model was we build a part for $8 and sell it to the end user for $10. Under Deere's new model, we build the part for $8, sell it exclusively to Deere for $11, and they sell it to customer for $16.
My former employer was very complicit in this behavior, but Deere was by far the most aggressive about and a big enough player to squeeze all their suppliers.
Edit: They pay all kinds of lip service to how this is better for the customer ("reliable supply chain", "Deere-guaranteed quality", etc) but that's only in their public PR. Behind the scenes it is 100% about securing a long term revenue source - customers pay out the ass for a piece of equipment, then have to keep coming back to Deere for 50 years for replacement parts.
Worse still, you can't get schematics for John Deere in the US, but John Deere provided full schematics as a condition of access to the Chinese market.
My company makes products that have computer controllers, and lots and lots of code to run them. They are bending over backward to make them impossible to hack here in the States, but (so I am told) giving the source and the encryption keys directly to the Chinese government as a requirement of selling products into that market.
Exactly the same situation with Apple, but it’s much more than bumps and ridges. It’s DRM for screens, digitizers, batteries, etc. It is genuine OEM but apple obviously prefers you to buy a new device.
That's pretty shocking. At the same time: this is a pretty strong case for market response, some other company should be able to get a significant price advantage out of this and make minced meat of JD in comparative advertising.
I wish these things were re-worded the other way. It's a sad state of affairs that a law has to be encoded to grant the people permission to do something that should be the default state. Right to repair is about targeting the manufacturers and preventing them from making it impossible to do so.
It is not like that. People are allowed to do things, but they voluntarily cede the right to do them by agreeing to the terms of the contract, when they buy the hardware and services. So the role of the regulation will be actually to forbid certain types of contracts, that limit the right for repair, not to grant this right.
Also, the right to repair may mean different things: it can forbid exclusive contracts with spare parts suppliers, so that you could shop or repair elsewhere. Or it can regulate the price and availability. Or it can allow you to manufacture replacement parts on your own. The first option would be an equivalent of antitrust regulation in the vendor-specific ecosystem, and it seems pretty reasonable, because it will create a market where it did not yet exist. The second option will be economically destructive, because it would replace free market with planned economy. The last option may result in creating a black market of pirated parts, actually harming manufacturers which invested in R&D.
That's the thing about contracts and debt -- they let people who have the advantage today rob you for not just what's in your pocket today, but what will be in your pocket tomorrow.
> So the role of the regulation will be actually to forbid certain types of contracts, that limit the right for repair, not to grant this right.
That's actually what I think the title should of been. But that's my own opinion.
"Senate introduces bill to forbid farming contracts that limit right to repair"
I get that, it's just a titling thing. Even framing the discussion in that way is not only a more accurate description of what's happening (as you've elaborated) but it lands better (if you were looking at this as a libertarian type perspective).
Well, you can frame this both ways, because the contract clause, allowing people to (by default) sign binding contracts, also counts towards "grant the people permission to do something". And that's what this is — the farmer signing a contract to use the equipment in a certain way.
As much as this law makes sense, the blanket right to form contracts between individuals/businesses/etc (when those contracts are not explicitly deemed abusive) is very important and I don't think we would be in a better place without it.
On paper that all sounds well and good, but that completely discounts the power imbalance between large corporations and normal people.
When somebody wants to buy a good, if the only way to do that is to accept a one-sided ToS that makes them give up there rights, that's just eroding freedom.
The problem is, it's not a choice anymore. John Deere isn't saying "hey, want to sign up for our repair program?"
It's saying "If you want a tractor we actually control what you can do with it forever. Too bad you need this tractor to work, tough luck we own you"
Unlimited contracting rights, which I am not saying you support, are a very dangerous path to go down because history shows they will be abused in very serious ways to reduce the actual freedom of large subsets of the population.
You are absolutely right that we should pursue more freedom in signing the contracts and this is exactly what such regulation is supposed to do: a contract with the vendor must not block signing the contracts with other suppliers and repair shops. It creates more freedom by being more explicit about what is a valid contract.
Yeah I really thought it was clear how much of a huge bummer this news is. Rewrite is as 'Farmers are having their work held hostage by, of all things, tractor DRM, and there's a mere proposal to pump the breaks on this absolute cyberpunk nightmare"
I wouldn't read into it too much. This is just NBC's bias creeping in. It's not like they have a plethora of hardline libertarians kicking around who are gonna say "hey, can we title this differently?". The bill itself probably has some grand patriotic title.
That’s exactly my reaction, what about cars and phones and ordinary people? Politicians care are farmers, babies, and little old ladies because it gets people going, but the bigger issue is right to repair in general. It’s great that farmers would be able to fix tractors, but if the senate carves out this exception it could weaken the overall right to repair argument. Are there any broader bills being considered by the senate?
