> 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.
The biggest loss to them is the right to repair stuff. They will be still making it exceptionally difficult to repair their stuff, and might even dip into exotic materials to make cheaper parts fail more often, but this is a bigger loss to them in the long run.
Unfortunately, I hate that they got away with such a low AF fine.
And how much they gave to behave is directly related to how much they donate to the election fund, because that is literally the world we are living in now, as every single tech CEO all know and behave as.
I used to live down the road from a John Deere plant and some of that was just local loyalty and belief in the jobs it created. Or old habits and brand loyalty dying hard.
Our family had ford tractors, ford mowers, and ford trucks until enough pain points added up to cause a change. Now they haven't bought a ford in over 40 years.
Deere employee, but speaking for myself, not the company.
Farmers buy Deere because they are the most repairable. The dealer is just down the road, and has the parts that you need. The things you cannot do yourself are things that farmers think "I wouldn't do that anyway".
It is more than that. It is also the dealer has the parts you need, even for older stuff. Deere is well known to stock replacement parts longer than anyone else, and can get replacement parts where others would say not possible. network effects and incumbency help as well, but Deere is the most repairable.
I can't speak for the large-scale operations, but I'm close with several farmers working between 100 and 500 acres. They know about the repair nonsense, and they tsk-tsk about it, but Deere is deeply entrenched in their cultural identity and the repair shenanigans don't affect them directly.
For these guys, modern Deere hasn't broken the mirage because they all drive "old" tractors, anywhere between 20 and 60 years old. I put "old" in quotes because they don't consider those tractors to be old. To them, a tractor is a thing you own for life, care for dutifully, and hand down to your kid. Just like the house and the fields.
If you're a boomer farmer, Pops probably had a Deere. And because he probably had a Deere, you probably have a Deere too, because you probably drive Pops's tractor. Brand loyalty takes on a more cultural air when it gets passed down through generations.
Also, some guys just like Deere. You ever seen those pictures of some guy's house and every room is decked out floor to ceiling with Dale Earnhardt memorabilia? That's my grandfather. My buddy's grandfather? Same deal, but Deere instead of Dale.
This is a negotiated settlement. The FTC agreed to settle without Deere admitting wrongdoing. Deere did give up something far more valuable than the $1M by agreeing to the right to repair. You can argue that instead of accepting the settlement, FTC should have taken the risk of going to trial. But Deere agreed to change their practices without that risk.
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.
The same side can also say "Woke environmentalist communists want to stop you from tuning your vehicles or rolling coal." That will probably get even more support, given what I've seen of the political leanings of farmers and RtR supporters in general.
Except it is not the right question in a market economy like ours.
The right question is "what is the value (in dollars) of the right for farmers to repair their equipment".
If John Deere values it more than farmers, then they will sell tractors that farmers can't repair on their own, hoping to earn more on repairs rather than easier to repair tractors that are more expensive up front. Basic market economy.
It only needs to be litigated when there is a threat to the market itself (ex: monopolies) or when there are greater concerns (ex: the environment).
Here, it is a little bit of both. That John Deere is in a monopoly position, so a more repairable competitor can't develop (debated), that agriculture is critical (literally life and death) and John Deere has too much power over it, and if the "right to repair" is a fundamental right.
If you asked 100 people which question is more important, yours or mine, I don't think I'd get 100, but I'd probably get 90+. IMO, asking the dollar value of our rights isn't the "right" questions to be asking ourselves.
It is not so simple a problem. Should people have the right to do whatever they want with hardware they buy? Yes.
But the regulations that would require John Deere to change their practices and designs for repairability are not about your rights, they are about what we require John Deere to provide. And the more you require John Deere to provide, the more costs add up. When designing regulations that we require companies to follow, the costs of those regulations should be considered.
For routine repairs it seems very beneficial for farmers to be able to repair things themselves. But there’s a very long tail of problems where at some point the cost will become meaningful, and the benefits might not be that great.
There is an obvious way to do this that doesn't impose high regulatory costs. A simple rule: The customer (and their independent mechanic) has access to anything the company has access to. Now you're not forcing them to write new service documentation, only to not restrict documentation they wrote anyway to their own dealers. You're not forcing them to support third party replacement parts, only preventing them from inhibiting it through software locks etc.
