Basically John Deere made their tractors impossible to repair without official parts, and we have now a harvest season + inflation, thus John Deere employees now hold all the cards, if they stop working people will literally starve without tractors to do the harvest, since repairing the tractors without their help is now impossible, thus they are strinking.
So if you provide a service you get to dictate a lot more about it than if you try to make use of someone else's sevice? That's the difference in this context between an evil corp and a humble poor soul, if I'm not mistaken.
Because twenty years and change ago we decided it should be illegal to crack software. Except we didn't say that, we said that any code that controls access to a copyrighted work has special legal protection. Specifically...
1. You can't legally break such code, unless it's for a handful of statutorily or administratively selected purposes
2. You can't legally tell people how to break such code for any purpose
This provision is part of the DMCA, section 1201. It was policy-laundered through the WTO into US law against the objection of the tech community, so basically every country has the same rules.
The problem with this law is that it's scope dramatically extends past it's intent - hell, half the original law is just exceptions intended to control the extremely broad scope of "no breaking digital locks". What people realized was that they could put DRM on anything, regardless of if copyright actually protected it or not, and it would still have the same effect because DMCA 1201 has horrific chilling effects. Even if SCOTUS says you can't use DMCA 1201 to protect, say, printer cartridge DRM; that decision still took 10 years and millions of dollars in legal fees to reach. No company wants to spend that amount of time and money just to gain access to repair aftermarkets.
On the other hand, the law regarding price gouging is very old and well-established; because it's a very long-running problem. Serial-locked parts were basically unheard of outside of videogame consoles up until this decade. The assumption with DMCA 1201 was that it was going to keep people from copying DVDs, not from repairing tractors. It's one of the few cases in which the law actually needs to catch up to technology (as opposed to someone trying to get away with something and parroting a thought-terminating cliche).
This situation is more complicated than just "Congress imposes copyright law upon the public", though. Generally speaking, the people at large have consistently failed to demonstrate any kind of consensus opinion about copyright law, much less a democratic mandate that would clearly indicate to Congress what to do. But they do care very deeply about ensuring the economy continues to grow, especially with somewhat unfair international competition... and the easiest way to do that is to continue to push copyright maximalism.
Yes, individual Americans will get harmed by, say, anticircumvention law, copyright trolling operations, or automated content ID systems. But nobody gets outraged about that in large enough numbers. They do get outraged, however, when they hear about "China stealing our valuable intellectual property" or somesuch. So the message Congress ultimately hears is, "More please!"
And then they realized that their concerns were misdirected, that as much as they were concerned about “China” they were not concerned about their adversaries at home, like the people who make the stuff they use.
> If it's okay for John Deere to do this, then why do people get arrested for scalping toilet paper?
... Federalism?
Most of the time it's not illegal to scalp toilet paper. There are select cities and states, with interventionist city councils and legislatures; when citizens saw inflated prices, these bodies decided that they would enact bans on scalping, in a manner which usually focus on consumer goods.
Note that economists suggest that scalping is a natural part of supply and demand and helps reduce shortages by incentivizing traders to move in supply from elsewhere (and scalping bans are sometimes deliberately weaponized against immigrant-owned small businesses because of course they are why did you doubt for a moment? Even NYC rolled that back somewhat and offered refunds on the fines they levied on bodegas.) But while the theoretical efficiency may or may not actually be realized in the aftermath of a disaster, it is of course entirely irrelevant to the legal monopoly on tractor repair services, which certainly have no such excuse. This just makes it all worse, of course.
What I mean is: if they DIDN'T had DRM they could ignore the strike more easily, but they DRM made sure a lot of people will have serious issues if they don't raise wages, thus the DRM shifted power from execs hands to the employees.
I am curious if they are actually getting less than a living wage.
Quick googling suggests that they were making $20-$30 per hour before the strike. Another quick Google suggests that the average assembly line hourly rate is $19/hr (another source says only $14/hr).
It looks like the wages aren't out of line as far as livability, but it is understandably infuriating to see the company as a whole making tremendous profits while only paying slightly above average.
Is that pretty much the situation or did I miss something?
