John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement

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• Hacker News
• 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, like in tech, being held accountable. Their support is too important right now.

  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.

  by aceki
• 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.
  by ourmandave
• 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.
  by arwhatever
• 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.
  by delfugal
• 1 million dollars? Like, less than 1 tractor after financing? How will they recover from this?!
  by xgulfie
• > 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.

  by taurath
• there has not been $10B in profit solely or partially because of a lack of a right to repair. There's no way.
  by naikrovek
• 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.

  by acters
• 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.
  by ashdksnndck
• >probably $10 billion in profit

  Can you expand on this number or is it vibes-based? I'd be surprised if $10b profit was made from Service Advisor.

  Anecdata; we've had a handful of problems with our tractor "computers" recently, and we haven't been charged a dime by the dealer. Our newest is 2018 model so definitely not covered by warranty.

  by snypher
• 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.
  by dreambuffer
• 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.

  by netcan
• 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.
  by jdrmag
• 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?

  by izacus
• 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.

  by trollbridge
• Two different groups: the hackers, and the money people.
  by esseph
• I wouldn't do it, your point is now disproven
  by stevemk14ebr
• 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.

  [0] https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/what-is-the-goomb...

  by sobani
• 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.
  by al_borland
• 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.
  by ActorNightly
• Brand name/heritage, and not much competition. I think there are only two US based companies left in business.
  by silisili
• 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.
  by maxhille
• 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.
  by ggoo
• 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.

  by GuB-42
• Because they don't ask it like that. It'll be "Woke communists want to confiscate the money of enterprising businesses." Combined with some AI generated video of the right to repair supporters laughing in an evil way or something.
  by Gigachad
• Until you tell them how easy it makes it to bypass emissions restrictions. My tractor was shipped with a screw turned down to <25hp to bypass emissions controls. I could turn that screw back up and have a ~35hp tractor, but of course, that would be illegal and make lots of environmentalists cry.

  Opening up John Deere tractors for right to repair virtually assures they will ~all be doing emissions deletes. Part of their lock-down was profit seeking, but the other half is that different vendors had different ideas interpretations of the law about how locked down the system had to be to prevent emissions tampering, and domestic companies more subject to US law were generally far more paranoid about it.

  by mothballed
• Fifty years ago the average guy buying a tractor had a family farm with a few hundred acres. Equipment was smaller and had less frills because the John Deeres of the world were catering to those small time customers. There were a lot of them.

  Those small time farms mostly don’t exist anymore. Today farming is done on an industrial scale, and equipment manufacturers are catering to the big players. They need big, efficient equipment that is profitable to operate at scale and they’re willing to pay for it. Only the big farms can.

  I wonder how much of this is just the manufacturers making more high end, complex equipment that is just difficult to repair in general as opposed to them maliciously designing things to be difficult to fix.

  Keep in mind, increasing the cost to repair something lowers its market value. There’s a reason Toyotas are more expensive than Dodges. The market prices these inconveniences. It’s not in the manufacturer’s interest to do this.

  I think the real risk here is that the equipment manufacturers will use these settlements and regulations to build crazy reporting and compliance requirements that give them a moat that prevents upstart companies from competing with incumbents in the industry. What they really fear is competition, not the loss of a few percentage points on their part sales and service profits.

  by MisterMower
• It can be in their interest if their model assumes certain revenue from sales and service.

  Most brands of cars can be repaired by independent technicians. Toyotas are more valuable because they are reliable -- because they are repaired less often.

  by solidsnack9000
• 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.
  by MarkMarine
• I've learned that I'm just not cynical enough. Here's the relevant Peter Girnus post[1], he tells the underlying truth through satire.

    10 years. We report our compliance every 60 days, then once a year, which is to say we have turned handing you your own machine into a paperwork schedule that runs through 2036. Any new repair tool we build, we only have to share once more than 50% of our dealers already have it. We decide when a dealer has it. We build the clock and we wind the clock.
  

  https://x.com/gothburz/status/2075211022198096180
  by mikewarot