You don't have to force them to do anything, all you need is for them to not prevent others from doing certain things. Which is easy, because it's preventing documentation from being copied around or preventing independent third parties from making compatible replacement parts which requires active effort.
> It is not so simple a problem. Should people have the right to do whatever they want with hardware they buy? Yes.
It's actually so simple you answered it right here! It's John Deere's problem to comply with the regulations we as society require of them - that is the cost of doing business.
It is the right question to ask. The idea that moral questions should have a market value is itself a moral failing, so assuming you want moral principles to rule over the design of your economy (which.. you'd better; otherwise slavery is permissible), you should not allow such things to be up for debate.
Although perhaps your disagreement is over whether this is a moral issue, in which case, fine, but let's be clear that that's what we're disagreeing over.
> If John Deere values it more than farmers, then they will sell tractors that farmers can't repair on their own, hoping to earn more on repairs rather than easier to repair tractors that are more expensive up front. Basic market economy.
It isn't possible for that to happen without one of your other concerns also being true, because the profits from preventing repairs come from the customers. So it's at best zero sum and in practice it's negative sum, because the manufacturer isn't always the most efficient party to do the repair, e.g. because the farmer who is already on site and does it themselves can get the equipment back in service faster than waiting for the company's mechanic to arrive.
Meanwhile in cases where the manufacturer is the most efficient party to do the repair, the customer could still use them even if nothing forced them to. So the fact of it happening is by itself proof of this:
> It only needs to be litigated when there is a threat to the market itself (ex: monopolies)
Moreover, notice that this keeps happening with tech products. Since customers don't like it, you would expect a competitor to show up and make the exact same product but without the locks, so why don't we see that? The answer, of course, is copyright, a government-granted monopoly. The law prohibits a competitor from copying their design/code. So there's your monopoly.
But copyright is only meant to prevent the competitor from making a direct copy of their software and competing with them in the market for the original product. They're supposed to have that monopoly. Leveraging that to monopolize the separate market for repairs is monopoly abuse, and applies equally to every company selling a product covered by a patent or copyright monopoly.
> The right question is "what is the value (in dollars) of the right for farmers to repair their equipment".
That is exactly right. That is why the punishment for not giving customers the right to repair needs to be in the billions, so that the value of giving customers that right is huge.
"What is the value (in dollars) of the minimum wage", "What is the value (in dollars) of emancipation", "What is the value (in dollars) of owning your things"
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 being held accountable.
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.
The suit was brought be Dems in a 3-2 commission vote in Jan just before Trump took office. I'm not sure he cares since he's not running again and I don't see a way he can use it for graft.
We’ve got to be sure the manufacturers get a solid decade or two to profit off of these schemes, so that future manufacturers know it will be worthwhile perpetrating future schemes.
"...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.
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.
I haven't done this with any of our technology. Of course, I'm also not as profitable as some companies and have much less control over trying to lock my customers in.
This does mean my YC application is far less likely to be accepted.
There's no cognitive dissonance. If it's not legislated against you're just being naive and kneecapping yourself by not abusing the rules. End of story.
You might be a victim of the Goomba Fallacy[0] where you're seeing two opposing opinions from two distinct groups of people, but since those are expressed on the same site, it seems as if 'the site' is contradicting itself.
obviously not. Its about the fact that the two people expressing those two opinions are literally different people... They don't have "cognitive dissonance", they are two people! They disagree! thats normal!
Just because someone wrote a post on a site with orange banner it doesn't mean they agree with other people that wrote posts on the site with the orange banner.
Let's learn the concept of "different people have different opinions", shall we?
Is this cognitive dissonance, or is this just people being normal?
You pursue business strategies as a profit maximizing business person concerned with outcomes for your company and investors. You comment on the regulatory/political matters as a pro-social citizen concerned with societal benefits.
Cognitive dissonance tends to occur when attempting to avoid hypocrisy... and doing mental gymnastics to make it so there are no clashes between your different perspectives.
Extra props for tilting thw windmill that is tech behemoths funneling data to government agencies without oversight. Aiming at Amazon is certainly something not to be taken lightly.