> It looks like the wages aren't out of line as far as livability
i appreciate the data, though 1.) this is America - so workers have to deal with a lack of basic social services like in Europe, 2.) from my understanding the concessions made by John Deere were pitiful so far. an account from someone on the ground: https://twitter.com/JonahFurman/status/1456457606583758871
> but it is understandably infuriating to see the company as a whole making tremendous profits while only paying slightly above average.
yes exactly, that's the superior argument here.
although the best argument is the one about climate change, and how viable solutions are not profitable enough to capitalism in the short term. we need open source, modular tech like the Science for the People article argues.
"The current political economy is based on a false idea of “immaterial scarcity.” It believes that an exaggerated set of intellectual property monopolies – for [trade secrets], copyrights, trademarks and patents – should restrain the sharing of scientific, social and economic innovations. Hence the system discourages human cooperation, excludes many people from benefiting from innovation and slows the collective learning of humanity. In an age of grave global challenges, the political economy keeps many practical alternatives sequestered behind private firewalls or unfunded if they cannot generate adequate profits."
I live near one of their facilities on strike, though don't know any direct John Deere employees closely. From discussions I've read, a major component of the frustration is forced overtime.
I imagine John Deere probably ran similar to a company I used to work for. The order book was full, there was money to be made. 9-10 hour days Monday-Friday. Most Saturdays was mandatory overtime. The only way to guarantee you can do something over the weekend with your family is by taking PTO on Friday, which would get you out of overtime on Saturday.
Pair in that the last couple negotiations have been during downturns in farming, it's pretty reasonable that they're trying to make up ground after taking concessionary contracts.
"Living wage" is essentially complete bollocks. It has no well defined meaning, that is to say - it has no meaning with anything approaching large scale agreement.
A living wage to a migrant might have been one that allows them a bed in an 8-bunk dorm, a bus ticket, and thirty quid a week for food.
A living wage to most of HN is probably enough to get a mortgage.
To me the concept is essentially nonsensical - if you're in the proletarian class then you're not living at all.
Not that I don't favor a universal living wage, but price discovery for labor lives along a separate axis; the ability to withhold value (or the credible deterrent of doing so) is a bargaining chip that can be used in negotiation. This is true of every firm, be it an overseas sweatshop, an Amazon warehouse, or high-paid engineers in a tech giant.
Even if every John Deere employee made 3x of a "living wage" (relative to local costs), they'd still have every right to collectively bargain by withholding labor (to say nothing of non-monetary demands: autonomy, safety standards, flexible scheduling, etc).
You always run the risk of John Deere just transitioning manufacturing to elsewhere, unless there are some sort of incentives at play here that prevent that, no?
Not saying I don't support the strike, or what the strike is trying to achieve, just trying to understand the nuance of whats going on here.
Long term, sure, but this isn't a long term situation. Can't move overseas before the harvest.
Besides, what kind of company looks at the supply chain situation right now and says "yea, now is a good time to move all of our business-critical infrastructure overseas."
And all that sets aside operational & regulatory challenges moving heavy manufacturing overseas.
It's pretty safe to assume that, after 30+ years of offshoring, old companies who haven't yet offshored have good reason not to do so.
We could just tell them they can't sell their wares here and Europe can do the same and they can see if they can try their hand at making a living elsewhere.
For anyone else unfamiliar with the terms, the Global North/Global South are monikers used to describe the socioeconomic divides between countries. The North is European/American economies plus Russia, Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan; the South is Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, India/China, and Southeast Asia.
Thank you for that clarification, it confused me and seemed a little ignorant at first glance. It would seem north and south geographically have nothing to do with the term.
It does have something to do with geography, but it is imprecise. The same way 'western' is imprecise, because it always includes Australia and New Zealand. And 'first world' is imprecise, because of it has roots in the cold war, thus should not include countries like Switzerland.
To be more accurate, when you say the Global North includes "American" economies, that means specifically the USA and Canada, and not Mexico. That's different from 'American', and even 'North American'.
The role of repair is embossed into bluewater cruisers who spend a lot of time at sea. Things break all the time and the way to succeed regardless is by having lots of spare parts, tools, knowledge, a supportive community and by practicing preventive maintenance.
The rise of the throwaway product is a rather recent phenomenon. Our grandparents repaired everything. It's the only sustainable approach.
Well, sure, if it is an organic economic/social phenomenon and the natural result of development of a society and economy, fine. But if the rise of throwaway culture were entirely organic we wouldn't have attempts to ban repair and planned obsolescence.
