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I'm going to defend my leap in logic here, not so much to defend it outright but merely to explain it. What I didn't say is that I generally believe it's hard

I'm going to defend my leap in logic here, not so much to defend it outright but merely to explain it. What I didn't say is that I generally believe it's hard to engineer for multiple business models. In my mind, it's sort of one path or the other. Own or rent. If you engineer for long-term leasing, well, the price for ownership is going to be rather high. The potential owners, especially the militant ones, will grouse about the price and maybe use this as a new way to attack. They'll say the ownership price is gouging. And then they'll want lower prices on parts too. I see your point about absolutism. I'm not really an absolutist. I just believe that the nature of business models means that insisting on ownership will essentially push the businesses into a corner. I elided that detail to keep things a bit shorter.

Brian_K_White 4y ago
fair enough
VBprogrammer 4y ago
In reality tractors have, until the current evolution, been build absolutely for the long haul. Tractors which were the main tractor on the farm 50+ years ago are often still used for some side tasks here or there on the farm. Scraping out cattle sheds or mowing under the fence line with a sickle bar. The lived reality of many farmers is that the John Deere computer systems are far less reliable and less maintainable than the mechanical systems of previous generations. With failure of the computer system being both common and completely crippling the tractor. In 50 years time what are the options going to looks like? Hopefully a lively community of fixers will be able to install the 2070s version of the raspberry pi and keep it running.