Your "tilting at the windmill" phrasing is interesting. I don't get the sense from your tone otherwise that you disapprove of it or think it's pointless.
I took it as doing what too many people feels like tilting the windmill. As a society (and frankly in myself on too many issues) I notice way to much "well what can we do" defeatist attitude.
I appreciate everything he stands for - he's on the right side of just about every issue. I just wish he could make more succinct and effective videos.
Sometimes the problems are so complex and entangled it's hard to fit solutions into sound bites (vis: taxes, healthcare(USA) and apparently product "ownership".
Deere is a long way from the user accessibility of the Model A or B.
Personally I think if he did that people wouldn't pay attention. My experience is that when you complain to people about digital rights they just glaze over unless you walk them through all the ins and outs and the implications.
The person presenting is also important. I may be interested in the topic but if I don't like the presenter or their delivery then I'm still not going to watch it. Text doesn't have this issue.
I'm not sure if you got it, that inhumanely != inhumanly. Where inhumanely is without consideration for the human race, whereas the other is non-human-like.
> I'm not sure if you got it, that inhumanely != inhumanly. Where inhumanely is without consideration for the human race, whereas the other is non-human-like.
Note they're also synonyms, so the confusion is understandable:
That may be so, but are you skimming, or actually retaining the the things you care about? Video can have a lot more impact and staying power when it comes to things that matter in this context.
For me personally, I retain much less information from video vs reading it.
For text, I change my reading speed based on comprehension, going faster for things I know, and slower or rereading for things that are new or complicated. For video, you're expected to consume the info at the rate provided in the video, losing attention when they spend too long on info you're already finished with, and then blowing by other info that I want to spend more time considering.
There are options like adjusting video playback speed and rewinding, but that's not how video is typically consumed and is much less convenient than just altering your reading speed.
This. I never watch video posts. I can skim-read a text site in seconds to see if it's worth a real read. I can't do that with video, and there's always some ads in it, whether the author put them there or not. I hate ads.
And it's not just HN either, video is a very poor substitute for a well written article. Video can augment a well-written article, but it can't replace it.
Posting here for anyone who might not know this: you can click and hold on most YouTube videos and they will play at 2x. I find that to be a good test at whether the host is communicating effectively. If I can understand them perfectly clear at 2X they are talking too slowly.
Then you get things like the ATP (I can't bring myself to say ATP podcast because La Brea Tar Pits and all that) where two hosts are fine at 1.5x and the third becomes a chipmunk.
Maybe they can make Overcast have dynamic speed based on speaker.
Here's where I admit that I can't identify them - but offhand I think it was Siracusa. I know because I tried speeding up a recent episode and he started talking and I had to slow it back down.
If you have YouTube Premium, you can use their Gemini AI to summarize videos. I've "consumed" tons more videos since I discovered it, since I can get a good idea from the summary if it's worth actually watching the video.
My overall minutes of YT have gone down, but I probably interacts with 2-3x more videos. Just like skimming on HN!
But still, there are many many HNers who binge watch YT videos all the time, and share it here, or suggest YT videos as "dive deeper" links on many topics.
Voting on hackernews is a bit weird compared to reddit. The whole UI is strange to me.
Having said that, I noticed that there is in general too much content to consistently e. g. vote or do similar actions. I was watching Rossman's video almost daily in the past; stopped doing so a while ago simply because of lack of time on my part. I need to choose more carefully where I invest my time. (Also, for some reason, when Rossman was in New York, his videos had a better punch; not sure if I am the only one noticing this but he seemed to have a better focus when he was still in New York, even though I understand he relocated, to stop getting milked by politicians in New York.)
Not needing to be at the top of his game anymore makes anyone lose that sharpness. As you just said, he doesn't need to fight New York politicians anymore.
I stopped coding for the past year or so and I'm considering going back because I definitely feel my own sharpness lost.
I watch long form videos on topics I care about. If I care about the topic, I likely have already seen the videos. But I'm not going to watch a 20 minute video posted to HN to discuss it. If it's not something I can skim over in 3 minutes, it's too long. Take the post we're on right now. You can read through the entire contents of the article in 1 minute.
Video content, particularly on youtube, gets very little traction here generally.
