8 ms·

Is there an alternative where they don't sign an equivalent TOS and still get the same features? Perhaps they have to pay for the privilege? Or is this a unilat

Is there an alternative where they don't sign an equivalent TOS and still get the same features? Perhaps they have to pay for the privilege? Or is this a unilateral power grab by the manufacturers?

leroy_masochist 7y ago
Midwest grain farmers are super boxed in with regard to what they must sign in order to have access to the latest tractor technology for their specific crop, but that's happening within the context of the technology getting incrementally better year-by-year, i.e., continuously cheaper input costs per unit of crop yield. This is all somewhat par for the course for a highly commoditized industry. Also, check out the comment below from the child of the Deere engineer who makes the point that "liability is the enemy of automation". If you gave farmers the ability to hack their tractors you are opening a bunch of complicated issues.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  Why do they need the latest tractor technology? Amazingly, people used to survive using tractors without air conditioning. Just slum it a little and use something that was state of the art for 1990. Plenty of Deere competitors can beat that.
  - brianwawok 7y ago
    How much lower profit margin will you accept? If the guy next to you can harvest twice as fast as you, how are you covering that extra harvest driver pay?
    - lostlogin 7y ago
      By not playing for the new harvester.
  - dragontamer 7y ago
    Who needs the latest computer technology? Amazingly, people used to compute by hand. Just slum it a little and use something that was state of the art for 1990s. Plenty of Intel competitors can beat that. ------ Farmers are in a competition for revenues. Better tractor technology growing more food with fewer workers. If all your neighbors are growing 200 bushels whenever you grow 100 bushels, you're going to die. AWS simply won't be competitive with 90s era computers. Modern farmers won't work with tech designed in the 90s either. Sure, farming might be slower than computers at advancing, but its the same general thing. Computers (and tractors) are durable goods, they can last 20 years if you need them to. In practice, people replace durable goods regularly, because the NEW model is that much better than the old model. So from that perspective, the economics between the computer world and farming world are probably the same. The group with superior technology will get superior revenue at lower ongoing costs. For computers, that's less power-usage for the same amount of computations (requests per second or whatever). For farmers, that's fewer workers picking your fields for the same amount of crop.
    - wglb 7y ago
      > So from that perspective, the economics between the computer world and farming world are probably the same This totally leaves out the risk factor of not finishing harvest in time. In northern climates, if you don't finish, for example, by early September, the remaining crop may be unharvestable. Thus you could lose half your crop, totally. So the economics are not at all the same.
      - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
        Farming has to scale down. Big Ag which includes tractor companies, input companies, pesticides/herbicides companies and GMO seed companies are like a cartel. They completely control the market. When you have 2000 acres and it’s a single narrow harvest window, it’s not possible unless you use herbicides and inputs and reliable traited seeds and even harvest is time by desiccating with..surprise!..glyphosate, one realized with depressing clarity that the real farmer is Big Ag. It’s their world. And the rest of us belong to them.
  - leroy_masochist 7y ago
    We're talking about grain combines that are 50 feet wide and cost half a million dollars new, that are GPS-guided, and that have multiple advanced control systems that optimize rotor speeds, tractor speed, blade height, and dozens of other settings multiple times per second. If you're a grain farmer in the Midwest then you own several or dozens of these machines, they're financed, and you hedge your financing against future commodity prices. It's a business that lends itself to massive economies of scale. A hard-working pure-hearted American farmer with a tractor from 1990 and a little bit of grit is going to be real hard-pressed to compete. Not really a matter of sucking it up and slumming it, unfortunately.
    - tomcam 7y ago
      Do you have a blog or YT channel or something where you discuss these issues more? I’d love to follow you.
