John Deere will just claim they never sold him a tractor, but rather signed a custom contract with him that gives him access and custody of one in return of some constraints he agreed upon.<p>If the government intervenes, it would undermine the free market. But you could argue it's already undermined, both by the government itself and the fact that somehow John Deere managed to achieve a monopoly in a sector critical to national security.
Am I being overly cynical in concluding that a growing % of companies will screw over their customers for their own gain. Doesn't this myopic "screw the customer" mentality damage brand reputation? Sure does for me. The growing discontent amongst a companies customer base is creating a new market opportunity for a competitor. When I feel screwed by a company like this, I find a good alternative, then jump ship and NEVER go back (even if they course correct some years later). From that point on I'm a vocal detractor of the brand. If no quality alternative exists it's even worse because you know the company is screwing you knowing you have no good alternatives.
I dont understand why people keep buying JD tractors.<p>They have a reputation for reliability, so do many other brands. Kubota, Deutz, Fent, Massy, Case, New Holland... a bunch more.<p>It's amazing the brand loyalty hold JD have on farmers.
Instead of a special right to repair law, it may be more prudent to expand anti-competition law to include the practice of precluding competition via impeding repair.
This has become a general problem. There seems to be more money in "software services" than in building tractors and motors.<p>John Deere is not unique. All common rail engines require a visit from a "certified engineer" who has access to the software. This is terrible in the marine industry where you can't get one in the middle of the ocean and you can't repair yourself either. What do you do? Do you sail to a harbor? You can't unless you have a sailboat. Get a tow to the nearest Volvo/Yanmar dealer? You must be kidding, thousand of miles away?<p>So yes, that lawsuit makes sense.<p>As for a class action lawsuit some of the comments in the thread misunderstand how it works:
1. Secure one or two plaintiffs. Two or three is better. Make sure they represent owners well: no conflicts, not paid to sue, good/clean plaintiffs.
2. Find the right location for the lawsuit. Location is very important in the US. Not only the state but the county. This is VERY important. Good plaintiff lawyers know where to sue.
3. Get your judge to certify the class action. "this lawsuit is on behalf of all users of John Deere tractors, etc". This is ALSO very important. John Deere will fight that. They will claim that those two plaintiffs do not represent the class, blabla.
4. Fight in court. Other plaintiffs have nothing to do. If the class action lawsuit wins on behalf of thousands of owners this represents a lot of money. It costs nothing to plaintiffs. Lawyers typically get 30%, sometimes less. If they are too greedy (they all are) the judge may object and cut down the fees.
5. Users can “opt out” of the payment if John Deere loses in court after appeals. Most plaintiffs do not opt out because they can’t afford to fight big corporations.<p>Unfortunately corporations are not always fair. We have seen many, many cases when poor farmer John just could not pay the exorbitant costs imposed by John Deere. Understand that these people have learned to be self-sufficient. They weld their broken massive tools in the field. They call the mobile repair shop to fix and tune their engines. Now they can't do anything. That massive, expensive John Deer is like a beached whale. Nothing you can do about it.<p>Hence class action lawsuits in the US. Some of them are abusive (i.e.recent att phone bills, 100M customers collect $1, lawyers collect $30M), but sometimes there are no other ways (asbestos, workplace injuries, brain damage near chemical waste from mining). Folks outside the US struggle to understand the system.<p>It is why today you can enjoy Non-Apple store repairs to your phone, non OEM parts for your car or non branded cartridges for your printer.<p>I wish that such a lawsuit will force John Deere to change its practices, like it forced other companies to do so.
While this is great news; I unfortunately have to wonder how effective this is going to be. We need likely a much, much larger subset of farmers joining such a class action lawsuit - ideally from as many states as possible - to get this to change.<p>Out of their greed; John Deere will fight this with all they have.<p>I still think the best solution to this is still a startup that can create tractors that don’t require repairs by a first party. I understand the difficulties behind such an operation, but I’m unfortunately not sure how successful such a lawsuit will be in America without the hell of a lot more ‘ooomph’ behind it.