I think our grandparents had just as many disposable things as we do, just not nearly as expensive. I think the idea of disposable products basically began with the industrial revolution, when mass production became easy, if not necessarily "cheap" yet
> The rise of the throwaway product is a rather recent phenomenon. Our grandparents repaired everything. It's the only sustainable approach.
How do you change that, though? Our grandparents repaired things because they were expensive. In the 50s, a washer & dryer cost $500. In today's money that would be over $5000. And income has gone up even more. Purely in economic terms it has become considerably less appealing to fix a broken appliance.
Our grand parents also didn't have everything made of flimsy plastic and highly integrated electronics. Their washer likely consisted of a gearbox and motor with a switch or two.
My previous washer was about 30 years old when the tub finally rusted out at the support. It would have been 25 years had I not pathched it twice with water resistant epoxy when it first sprang a leak. It had a simple mechanical timer knob that handled the sequencing and timing of cycles. Couple of other knobs set the water temp, spin/wash speed, and optional rinse. It was dumb as a brick and cleaned my clothes.
Now my $1200 LG washer has WiFi (I NEVER connected it on purpose), beats the shit out of everything you put inside, and heavily soiled items come out stained and half clean. I emailed LG asking if they offered you access to their dumb cloud API and the answer is No unless your are a partner company. I hope this thing does not break down in the next 10 years but I doubt that.
> Now my $1200 LG washer has WiFi (I NEVER connected it on purpose)
I think some appliances (TVs, perhaps?) have been caught connecting to any open AP they can find, even if you don't give it credentials to your network.
I feel your pain on that LG. I bought a Samsung washer & dryer, and within the first 18 months both broke. Fixed under warranty, and knock on wood still okay now. Consumer Reports rated them highly, but I won't ever buy another Samsung appliance (I have a Samsung fridge already, I should have known not to trust CR on the washer/dryer recommendation). Everything I've read says LG is basically just as bad as Samsung.
When these need replacing, I'm buying a speed queen.
I have a Samsung washer and dryer that are fairly new and it's not that hard to repair if you have the parts. The roller bearings for my dryer seized up, so I ordered a kit from Amazon to replace the wheels and it took me about an hour.
Yeah, the upside of the dryer is that it's really easy to work on, the downside is that it breaks easily. I have no plans to buy any more Samsung appliances, I've been bitten three times now.
However a modern washer uses a fraction of the water and electricity of an old one - at least in parts of the world where these things are regulated. Pressure in this direction is probably the reason you're not happy with the quality of the clean.
I wonder if some manufacturers are succumbing to copyrightism, a tag for the mental disorder that obsesses with control over the product - to the detriment of all else.
> is it the same as critiquing the intellectual property system as a whole?
Sounds like it's more concerned with the opposite, human side - the madness that grips people who have some control and are terrified of losing it, so they use copyright (and lobbying for copyright enhancements and extensions) to keep themselves from ever having to relinquish anything they can't get back.
<DmncAtrny> I will write on a huge cement block "BY ACCEPTING THIS BRICK THROUGH YOUR WINDOW, YOU ACCEPT IT AS IS AND AGREE TO MY DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS WELL AS DISCLAIMERS OF ALL LIABILITY, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL, THAT MAY ARISE FROM THE INSTALLATION OF THIS BRICK INTO YOUR BUILDING."
<DmncAtrny> And then hurl it through the window of a Sony officer
Might have been especially relevant to Sony's rootkit scandal, where playing a CD in your computer will prompt a EULA that then installs software (notably unmentioned in the EULA) that prevents you from burning a copies of that CD, plus "phone's home" with IP address and what music is being played.
Luckily nowadays users just install Spotify, no need to bother with rootkits.
I wonder why the music industry seems to be ok with 1 music streaming service having all the content, but for movies and tv we need dozens of different streaming services, each with their own content so everyone gets the cut they want.
I think it's because the movie/tv industries are unionized and everyone has to get paid, so they have to get more from the customer side. Whereas in the music industry, we're ok with musicians being "starving artists", so the labels can just pay the artists less.
This is one area where music has got it right, imo.
The value of a singular service with 'all' the content is higher than a plurality of services each with only a little. In other words I'd happily pay more per month for the Spotify of TV, movies, and sports that I currently do for a sampling of the usual streaming services.