Farmers can fix most things on their farm. This is true for machines, fences, structures, animals, etc. Their ingenuity and hard work is how they survive. The ability to take advantage of weather windows as well as harvest and sow at the appropriate times allows them to maximize their output.
Being required to wait around burning days waiting on some specialized technician who can charge exorbitant fees does not work.
Give farmers access to the appropriate parts and resources and they will make their machines function and operate.
Sure, you can buy Kubota or Massey Ferguson but in many areas of the US with active farmland, you'll have to drive many hundreds of miles to even find a dealer to support these brands. John Deere is ubiquitous.
Voting with your wallet seldom works if the only organization permitted on the buyer's side is individual. As other posters have noted, there's a great deal of lock-in and local monopolies.
On the other hand, if Deere wants a market without right-to-repair requirements, they can simply not sell in the US. Voting with their feet, as it were.
No? Maybe in one of a million parallel universes, but it's not something that's realistic. Tractor manufacturing isn't a light thing to take to, and is rather out of scope for farmers ( the same way that ISPs don't manufacture the vans used by their techs).
This is fantastic news but I'm hesitant to get excited about it yet. If it gets out of committee then it's a reason to celebrate. A bill "for the farmers" is an essential first step getting Right To Repair legislation; if this were to become law then getting similar measures passed for cars and eventually computers, phones, game consoles, and any/all personal electronics becomes easier. I'm looking forward to Louis Rossmann's comments on this!
I'm of two minds on it. First it's good to see RtR finally making some possible progress but at the same time scoping it to farmers initially gives up some leverage that could maybe be used to get general RtR to actually pass. By solving the problem for farmers you get rid of one of the big stories behind RtR that appeals to the Republican world view.
I am worried the bill is too narrow in scope. "Help the farmers" is a great rallying call to gain broad bipartisan support for the right to repair movement. I think that if we pass a bill that only helps the farmers, the rest of the movement will slowly wither away.
Here is how things work in the US. Sarcastic tone in my reply…
Round one: this is great
Hardware equipment for farmers (funded by John Deere and Caterpillar) lobbyists hard at work.
Round two: here is a water down version
Lobbyists “discover” that there is a risk of sudden death if a farmer accidentally connects two very potential wires…
Lobbyists "do more highly paid” work with unions, OSHA, worker’s compensation insurance companies.
Round three: warranty denied, worker’s compensation denied if worker (the word farmer has been deleted) fix anything that presents a risk of electrocution, or could physically harm the worker or co-workers
Hardware??? Apple & Co. lobbyists jump into the action
Bill is killed. Not enough support at the Senate. The people have spoken.
I really wish this was more broad than just farmers. Everyone who owns equipment should have the ability to at least try to repair it. This quote doesn't strike me as very encouraging:
> Tester said: “I think when you get into other areas like cellphones and TVs and all that kind of stuff, it brings in all sorts of other issues that I am personally not as familiar with as agriculture. That’s not to say that those other issues aren’t really, really important. What it is to say is that I know this issue reasonably well, and I thought this is an issue that we need to deal with, and the sooner the better.”
Of course you don't understand all possible economic sectors and the issues they face. You're a Senator. You can't be expected to have personal expertise on everything. But it's your job to represent everybody anyway, not just the people working in whatever sector you used to work in before you became a Senator. This is why you have a staff. If you don't understand broader technology, hire people who do.
There's so many angles to politics. It sounds reasonable that a Senator with prior expertise and personal enthusiasm will push forward a bill more than one without the background. OTOH, it's all backroom deals and negotiations anyway, isn't it?
My fear is that this targeted advance on right-to-repair will mean fading support as specific groups get what they want/need.
> My fear is that this targeted advance on right-to-repair will mean fading support as specific groups get what they want/need.
No revolution in a dictatorship happens if the army is kept happy. This is paying the 'army' (those with the resource for R2R) for their support, leaving the citizens to their own.
This is a good start, but I wish things like this weren't always so tied to special interests. "Think of the farmers" is even more powerful than "think of the children"; no politician wants to appear to be anti-farmer. But there's no reason we should be carving out a right-to-repair rule for farmers while ignoring every other industry. What's so special about farm equipment, beyond the fact that they have powerful lobbies and strong tribal allegiance from politicians?
Something about this really rubs me the wrong way. Our congress doesn't "give" us rights to do anything. This bill will be full of caveats and will probably be drafted with John Deere lobbyist in the same room.
Court challenges are much more effective at re-establishing individual rights. They're more applicable and usually more broad, especially if you can get a SCOTUS ruling. This law will likely delay a favorable court ruling.
Courts can only interpret the laws defined by Congress. There is little they can do if the problem entity X has with entity Y is perfectly legal under the current legal code.
Most democratic systems are built this way on purpose, to ensure no one branch of government has too much power. We don't necessarily want the branch in charge of interpreting the law to also be given the ability to write it.