I watch his videos, but not from links here and that is probably what you are seeing: those of us who might follow your link have already seen the video (likely via grayjay rather than youtube) and will skip over it to the next interesting new thing. People who don't already watch him will see “[video] (youtube.com), 1 point, discuss” and think “oh, another video that could be a few paragraphs of text which would be much faster to read than watch, that so far no one else has seen as worth interacting with, preceded by two unskippable adverts”.
A link to youtube is only going to get much attention if it is lucky to have a title that jumps out to a few people so it gains the first few votes and/or comments that get the ball rolling. Even then Louis' videos aren't going to get a hot debate going: most people either entirely agree so don't see the point commenting further, or they aren't the sort of people who are reading HN at all or are but don't follow video links.
that seems pretty easily falsifiable. Sometimes you want want to consume content while doing something else that precludes reading. Sometimes you want to relax your eyeballs after staring at a screen all day. Theres plenty of reasons to consume audio or video.
It's an uphill battle to inform the public. Most people just don't understand and don't care to understand the issues until it actually hits them, such as with the farmers who bought JD.
Almost every conversation I've had over the years goes two ways:
"Why do you care so much about <Flock, Ring Cameras, big tech name>? If you have nothing to hide, why are you so concerned?"
Or:
"Why do you care so much about <Flock, Ring Cameras, big tech name>? We already walk around with cell phones in our pockets 24/7."
I used to be more passionate about persuading people about privacy, but I've pretty much given up. I've come to the conclusion that the majority of the population doesn't care what is happening around them as long as they have internet access and their iPhone.
My response is typically, "I have literally everything to hide. I don't want you to know my middle name. I don't want you to know what I had for breakfast. It's none of anyone's business."
And weirdly, the response I get is, "Oh yeah, fair."
His video style is just fine, him and his cats. I don't mind the expletives as the people/companies he uses it against deserves them but I had instances where I couldn't show his videos to some elderly people because of the expletives.
You really want more succinct videos than what he already makes? Although they may seem long in a modern day where people have the attention span of a gnat -- his videos are fantastic and to the point. He literally ignores a lot more complexities and drama surrounding a lot of issues. Does he ramble sometimes? Maybe, but the talks so fast at times that the video is over before I've even gotten half way through with my own research. And this is from someone who has followed him since he posted videos on spinning on your own VoIP server and when he was still based in NYC.
"An account of human suffering" (assuming I remember the approximate title) is one of his earlier videos that sticks out in my mind and one I'll never forget. It was a tongue-in-cheek nod to the fact board diagnostics for hardware that has obviously been abused by the end user is a tedious and often thankless process.
I learned a LOT from watching his videos, and I don't even do board repair! Psychology, business, the human condition...
I wish he wasn’t such an ass. Had a never meet your heroes moment outside defcon a few years ago. Not a friendly person and went from big fan to disdain when I hear his name.
I've never met him just can't stand how bitterly angry he is / appears to be. He has the anger of someone who is recovering from a beating and plotting his revenge. I don't know if that's how he is normally, or a result of getting thrust into this right to repair. But I'm not going to spend my time watching a jaded, pissed off guy.
Perhaps disagreeableness is a necessary trait for these kinds of results. Unfortunately, that can is also an innate personality trait rather than something easily turned on/off.
Not everyone is pleasant to interact with, but that's not quite the same as whether or not they are a good person. The world's a better place with him around.
Socrates was put death in ancient Athens in no small part to how much he was sinply a pedantic ass to everyone he interacted with, and yet it was this incessant questioning which laid the foundation for over two millenia of philosophy.
Not to be rude, but what explicitly, made him an ass from your perspective?
Look at it from his standpoint. He has an untold amount of people vying for his attention, comments that hopefully are managed by a 3rd party/other folks, and who knows quantity of people contacting him with ideas for a story, video, or some such. I don't even know if he still even runs or manages his repair business at all at this point. When you combine all those things, you end up getting into a mindset of filtering out what matters to you and/or others very quickly and having little time for much else especially if people wax on and are not good at getting to the point.