False equivalency: Apps/programs are a la carte, TV / Music services are not. Accessing a secondary app 'store', e.g. EPIC to buy a game that is not on steam costs next to nothing, just a small time investment. Accessing a movie that isn't on Netflix is a pain in the ass and money.
Frankly if I was king of the world any and all licensing deals for media would have to be explicitly non-exclusive, effectively decoupling production from distribution. Any service should be able to stream/rent any media for the same rate as any other. This would let the market sort out what people value in terms of streaming 'packages'.
> Apps/programs are a la carte, TV / Music services are not.
Google Play Pass[0] is basically the app equivalent of Spotify. One monthly or annual fee for access to a library of "hundreds" of apps. And movies, TV shows, and music can all be purchased a la carte, not just through streaming subscriptions.
> Any service should be able to stream/rent any media for the same rate as any other.
Sounds good to me. I would also be fine with compulsory licensing for individual copies, or frankly just an end to copyright altogether.
>Google Play Pass[0] is basically the app equivalent of Spotify. One monthly or annual fee for access to a library of "hundreds" of apps.
At the risk of dating myself, this is not a way I/my social circle consumes 'apps'[0]. But by the same token, if I were to subscribe to a service like MSFT's GamePass[1] personally I would find the most value in a service with everything, and be annoyed at having to juggle multiple subscriptions. The multiple services make it difficult and expensive to enjoy a breadth and diversity of media, regardless of total amount/quality consumed. For instance, imagine how obnoxious Spotify would be if it broke up into different services by genre.
By extension, I'd always pay more than my current given subset of subscriptions for an 'everything' service.
> And movies, TV shows, and music can all be purchased a la carte, not just through streaming subscriptions.
Certainly, but back when I purchased such things a la cart I'd have no problem cross shopping redbox/blockbuster/amazon. Probably because I only ever have to engage one and that engagement ends after the transaction, until re-initiated by myself. Maybe it's a psychological hangup, shrug.
[0]Not that I 'consume' many apps, or interact with the stores often. I think of them (sans games, and novelties) as little more than glorified websites. An 'app', as I use my phone, is just a glorified gateway to either data delivery (e.g. Netflix) or other backend traditionally and adequately served via website (e.g. google calendar)
[1]Google Stadia manages to be the worst of both worlds here, trying to be a service that also requires a la carte purchasing, instead of one or the other.
That's backwards - the reason music works well is that you can get all the music from Spotify or iTunes or Amazon or any other place you like. Having multiple app stores that all had all the apps and could actually compete with each other would improve the app experience.
You have me confused with the person I replied to. They stated "The value of a singular service with 'all' the content is higher than a plurality of services each with only a little." That's what I'm questioning, and you are as well except replying to me.
I suspect it's because music (at least in the US) has a "mandatory licensing regime" for music, which is why it's possible for broadcast radio stations to play a wide variety of music. I don't think there's a corresponding legal framework for videorecordings, so each video broadcaster/streamer needs to negotiate independently with each rightsholder.
I was involved in building a DRM-free MP3 download service called Datz many years back. The bulk of music is owned by 4 record labels, and they all wanted vast fees just for access to the catalogue, never mind subscription revenue.
Worked on a product like spotify many years ago, just to chime in that jonorourke is right. I think we had 4 major deals with the labels (Universal, Sony, WB and one I can't remember), and then just a few deals with some smaller labels which to be honest, weren't really important for the userbase/revenue (sure you may want Beethoven's 5th played by the Czech Symphony on the London Hall, but 99.9999% of the users just wanted to listen to the stuff from the major 4)
IIRC when spotify started it was only available in sweden and was classed as a pseudo-radio which allowed them to get a blanket deal with Swedish Performing Rights Society (STIM) which governs radio/public music license payments for sweden. It also was a case of the record labels being more willing to try this out in a smaller market before committing globally.
I remember using it 2007-2008-ish and it being pretty magical at the time.
Simpsons did it first. Homer had an illegal bar set up in the tree house and when it started burning he told the patrons “By leaving the premises you agree not to sue!”
inb4 all the Apple dick riders come in talking about how its actually a good thing you can't repair your own stuff, and if you don't like it you should just buy another brand
It's a vicious cycle. As things become less repairable (due to complexity or forced obsolescence) new generations will lose the ability to figure things out and effect a repair. I presume that's what these companies want.