Readit News
On every bid we sent them the #1 requirement was Proprietary Fit. There had to be some sort of IP lockout (always disguised as a valuable design feature, but it never was) to prevent end users from procuring replacement parts anywhere else. In many cases it even made the parts significantly worse, as useless bumps or ridges were added to the industry standard to make them physically incompatible.
The old model was we build a part for $8 and sell it to the end user for $10. Under Deere's new model, we build the part for $8, sell it exclusively to Deere for $11, and they sell it to customer for $16.
My former employer was very complicit in this behavior, but Deere was by far the most aggressive about and a big enough player to squeeze all their suppliers.
Edit: They pay all kinds of lip service to how this is better for the customer ("reliable supply chain", "Deere-guaranteed quality", etc) but that's only in their public PR. Behind the scenes it is 100% about securing a long term revenue source - customers pay out the ass for a piece of equipment, then have to keep coming back to Deere for 50 years for replacement parts.
Also, the right to repair may mean different things: it can forbid exclusive contracts with spare parts suppliers, so that you could shop or repair elsewhere. Or it can regulate the price and availability. Or it can allow you to manufacture replacement parts on your own. The first option would be an equivalent of antitrust regulation in the vendor-specific ecosystem, and it seems pretty reasonable, because it will create a market where it did not yet exist. The second option will be economically destructive, because it would replace free market with planned economy. The last option may result in creating a black market of pirated parts, actually harming manufacturers which invested in R&D.
That's the thing about contracts and debt -- they let people who have the advantage today rob you for not just what's in your pocket today, but what will be in your pocket tomorrow.
And to void previous contracts written that way.
That's actually what I think the title should of been. But that's my own opinion.
"Senate introduces bill to forbid farming contracts that limit right to repair"
I get that, it's just a titling thing. Even framing the discussion in that way is not only a more accurate description of what's happening (as you've elaborated) but it lands better (if you were looking at this as a libertarian type perspective).
Anyway, it's just a thing that irks me is all.
As much as this law makes sense, the blanket right to form contracts between individuals/businesses/etc (when those contracts are not explicitly deemed abusive) is very important and I don't think we would be in a better place without it.
When somebody wants to buy a good, if the only way to do that is to accept a one-sided ToS that makes them give up there rights, that's just eroding freedom.
The problem is, it's not a choice anymore. John Deere isn't saying "hey, want to sign up for our repair program?"
It's saying "If you want a tractor we actually control what you can do with it forever. Too bad you need this tractor to work, tough luck we own you"
People should be able to repair their belongings. We shouldn't need a law for each type of belonging.
Edit: Boring title and "text not available yet"
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/s3549
Deleted Comment
Dead Comment
Being required to wait around burning days waiting on some specialized technician who can charge exorbitant fees does not work.
Give farmers access to the appropriate parts and resources and they will make their machines function and operate.
On the other hand, if Deere wants a market without right-to-repair requirements, they can simply not sell in the US. Voting with their feet, as it were.
Round one: this is great
Hardware equipment for farmers (funded by John Deere and Caterpillar) lobbyists hard at work.
Round two: here is a water down version
Lobbyists “discover” that there is a risk of sudden death if a farmer accidentally connects two very potential wires… Lobbyists "do more highly paid” work with unions, OSHA, worker’s compensation insurance companies.
Round three: warranty denied, worker’s compensation denied if worker (the word farmer has been deleted) fix anything that presents a risk of electrocution, or could physically harm the worker or co-workers
Hardware??? Apple & Co. lobbyists jump into the action
Bill is killed. Not enough support at the Senate. The people have spoken.
> Tester said: “I think when you get into other areas like cellphones and TVs and all that kind of stuff, it brings in all sorts of other issues that I am personally not as familiar with as agriculture. That’s not to say that those other issues aren’t really, really important. What it is to say is that I know this issue reasonably well, and I thought this is an issue that we need to deal with, and the sooner the better.”
Of course you don't understand all possible economic sectors and the issues they face. You're a Senator. You can't be expected to have personal expertise on everything. But it's your job to represent everybody anyway, not just the people working in whatever sector you used to work in before you became a Senator. This is why you have a staff. If you don't understand broader technology, hire people who do.
My fear is that this targeted advance on right-to-repair will mean fading support as specific groups get what they want/need.
No revolution in a dictatorship happens if the army is kept happy. This is paying the 'army' (those with the resource for R2R) for their support, leaving the citizens to their own.
Court challenges are much more effective at re-establishing individual rights. They're more applicable and usually more broad, especially if you can get a SCOTUS ruling. This law will likely delay a favorable court ruling.
Most democratic systems are built this way on purpose, to ensure no one branch of government has too much power. We don't necessarily want the branch in charge of interpreting the law to also be given the ability to write it.