I get that HN isn't Reddit in the sense that you don't see long form comments like this, but I've dealt with this a lot in the Information Security industry. I think that's what may separate people who get shit done from infosec rockstars and other folks who talk a big talk, but when you get to know them, they are deep down, jerks. I could share my own stories of Deviant Ollam, JohnnyXm4s or other individuals -- but how much of that is my own bias and frustration with what I did, or did not get when interacting with those people? It does not make them assholes just because I did not get the experience I expected.
Years ago, when he was still in NYC, I posted a minor technical correction under one of his videos on reddit and received a rambling essay-length reply plus an aggressive DM from him about how "people like me" are trying to bring him down, all at ~4am his time. That's not "filtering out what matters" it's evidence of paranoid mania, and that's all I see in his videos now.
I'm glad he's been able to turn this into a career doing genuinely good work that I agree with, but he is first and foremost a drama youtuber and that requires a confrontational personality.
I feel like Cory Doctorow is trying to tackle a bit broader issue (enshittification) than just right to repair. Rossmann is more specific and hands-on to RoR
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.
Intellectual property is a broad swathe of different rights and they each have some merits and are worth considering separately.
The trademarks and the protected designations I believe help consumers to know what they're getting and protect makers against competition with inferior products which are superficially similar. So that's things like "Coke" is definitely Coca-Cola's product and not just whatever brown liquid the seller could get cheapest, British Beef isn't actually from America just relabelled for a higher price. Champagne isn't actually a sparkling wine made in California. You can buy cheap brown liquid, Californian Sparkling wine and American beef, but it's right for consumers to know what they're getting and for the vinters in Champagne to know some Tech bro's side venture Californian winery isn't shipping bogus "Champagne" made in the Napa valley that will compete with their genuine product on store shelves in London. If consumers want to drink sparkling Californian wine they can do that, there's no need to use the name Champagne worked so hard for.
The patents are most reprehensible. There the deal is the government gives you a (surprisingly long) exclusive right to make a thing, and in exchange you give up some information about how to make it. Lawyers have managed to finagle providing almost no useful information about "how" in exchange for these quite unreasonable exclusive rights, that needs at least substantial rebalancing. In software it's just bullshit and should go entirely, in pharmaceuticals you can argue about the exact rules more.
Copyright is the most interesting tension. In theory Copyright protects creators - and that seems great. In practice this unavoidably also benefits non-creator heirs "Knives Out" style but that's not really the worst thing in the world. It also though benefits publishers which are corporate entities and that makes no sense whatsoever in the modern era. That needs drastic reining in, if while we're in there we can ensure that the author's grandkids don't get a free ride for life just because grandma wrote this amazing book that's be nice. Copyright expansion seems to have slowed or stopped during my lifetime, which is good, but it needs reversing.
Very good analysis! I generally agree, especially about patents being the most abused. Even still, I wouldn't completely get rid of them without some kind of replacement, they've made a fair amount of tech possible. Trademarks are downright useful and justified. I'm neutral about whether the grandkids get a free ride. I see artistic expression as the most worthy of some kind of protection, I just think intellectual property is not a great framing for the concept.
so happy to hear this, I know many farmers that went with other brands or used equipment without chips. most farmers I know just want pure mechanics anyway
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.
My guess is there a few German or Japanese competitors in the market as well. And buying American is all well and good until you can get a better machine for less somewhere else.
It was always crazy to me that computers were locked down. I almost understand Karen buying an iPhone not coding her own apps, but a dev not able to deploy on their own device just felt so wrong. It made me wonder how Apple was still so popular and seemingly beloved.
I wouldn't feel too bad about farmers. These assholes expect socialism in the form of farm subsidies, but then overwhelmingly vote in favor of harming others.
"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.
In the last decade, on a fleet of almost 30 Deere machines from lawnmowers to high-clearance sprayers and combines, I could count on one hand the number of times I've needed the Deere laptop to diagnose a problem to fix it.
We need same for Lenovo Deere, John Dell ...
Soldered RAM's, soldered SSD's lately, batteries which have by purpose just slightly different size not to be interchangeable.
And for mighty HP and their printers, management needs to be put to wall and shot. There's no other solution.
I don't like people calling out soldered stuff. By the way, soldered stuff may still be serviceable at 3rd party service centers, just not at every DIYers home. It will cost you quite some money, yeah.