      - leroy_masochist 7y ago
        No but thank you for saying that!
    - dragontamer 7y ago
      I'm not fully up to date on farming technology, but you bring up a good point. I think most laypeople don't realize just how complicated these machines are. Here's a lettuce transplanter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ1u9IwJrs8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ1u9IwJrs8 It can transplant a lot of lettuce in a very quick amount of time, with a crew of 3 (1 driver + 2 workers on the back). You're not going to beat this plant-tape methodology with 90s era technology.
      - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
        That plant tape technology was developed in Spain and acquired by a Salinas lettuce company. They still struggle with margins due to CA labour costs and regulations. At some point, even economies of scale will totter when things become too big. In Ag, the better you do, you lose..because quantity creates glut and farmers are at the bottom of the supply chain of cheap food. Any increase in food prices would only benefit the top. But with new tech, the farmers are bearing the burden of new technology cost without seeing an increase in revenue. This has already led to the demise of the dairy industry. Ditto with grain and commodity crops. These are also heavily subsidized. Cheap food is subsidized by tax payers and farmers get shiny new tech toys on credit and eventually will fold. Because. Subsidies never work. I am reminded of that quote in catcher in the rye.
  - neuralRiot 7y ago
    I work in automotive tech and i hear this all the time, "why we can't just jump a power wire to there?" People love technology when it works for them, when it breaks suddenly they want to be back in the80's.
nordsieck 7y ago
> Is there an alternative where they don't sign an equivalent TOS and still get the same features? I mean, the clear alternative is to buy tractors without the same features. I'm not sure why manufacturers are obligated to sell certain features without a TOS. > Or is this a unilateral power grab by the manufacturers? How is this a power grab? That would only be true if the only tractor manufacturer in the world is John Deere.
- vajrabum 7y ago
  Can you legally fix your car or your older tractor? Has that always been true? You can't legally fix these machines because the manufacturer says so. That's new(ish) and a power (money) grab.
  - the_pwner224 7y ago
    This doesn't just prevent fixing - it prevents modification. If I want to change something about my car or motorcycle or tractor or airplane I should damn well be able to (assuming the modifications comply with all laws, which is not the issue here). Other comments say that these tractors are always purchased with a loan, in which case the loan provider (and insurance companies) can make stipulations about the usage and maintenance of the tractors. And perhaps John Deere can help enforce those. But for them to just put a unilateral blanket ban on modifying their equipment is wrong. If they have a monopoly it is an abuse of power and should be punished; if they don't then the market will fix the issue itself, for example via farmers complaining and then not buying from them any more.
  - nordsieck 7y ago
    > Can you legally fix your car or your older tractor? Has that always been true? You can't legally fix these machines because the manufacturer says so. That's new(ish) and a power (money) grab. Contracts that limit your ability to do things are very common. If you buy a pure bred dog, you will typically be required to sign a contract that requires you to not breed it and to get it neutered after a certain period of time. If for some reason you need to give it up, you will have to return it to the breeder. If you buy a movie on DVD, you can enjoy it in your home, but you can't set up an impromptu theater by projecting the movie on the side of a building. The import thing, was the customer provided notice of this restriction at or before the time of sale. It sounds like the answer to this question is: yes. You may be tempted to to claim some sort of power imbalance, which I don't buy in the general case, but in this particular case it is even less relevant. Large farms that use automated machinery costing many hundreds of thousands of dollars is the very definition of sophisticated customer, capable of hiring legal help and evaluating options.
JoblessWonder 7y ago
This is just the industry trying to move towards a "tractor as a service" model which allows them to continue charging regular fees and offset the feast/famine of only having large up-front sales cycles.