A pretty good video on the subject <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGH6pxNouCY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGH6pxNouCY</a>
My question is what is wrong with the other brand? <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGCO" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGCO</a>
The example is of course egregious ($600 for a software update for a wire that got wet, basically). I fully support being able to repair your own stuff but I have no idea how you regulate this so companies don't gouge "owners" for aftermarket services.<p>Earlier today there was a thread about e-bike battery prices (tl'dr they're ridiculous expensive). I really wish rechargeable batteries had interchangeable form factors like normal batteries. I can't help but feel that if AA batteries were invented today there's no way there'd be a standard form factor.<p>But this issue is complicated. As much as first-party parts and accessories cost too much, there can be deadly consequences with shoddy third party products [1]:<p>> In July, a Chinese woman died after being electrocuted from a charging iPhone 5. Later that week, another man in China suffered a similar injury from a charging iPhone 4, leaving him comatose. In both cases, the victims were using an unofficial third-party adapter to charge their device.<p>So how do you guarantee something third-party will do what it claims to? If you use bad RAM chips in a Macbook, the consumer is going to blame Apple not whoever supplied cheap, shoddy parts (for the record, I hate soldered in RAM).<p>As an aside, I was unsurprised to see in this article this is a small farm. The harsh truth is that family farms and small farms in general are a dying way of life and just aren't competitive with industrial-scale agriculture. You can't fight the incoming tide forever.<p>[1]: <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/28/thai-man-dies-after-alleged-electrocution-from-charging-iphone-4s-" rel="nofollow">https://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/28/thai-man-dies-aft...</a>
Would "right to repair" also apply to software companies that lock up their customers' data in password-protected databases, which is only known to the company?
Hopefully people are directly lobbying Biden on this right now. Anti-monopoly action has been his only significant priority (and only deviation from the status quo.) IMO that's why he's being continually slammed in the media on easily predictable legislative failures on "progressive" legislation in this particular Congress. I'd suspect if polled on each component of his anti-monopoly orders, the public would give them 90%+ support, but those the papers ignore (allowing them to be quietly rolled back under the next POTUS, unnoticed.)
For industrial equipment (such as a tractor), who is liable for injuries if the equipment is repaired or modified by a 3rd party and it goes to court later?<p><a href="https://www.biren.com/blog/2020/september/defective-machinery-products-liability-litigatio/" rel="nofollow">https://www.biren.com/blog/2020/september/defective-machiner...</a><p>In particular <a href="https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1200/1245/" rel="nofollow">https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1200/1245...</a><p>> The [misuse/ [or] modification] was so highly extraordinary that it was not reasonably foreseeable to [name of defendant], and therefore should be considered as the sole cause of [name of plaintiff]’s harm.<p>So, if it was foreseeable that a 3rd party may modify some equipment in some way, the manufacturer must specifically warn the purchaser about "don't do that."<p>With software, this becomes a much more difficult challenge.<p>Additionally, <a href="https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1200/1244/" rel="nofollow">https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1200/1244...</a><p>> [Name of defendant] claims that [he/she/nonbinary pronoun/it] is notresponsible for any harm to [name of plaintiff] based on a failure to warn because [name of plaintiff] is a sophisticated user of the [product]. To succeed on this defense, [name of defendant] must prove that, at the time of the injury, [name of plaintiff], because of [his/her/nonbinary pronoun]particular position, training, experience, knowledge, or skill, knew or should have known of the [product]’s risk, harm, or danger.<p>So with software, either the user is a sophisticated user and aware of the implications of installing their own patches on the system and what that could do (over fertilize a field because of an incorrect setting on the gps calibration)... or they aren't. If they <i>aren't</i> a sophisticated user of the system, then it should be locked down sufficiently to prevent those changes.<p>> “The sophisticated user defense concerns warnings. Sophisticated users ‘arecharged with knowing the particular product’s dangers.’ ‘The rationale supporting the defense is that “the failure to provide warnings about risks already known to a sophisticated purchaser usually is not a proximate cause of harm resulting from those risks suffered by the buyer’s employees or downstream purchasers.”<p>So are we expecting farmers to be software engineers too?
Some ideas:<p>If folks actually value "right to repair" support companies that offer right to repair.<p>If no tractor company exists that offer the type of open setup you want and you think this is critical - start a company up and take out Deere and others.<p>Deere's views on software changes by users in the field is pretty darn clear.<p>My own view - having watched individuals and dealers etc "tune" trucks etc (with all the endless problems involved) - is that for something like a 10,000 part count + heavy piece of equipment - Deere is going to want to keep stuff locked up tight to preserve brand value. Apple has done this with iphones, and the resale value after 5 years on an iphone is incredible compared to players pushing out android phones.