There are laptops that have soldered RAM + Free slot for upgrade. But regulating that stuff is just stupid I think - there is a valid reason for manufacturers to try make things more compact, more streamlined etc.
Slots arw for upgrades, repair and salvage.
Almost no nowadays notebooks with soldered RAM have additional slot.
What of RAM takes 2 secocds with slot. Soldering lots of pins or reballing requires specialized equipment and skilled (and expensive) person.
I'm going to scrap 120 almost mint condition 8th gen i5 Thinkpads thanx to 8GB soldered RAM, which is no longer enough for efficient office work on W11 + basic corporate background apps.
With 1 fookin RAM slot, these notebooks would be perfectly fine for another 5-10 years.
Great Stary. I wish he could go after the large format printer industry. (The really big printing machines). Those machines are locked for service and require service contracts, and you still can't get under the hood. And when the company decides to obsolete the product, customers are thrown out on their backsides.
Good. However had, one question still remains: why did the US government not have this automatically put in place in general? The title refers to one company for the most part. The question is why the US government, which assumingly should work for the people, prioritizes private commercial interests over individual ownership models.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 62.5 ms ] thread$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.
Unfortunately, I hate that they got away with such a low AF fine.
Our family had ford tractors, ford mowers, and ford trucks until enough pain points added up to cause a change. Now they haven't bought a ford in over 40 years.
Farmers buy Deere because they are the most repairable. The dealer is just down the road, and has the parts that you need. The things you cannot do yourself are things that farmers think "I wouldn't do that anyway".
That's a really weird way to spell "incumbency and network effects".
In fairness, you're not wrong, but that seems to be a very specific framing that hides a lot of what this whole discussion is about.
For these guys, modern Deere hasn't broken the mirage because they all drive "old" tractors, anywhere between 20 and 60 years old. I put "old" in quotes because they don't consider those tractors to be old. To them, a tractor is a thing you own for life, care for dutifully, and hand down to your kid. Just like the house and the fields.
If you're a boomer farmer, Pops probably had a Deere. And because he probably had a Deere, you probably have a Deere too, because you probably drive Pops's tractor. Brand loyalty takes on a more cultural air when it gets passed down through generations.
Also, some guys just like Deere. You ever seen those pictures of some guy's house and every room is decked out floor to ceiling with Dale Earnhardt memorabilia? That's my grandfather. My buddy's grandfather? Same deal, but Deere instead of Dale.
The right question is "what is the value (in dollars) of the right for farmers to repair their equipment".
If John Deere values it more than farmers, then they will sell tractors that farmers can't repair on their own, hoping to earn more on repairs rather than easier to repair tractors that are more expensive up front. Basic market economy.
It only needs to be litigated when there is a threat to the market itself (ex: monopolies) or when there are greater concerns (ex: the environment).
Here, it is a little bit of both. That John Deere is in a monopoly position, so a more repairable competitor can't develop (debated), that agriculture is critical (literally life and death) and John Deere has too much power over it, and if the "right to repair" is a fundamental right.
But the regulations that would require John Deere to change their practices and designs for repairability are not about your rights, they are about what we require John Deere to provide. And the more you require John Deere to provide, the more costs add up. When designing regulations that we require companies to follow, the costs of those regulations should be considered.
For routine repairs it seems very beneficial for farmers to be able to repair things themselves. But there’s a very long tail of problems where at some point the cost will become meaningful, and the benefits might not be that great.
You don't have to force them to do anything, all you need is for them to not prevent others from doing certain things. Which is easy, because it's preventing documentation from being copied around or preventing independent third parties from making compatible replacement parts which requires active effort.
It's actually so simple you answered it right here! It's John Deere's problem to comply with the regulations we as society require of them - that is the cost of doing business.
Although perhaps your disagreement is over whether this is a moral issue, in which case, fine, but let's be clear that that's what we're disagreeing over.
It isn't possible for that to happen without one of your other concerns also being true, because the profits from preventing repairs come from the customers. So it's at best zero sum and in practice it's negative sum, because the manufacturer isn't always the most efficient party to do the repair, e.g. because the farmer who is already on site and does it themselves can get the equipment back in service faster than waiting for the company's mechanic to arrive.