This is an outstanding article that invites all of us in technology to question some of the foundations our current world is built upon: ownership of intellectual property; rapid obsolescence; indeed, monopoly capitalism itself.
The readers of HN would do well to think long and carefully about the ideas herein. The fate of our world may depend upon it.
There is also the (missing) requirement to make things easily repairable, I wouldn't mind at all to replace a "subsystem" if it was easily swappable and costed a fair amount and the old one was refurbished.
Many years ago there was an Italian maker of (at the time CRT's) TV's which was considered on one side "cheap" but on the other "simple/indestructible" called MIVAR.
Their TV's AFAICR were essentially made of 6 or 8 electronic cards/PCB's on a sort of backplane of connectors.
You brought the (not working) TV to the (approved) repairman, he would open the back of the TV, identify which card had issues, and replace it in like 5-10 minutes, for a fixed price (depending on which card had to be replaced).
Then the cards were sent to the factory where they had a laboratory to diagnose the issue and replace just the component(s) that failed, and these refurbished cards were sent back to the repair shops.
I have a 2004 Corvette. When I got it several years ago, it had (like many others of its ilk) a failed ABS/traction controller. Removing it was slightly complicated by the fact that it had servos connected to the hydraulic braking system, but wasn't difficult. And fortunately, at least at the time, there were a couple small companies in the business of refurbishing brake controllers. The refurbished controller has been working perfectly ever since.
Not cheap, but very significantly cheaper than a new unit.
Production of industrial machinery like farm equipment requires massive factory infrastructure with significant supply chains. Getting the capital together for that is hard enough, but then the new company would be competing against the established John Deere, with the added (perceived, if nothing else) handicap of lenient repair rules.
An existing competitor to John Deere? I suspect it is for the same reason that sedans are essentially indistinguishable, style-wise: operating in the same environment (aerodynamics, interior volume and shape, etc. on one hand, the legal and cultural background on the other), they have all struck on the same optimizations, which include repair restrictions.
Now, if one does decide to try the alternative, and makes significantly more profit, you'll see a fairly rapid state change as most of them switch.
Market position and power takes time to be established. It takes time to shift. Even under extreme negative pressure (that is, "loyalty" is due far more to lack of alternatives than genuine delight or satisfaction) collapse can be a long time coming.
And that's before anticompetitive pressures are brought to bear (e.g., exclusive contracts or threats of retaliation against any of the above).
"A community that sees no value to repair is a community that cannot..."
...be resilient in the face of unpleasant events. Past a certain point, optimization is the enemy of resilience, and for optimization for the producer's profit, that point is not very far along.
This is corollary to the fundamental dictum, "Life is hard. Life is harder if you are stupid."
What about a mandatory publication of repair & maintenance manuals, starting at a certain amount of goods delivered? This may at least heighten awareness, even to the point of becoming a quality indicator again.
The environmental impact would be counterproductive. I'd be happy if the repair manuals that already exist were open and accessible. It blows my mind that I can't legally obtain the repair manuals for my vehicles.
This is a great article, however I feel a bit like it's shouting into an echo chamber.
Many people in sci/tech industries are already aware of the importance of repairability and right to repair controversies.
For an article like this to actually make a difference to the entire population, it needs to be written and published somewhere the general public will see it.
It also needs to be dumbed down and put into terms the average person will understand: lose the "robotic arm" example and start talking about how that shiny $2000 exercise bike that you just bought for your wife will someday, inevitably, become an expensive ornament because Peloton's servers have shut down and the hardware/software can't be modified.
Until the average person cares about repairability, longevity, and hardware ownership, it just won't take hold. In my opinion.
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 3013 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29164111
Basically John Deere made their tractors impossible to repair without official parts, and we have now a harvest season + inflation, thus John Deere employees now hold all the cards, if they stop working people will literally starve without tractors to do the harvest, since repairing the tractors without their help is now impossible, thus they are strinking.
1. You can't legally break such code, unless it's for a handful of statutorily or administratively selected purposes
2. You can't legally tell people how to break such code for any purpose
This provision is part of the DMCA, section 1201. It was policy-laundered through the WTO into US law against the objection of the tech community, so basically every country has the same rules.