Is there an alternative where they don't sign an equivalent TOS and still get the same features? Perhaps they have to pay for the privilege? Or is this a unilateral power grab by the manufacturers?

leroy_masochist 7y ago

Midwest grain farmers are super boxed in with regard to what they must sign in order to have access to the latest tractor technology for their specific crop, but that's happening within the context of the technology getting incrementally better year-by-year, i.e., continuously cheaper input costs per unit of crop yield. This is all somewhat par for the course for a highly commoditized industry. Also, check out the comment below from the child of the Deere engineer who makes the point that "liability is the enemy of automation". If you gave farmers the ability to hack their tractors you are opening a bunch of complicated issues.

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
Why do they need the latest tractor technology? Amazingly, people used to survive using tractors without air conditioning. Just slum it a little and use something that was state of the art for 1990. Plenty of Deere competitors can beat that.
- brianwawok 7y ago
  How much lower profit margin will you accept? If the guy next to you can harvest twice as fast as you, how are you covering that extra harvest driver pay?
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    By not playing for the new harvester.
- dragontamer 7y ago
  Who needs the latest computer technology? Amazingly, people used to compute by hand. Just slum it a little and use something that was state of the art for 1990s. Plenty of Intel competitors can beat that. ------ Farmers are in a competition for revenues. Better tractor technology growing more food with fewer workers. If all your neighbors are growing 200 bushels whenever you grow 100 bushels, you're going to die. AWS simply won't be competitive with 90s era computers. Modern farmers won't work with tech designed in the 90s either. Sure, farming might be slower than computers at advancing, but its the same general thing. Computers (and tractors) are durable goods, they can last 20 years if you need them to. In practice, people replace durable goods regularly, because the NEW model is that much better than the old model. So from that perspective, the economics between the computer world and farming world are probably the same. The group with superior technology will get superior revenue at lower ongoing costs. For computers, that's less power-usage for the same amount of computations (requests per second or whatever). For farmers, that's fewer workers picking your fields for the same amount of crop.
  - wglb 7y ago
    > So from that perspective, the economics between the computer world and farming world are probably the same This totally leaves out the risk factor of not finishing harvest in time. In northern climates, if you don't finish, for example, by early September, the remaining crop may be unharvestable. Thus you could lose half your crop, totally. So the economics are not at all the same.
    - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
      Farming has to scale down. Big Ag which includes tractor companies, input companies, pesticides/herbicides companies and GMO seed companies are like a cartel. They completely control the market. When you have 2000 acres and it’s a single narrow harvest window, it’s not possible unless you use herbicides and inputs and reliable traited seeds and even harvest is time by desiccating with..surprise!..glyphosate, one realized with depressing clarity that the real farmer is Big Ag. It’s their world. And the rest of us belong to them.
- leroy_masochist 7y ago
  We're talking about grain combines that are 50 feet wide and cost half a million dollars new, that are GPS-guided, and that have multiple advanced control systems that optimize rotor speeds, tractor speed, blade height, and dozens of other settings multiple times per second. If you're a grain farmer in the Midwest then you own several or dozens of these machines, they're financed, and you hedge your financing against future commodity prices. It's a business that lends itself to massive economies of scale. A hard-working pure-hearted American farmer with a tractor from 1990 and a little bit of grit is going to be real hard-pressed to compete. Not really a matter of sucking it up and slumming it, unfortunately.
  - tomcam 7y ago
    Do you have a blog or YT channel or something where you discuss these issues more? I’d love to follow you.
    - leroy_masochist 7y ago
      No but thank you for saying that!
  - dragontamer 7y ago
    I'm not fully up to date on farming technology, but you bring up a good point. I think most laypeople don't realize just how complicated these machines are. Here's a lettuce transplanter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ1u9IwJrs8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ1u9IwJrs8 It can transplant a lot of lettuce in a very quick amount of time, with a crew of 3 (1 driver + 2 workers on the back). You're not going to beat this plant-tape methodology with 90s era technology.
    - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
      That plant tape technology was developed in Spain and acquired by a Salinas lettuce company. They still struggle with margins due to CA labour costs and regulations. At some point, even economies of scale will totter when things become too big. In Ag, the better you do, you lose..because quantity creates glut and farmers are at the bottom of the supply chain of cheap food. Any increase in food prices would only benefit the top. But with new tech, the farmers are bearing the burden of new technology cost without seeing an increase in revenue. This has already led to the demise of the dairy industry. Ditto with grain and commodity crops. These are also heavily subsidized. Cheap food is subsidized by tax payers and farmers get shiny new tech toys on credit and eventually will fold. Because. Subsidies never work. I am reminded of that quote in catcher in the rye.
- neuralRiot 7y ago
  I work in automotive tech and i hear this all the time, "why we can't just jump a power wire to there?" People love technology when it works for them, when it breaks suddenly they want to be back in the80's.

nordsieck 7y ago

> Is there an alternative where they don't sign an equivalent TOS and still get the same features? I mean, the clear alternative is to buy tractors without the same features. I'm not sure why manufacturers are obligated to sell certain features without a TOS. > Or is this a unilateral power grab by the manufacturers? How is this a power grab? That would only be true if the only tractor manufacturer in the world is John Deere.

vajrabum 7y ago
Can you legally fix your car or your older tractor? Has that always been true? You can't legally fix these machines because the manufacturer says so. That's new(ish) and a power (money) grab.
- the_pwner224 7y ago
  This doesn't just prevent fixing - it prevents modification. If I want to change something about my car or motorcycle or tractor or airplane I should damn well be able to (assuming the modifications comply with all laws, which is not the issue here). Other comments say that these tractors are always purchased with a loan, in which case the loan provider (and insurance companies) can make stipulations about the usage and maintenance of the tractors. And perhaps John Deere can help enforce those. But for them to just put a unilateral blanket ban on modifying their equipment is wrong. If they have a monopoly it is an abuse of power and should be punished; if they don't then the market will fix the issue itself, for example via farmers complaining and then not buying from them any more.
- nordsieck 7y ago
  > Can you legally fix your car or your older tractor? Has that always been true? You can't legally fix these machines because the manufacturer says so. That's new(ish) and a power (money) grab. Contracts that limit your ability to do things are very common. If you buy a pure bred dog, you will typically be required to sign a contract that requires you to not breed it and to get it neutered after a certain period of time. If for some reason you need to give it up, you will have to return it to the breeder. If you buy a movie on DVD, you can enjoy it in your home, but you can't set up an impromptu theater by projecting the movie on the side of a building. The import thing, was the customer provided notice of this restriction at or before the time of sale. It sounds like the answer to this question is: yes. You may be tempted to to claim some sort of power imbalance, which I don't buy in the general case, but in this particular case it is even less relevant. Large farms that use automated machinery costing many hundreds of thousands of dollars is the very definition of sophisticated customer, capable of hiring legal help and evaluating options.

JoblessWonder 7y ago

This is just the industry trying to move towards a "tractor as a service" model which allows them to continue charging regular fees and offset the feast/famine of only having large up-front sales cycles.