Meanwhile in cases where the manufacturer is the most efficient party to do the repair, the customer could still use them even if nothing forced them to. So the fact of it happening is by itself proof of this:
> It only needs to be litigated when there is a threat to the market itself (ex: monopolies)
Moreover, notice that this keeps happening with tech products. Since customers don't like it, you would expect a competitor to show up and make the exact same product but without the locks, so why don't we see that? The answer, of course, is copyright, a government-granted monopoly. The law prohibits a competitor from copying their design/code. So there's your monopoly.
But copyright is only meant to prevent the competitor from making a direct copy of their software and competing with them in the market for the original product. They're supposed to have that monopoly. Leveraging that to monopolize the separate market for repairs is monopoly abuse, and applies equally to every company selling a product covered by a patent or copyright monopoly.
That is exactly right. That is why the punishment for not giving customers the right to repair needs to be in the billions, so that the value of giving customers that right is huge.
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 being held accountable.
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.
Don't underestimate the willingness of the GOP and the Supreme Court to kiss his feet.
> ...and I don't see a way he can use it for graft.
He's an expert at it.
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.
Are automobiles using curved windshields so they have a stranglehold on the replacement windshield market?
Your example doesn't pass my sniff test.
This does mean my YC application is far less likely to be accepted.
[0] https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/what-is-the-goomb...
Let's learn the concept of "different people have different opinions", shall we?
You pursue business strategies as a profit maximizing business person concerned with outcomes for your company and investors. You comment on the regulatory/political matters as a pro-social citizen concerned with societal benefits.
Cognitive dissonance tends to occur when attempting to avoid hypocrisy... and doing mental gymnastics to make it so there are no clashes between your different perspectives.
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
Reminds me of old internet, when activists we doing it for The User.
> You fight for the users?
It comes from Don Quixote, as I recall, and suggests a fruitless effort. A waste of time.
Deere is a long way from the user accessibility of the Model A or B.
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48802162
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48395520
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47043208
I read inhumanely fast.
I browse HN at work in-between GH Actions runs, compiling and Claude thinking, so no time for videos.
Note they're also synonyms, so the confusion is understandable:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/inhum...
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/inhum...
View rates must have dipped for a percentage we don't know of, but definitely made a dent.
For text, I change my reading speed based on comprehension, going faster for things I know, and slower or rereading for things that are new or complicated. For video, you're expected to consume the info at the rate provided in the video, losing attention when they spend too long on info you're already finished with, and then blowing by other info that I want to spend more time considering.
There are options like adjusting video playback speed and rewinding, but that's not how video is typically consumed and is much less convenient than just altering your reading speed.
And it's not just HN either, video is a very poor substitute for a well written article. Video can augment a well-written article, but it can't replace it.
Maybe they can make Overcast have dynamic speed based on speaker.
My overall minutes of YT have gone down, but I probably interacts with 2-3x more videos. Just like skimming on HN!
Having said that, I noticed that there is in general too much content to consistently e. g. vote or do similar actions. I was watching Rossman's video almost daily in the past; stopped doing so a while ago simply because of lack of time on my part. I need to choose more carefully where I invest my time. (Also, for some reason, when Rossman was in New York, his videos had a better punch; not sure if I am the only one noticing this but he seemed to have a better focus when he was still in New York, even though I understand he relocated, to stop getting milked by politicians in New York.)
I stopped coding for the past year or so and I'm considering going back because I definitely feel my own sharpness lost.
He puts his money where his mouth is too. Weighing in and challenging people to sue. Good guy, intense but good.
I think it is a shame youtube is forcing creators into longer videos
I watch his videos, but not from links here and that is probably what you are seeing: those of us who might follow your link have already seen the video (likely via grayjay rather than youtube) and will skip over it to the next interesting new thing. People who don't already watch him will see “[video] (youtube.com), 1 point, discuss” and think “oh, another video that could be a few paragraphs of text which would be much faster to read than watch, that so far no one else has seen as worth interacting with, preceded by two unskippable adverts”.
A link to youtube is only going to get much attention if it is lucky to have a title that jumps out to a few people so it gains the first few votes and/or comments that get the ball rolling. Even then Louis' videos aren't going to get a hot debate going: most people either entirely agree so don't see the point commenting further, or they aren't the sort of people who are reading HN at all or are but don't follow video links.