The problem with this law is that it's scope dramatically extends past it's intent - hell, half the original law is just exceptions intended to control the extremely broad scope of "no breaking digital locks". What people realized was that they could put DRM on anything, regardless of if copyright actually protected it or not, and it would still have the same effect because DMCA 1201 has horrific chilling effects. Even if SCOTUS says you can't use DMCA 1201 to protect, say, printer cartridge DRM; that decision still took 10 years and millions of dollars in legal fees to reach. No company wants to spend that amount of time and money just to gain access to repair aftermarkets.
On the other hand, the law regarding price gouging is very old and well-established; because it's a very long-running problem. Serial-locked parts were basically unheard of outside of videogame consoles up until this decade. The assumption with DMCA 1201 was that it was going to keep people from copying DVDs, not from repairing tractors. It's one of the few cases in which the law actually needs to catch up to technology (as opposed to someone trying to get away with something and parroting a thought-terminating cliche).
Yes, individual Americans will get harmed by, say, anticircumvention law, copyright trolling operations, or automated content ID systems. But nobody gets outraged about that in large enough numbers. They do get outraged, however, when they hear about "China stealing our valuable intellectual property" or somesuch. So the message Congress ultimately hears is, "More please!"
... Federalism?
Most of the time it's not illegal to scalp toilet paper. There are select cities and states, with interventionist city councils and legislatures; when citizens saw inflated prices, these bodies decided that they would enact bans on scalping, in a manner which usually focus on consumer goods.
Note that economists suggest that scalping is a natural part of supply and demand and helps reduce shortages by incentivizing traders to move in supply from elsewhere (and scalping bans are sometimes deliberately weaponized against immigrant-owned small businesses because of course they are why did you doubt for a moment? Even NYC rolled that back somewhat and offered refunds on the fines they levied on bodegas.) But while the theoretical efficiency may or may not actually be realized in the aftermath of a disaster, it is of course entirely irrelevant to the legal monopoly on tractor repair services, which certainly have no such excuse. This just makes it all worse, of course.
or, you know, maybe John Deere owners/execs have the power? maybe if they paid their employees a living wage employees wouldn't need to go on strike?
Quick googling suggests that they were making $20-$30 per hour before the strike. Another quick Google suggests that the average assembly line hourly rate is $19/hr (another source says only $14/hr).
It looks like the wages aren't out of line as far as livability, but it is understandably infuriating to see the company as a whole making tremendous profits while only paying slightly above average.
Is that pretty much the situation or did I miss something?
i appreciate the data, though 1.) this is America - so workers have to deal with a lack of basic social services like in Europe, 2.) from my understanding the concessions made by John Deere were pitiful so far. an account from someone on the ground: https://twitter.com/JonahFurman/status/1456457606583758871
> but it is understandably infuriating to see the company as a whole making tremendous profits while only paying slightly above average.
yes exactly, that's the superior argument here.
although the best argument is the one about climate change, and how viable solutions are not profitable enough to capitalism in the short term. we need open source, modular tech like the Science for the People article argues.
"The current political economy is based on a false idea of “immaterial scarcity.” It believes that an exaggerated set of intellectual property monopolies – for [trade secrets], copyrights, trademarks and patents – should restrain the sharing of scientific, social and economic innovations. Hence the system discourages human cooperation, excludes many people from benefiting from innovation and slows the collective learning of humanity. In an age of grave global challenges, the political economy keeps many practical alternatives sequestered behind private firewalls or unfunded if they cannot generate adequate profits."
http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/peer-peer-economy-and-ne...
I imagine John Deere probably ran similar to a company I used to work for. The order book was full, there was money to be made. 9-10 hour days Monday-Friday. Most Saturdays was mandatory overtime. The only way to guarantee you can do something over the weekend with your family is by taking PTO on Friday, which would get you out of overtime on Saturday.
Pair in that the last couple negotiations have been during downturns in farming, it's pretty reasonable that they're trying to make up ground after taking concessionary contracts.
A living wage to a migrant might have been one that allows them a bed in an 8-bunk dorm, a bus ticket, and thirty quid a week for food.
A living wage to most of HN is probably enough to get a mortgage.
To me the concept is essentially nonsensical - if you're in the proletarian class then you're not living at all.