Super glad he does what he does / is who he is though.
Or:
"Why do you care so much about <Flock, Ring Cameras, big tech name>? We already walk around with cell phones in our pockets 24/7."
I used to be more passionate about persuading people about privacy, but I've pretty much given up. I've come to the conclusion that the majority of the population doesn't care what is happening around them as long as they have internet access and their iPhone.
And weirdly, the response I get is, "Oh yeah, fair."
I learned a LOT from watching his videos, and I don't even do board repair! Psychology, business, the human condition...
Point is to do what you want with the hardware you supposedly "own".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
Look at it from his standpoint. He has an untold amount of people vying for his attention, comments that hopefully are managed by a 3rd party/other folks, and who knows quantity of people contacting him with ideas for a story, video, or some such. I don't even know if he still even runs or manages his repair business at all at this point. When you combine all those things, you end up getting into a mindset of filtering out what matters to you and/or others very quickly and having little time for much else especially if people wax on and are not good at getting to the point.
I get that HN isn't Reddit in the sense that you don't see long form comments like this, but I've dealt with this a lot in the Information Security industry. I think that's what may separate people who get shit done from infosec rockstars and other folks who talk a big talk, but when you get to know them, they are deep down, jerks. I could share my own stories of Deviant Ollam, JohnnyXm4s or other individuals -- but how much of that is my own bias and frustration with what I did, or did not get when interacting with those people? It does not make them assholes just because I did not get the experience I expected.
I'm glad he's been able to turn this into a career doing genuinely good work that I agree with, but he is first and foremost a drama youtuber and that requires a confrontational personality.
What did he to you to give off that impression?
[0]: https://fighttorepair.substack.com/p/this-doesnt-break-the-m...
The trademarks and the protected designations I believe help consumers to know what they're getting and protect makers against competition with inferior products which are superficially similar. So that's things like "Coke" is definitely Coca-Cola's product and not just whatever brown liquid the seller could get cheapest, British Beef isn't actually from America just relabelled for a higher price. Champagne isn't actually a sparkling wine made in California. You can buy cheap brown liquid, Californian Sparkling wine and American beef, but it's right for consumers to know what they're getting and for the vinters in Champagne to know some Tech bro's side venture Californian winery isn't shipping bogus "Champagne" made in the Napa valley that will compete with their genuine product on store shelves in London. If consumers want to drink sparkling Californian wine they can do that, there's no need to use the name Champagne worked so hard for.
The patents are most reprehensible. There the deal is the government gives you a (surprisingly long) exclusive right to make a thing, and in exchange you give up some information about how to make it. Lawyers have managed to finagle providing almost no useful information about "how" in exchange for these quite unreasonable exclusive rights, that needs at least substantial rebalancing. In software it's just bullshit and should go entirely, in pharmaceuticals you can argue about the exact rules more.
Copyright is the most interesting tension. In theory Copyright protects creators - and that seems great. In practice this unavoidably also benefits non-creator heirs "Knives Out" style but that's not really the worst thing in the world. It also though benefits publishers which are corporate entities and that makes no sense whatsoever in the modern era. That needs drastic reining in, if while we're in there we can ensure that the author's grandkids don't get a free ride for life just because grandma wrote this amazing book that's be nice. Copyright expansion seems to have slowed or stopped during my lifetime, which is good, but it needs reversing.
Right to try to repair is a normal freedom.
I wouldn't trade it for the world though, we need more tinkering.
And for mighty HP and their printers, management needs to be put to wall and shot. There's no other solution.
I don't like people calling out soldered stuff. By the way, soldered stuff may still be serviceable at 3rd party service centers, just not at every DIYers home. It will cost you quite some money, yeah.
There are laptops that have soldered RAM + Free slot for upgrade. But regulating that stuff is just stupid I think - there is a valid reason for manufacturers to try make things more compact, more streamlined etc.
I'm going to scrap 120 almost mint condition 8th gen i5 Thinkpads thanx to 8GB soldered RAM, which is no longer enough for efficient office work on W11 + basic corporate background apps.
With 1 fookin RAM slot, these notebooks would be perfectly fine for another 5-10 years.