Even if every John Deere employee made 3x of a "living wage" (relative to local costs), they'd still have every right to collectively bargain by withholding labor (to say nothing of non-monetary demands: autonomy, safety standards, flexible scheduling, etc).
Not saying I don't support the strike, or what the strike is trying to achieve, just trying to understand the nuance of whats going on here.
Besides, what kind of company looks at the supply chain situation right now and says "yea, now is a good time to move all of our business-critical infrastructure overseas."
And all that sets aside operational & regulatory challenges moving heavy manufacturing overseas.
It's pretty safe to assume that, after 30+ years of offshoring, old companies who haven't yet offshored have good reason not to do so.
c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South
The rise of the throwaway product is a rather recent phenomenon. Our grandparents repaired everything. It's the only sustainable approach.
I think our grandparents had just as many disposable things as we do, just not nearly as expensive. I think the idea of disposable products basically began with the industrial revolution, when mass production became easy, if not necessarily "cheap" yet
How do you change that, though? Our grandparents repaired things because they were expensive. In the 50s, a washer & dryer cost $500. In today's money that would be over $5000. And income has gone up even more. Purely in economic terms it has become considerably less appealing to fix a broken appliance.
My previous washer was about 30 years old when the tub finally rusted out at the support. It would have been 25 years had I not pathched it twice with water resistant epoxy when it first sprang a leak. It had a simple mechanical timer knob that handled the sequencing and timing of cycles. Couple of other knobs set the water temp, spin/wash speed, and optional rinse. It was dumb as a brick and cleaned my clothes.
Now my $1200 LG washer has WiFi (I NEVER connected it on purpose), beats the shit out of everything you put inside, and heavily soiled items come out stained and half clean. I emailed LG asking if they offered you access to their dumb cloud API and the answer is No unless your are a partner company. I hope this thing does not break down in the next 10 years but I doubt that.
I think some appliances (TVs, perhaps?) have been caught connecting to any open AP they can find, even if you don't give it credentials to your network.
When these need replacing, I'm buying a speed queen.
Speed Queen still makes quality laundry machines, buy those next time. No WiFi!
i've not heard of this. is it the same as critiquing the intellectual property system as a whole? if not, how is it different?
Sounds like it's more concerned with the opposite, human side - the madness that grips people who have some control and are terrified of losing it, so they use copyright (and lobbying for copyright enhancements and extensions) to keep themselves from ever having to relinquish anything they can't get back.
<DmncAtrny> I will write on a huge cement block "BY ACCEPTING THIS BRICK THROUGH YOUR WINDOW, YOU ACCEPT IT AS IS AND AGREE TO MY DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS WELL AS DISCLAIMERS OF ALL LIABILITY, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL, THAT MAY ARISE FROM THE INSTALLATION OF THIS BRICK INTO YOUR BUILDING."
<DmncAtrny> And then hurl it through the window of a Sony officer
<DmncAtrny> and run like hell
Luckily nowadays users just install Spotify, no need to bother with rootkits.
I think it's because the movie/tv industries are unionized and everyone has to get paid, so they have to get more from the customer side. Whereas in the music industry, we're ok with musicians being "starving artists", so the labels can just pay the artists less.
The value of a singular service with 'all' the content is higher than a plurality of services each with only a little. In other words I'd happily pay more per month for the Spotify of TV, movies, and sports that I currently do for a sampling of the usual streaming services.
Frankly if I was king of the world any and all licensing deals for media would have to be explicitly non-exclusive, effectively decoupling production from distribution. Any service should be able to stream/rent any media for the same rate as any other. This would let the market sort out what people value in terms of streaming 'packages'.
Google Play Pass[0] is basically the app equivalent of Spotify. One monthly or annual fee for access to a library of "hundreds" of apps. And movies, TV shows, and music can all be purchased a la carte, not just through streaming subscriptions.
> Any service should be able to stream/rent any media for the same rate as any other.
Sounds good to me. I would also be fine with compulsory licensing for individual copies, or frankly just an end to copyright altogether.
[0] https://play.google.com/intl/en_us/about/play-pass/
>Google Play Pass[0] is basically the app equivalent of Spotify. One monthly or annual fee for access to a library of "hundreds" of apps.
At the risk of dating myself, this is not a way I/my social circle consumes 'apps'[0]. But by the same token, if I were to subscribe to a service like MSFT's GamePass[1] personally I would find the most value in a service with everything, and be annoyed at having to juggle multiple subscriptions. The multiple services make it difficult and expensive to enjoy a breadth and diversity of media, regardless of total amount/quality consumed. For instance, imagine how obnoxious Spotify would be if it broke up into different services by genre.
By extension, I'd always pay more than my current given subset of subscriptions for an 'everything' service.
> And movies, TV shows, and music can all be purchased a la carte, not just through streaming subscriptions.
Certainly, but back when I purchased such things a la cart I'd have no problem cross shopping redbox/blockbuster/amazon. Probably because I only ever have to engage one and that engagement ends after the transaction, until re-initiated by myself. Maybe it's a psychological hangup, shrug.
[0]Not that I 'consume' many apps, or interact with the stores often. I think of them (sans games, and novelties) as little more than glorified websites. An 'app', as I use my phone, is just a glorified gateway to either data delivery (e.g. Netflix) or other backend traditionally and adequately served via website (e.g. google calendar)
[1]Google Stadia manages to be the worst of both worlds here, trying to be a service that also requires a la carte purchasing, instead of one or the other.
I remember using it 2007-2008-ish and it being pretty magical at the time.
s/Sony/$sourceOfCurrentIre/
The brick containing EULA should be universally accepted.
The readers of HN would do well to think long and carefully about the ideas herein. The fate of our world may depend upon it.
Many years ago there was an Italian maker of (at the time CRT's) TV's which was considered on one side "cheap" but on the other "simple/indestructible" called MIVAR.
Their TV's AFAICR were essentially made of 6 or 8 electronic cards/PCB's on a sort of backplane of connectors.
You brought the (not working) TV to the (approved) repairman, he would open the back of the TV, identify which card had issues, and replace it in like 5-10 minutes, for a fixed price (depending on which card had to be replaced).
Then the cards were sent to the factory where they had a laboratory to diagnose the issue and replace just the component(s) that failed, and these refurbished cards were sent back to the repair shops.
I have a 2004 Corvette. When I got it several years ago, it had (like many others of its ilk) a failed ABS/traction controller. Removing it was slightly complicated by the fact that it had servos connected to the hydraulic braking system, but wasn't difficult. And fortunately, at least at the time, there were a couple small companies in the business of refurbishing brake controllers. The refurbished controller has been working perfectly ever since.
Not cheap, but very significantly cheaper than a new unit.
Production of industrial machinery like farm equipment requires massive factory infrastructure with significant supply chains. Getting the capital together for that is hard enough, but then the new company would be competing against the established John Deere, with the added (perceived, if nothing else) handicap of lenient repair rules.
An existing competitor to John Deere? I suspect it is for the same reason that sedans are essentially indistinguishable, style-wise: operating in the same environment (aerodynamics, interior volume and shape, etc. on one hand, the legal and cultural background on the other), they have all struck on the same optimizations, which include repair restrictions.
Now, if one does decide to try the alternative, and makes significantly more profit, you'll see a fairly rapid state change as most of them switch.
Market position and power takes time to be established. It takes time to shift. Even under extreme negative pressure (that is, "loyalty" is due far more to lack of alternatives than genuine delight or satisfaction) collapse can be a long time coming.
And that's before anticompetitive pressures are brought to bear (e.g., exclusive contracts or threats of retaliation against any of the above).
Lots of moats - financial, reputational, generational, technological, branding, performance, distribution, etc.
...be resilient in the face of unpleasant events. Past a certain point, optimization is the enemy of resilience, and for optimization for the producer's profit, that point is not very far along.
This is corollary to the fundamental dictum, "Life is hard. Life is harder if you are stupid."
Many people in sci/tech industries are already aware of the importance of repairability and right to repair controversies.
For an article like this to actually make a difference to the entire population, it needs to be written and published somewhere the general public will see it.
It also needs to be dumbed down and put into terms the average person will understand: lose the "robotic arm" example and start talking about how that shiny $2000 exercise bike that you just bought for your wife will someday, inevitably, become an expensive ornament because Peloton's servers have shut down and the hardware/software can't be modified.
Until the average person cares about repairability, longevity, and hardware ownership, it just won't take hold. In my opinion.