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Too little too late. They have burned good faith, and this move stinks of more manipulation. As others suggested, this probably aims to thwart legislative act

Too little too late. They have burned good faith, and this move stinks of more manipulation. As others suggested, this probably aims to thwart legislative action, and they will make everything available at an inaccessibly exorbitant price point and inexcusable lead times. Seriously, Deere has been a market leader in alienating customers for years. There is no possibility that this is being done for the benefit of their customers. Mark my works, this move will ultimately be revealed as self-serving. Meanwhile, it should be met with nothing but skepticism by customers.

CuriousCosmic 4y ago
this probably aims to thwart legislative action probably? From Section 3 of the MOU: In the event any state or federal legislation or regulation relating to issues covered by this MOU and/or "Right to Repair" is enacted, each of AFBF and Manufacturer reserve the right, upon fifteen (15) days written notice, to withdraw from this MOU. https://www.fb.org/files/AFBF_John_Deere_MOU.pdf https://www.fb.org/files/AFBF_John_Deere_MOU.pdf It's a blatant threat that they'll double down on their practices if any state or the federal government tries to pursue right to repair legislation.
- labster 4y ago
  The easy fix here is to make clauses like this unenforceable in the right to repair bills. Not that they’ll do it, but law outranks contracts.
  - CuriousCosmic 4y ago
    I agree but the threat here is that if any one state successfully passes RTR regulation, they'll punish all the other states in response. Basically trying to put regulators and lobbying orgs into a "cold war" against them. This of course means that the only way to fix this without harming consumers is federal laws which is shitty because grassroots legal progress is far more preferable.
mcast 4y ago
But who would replace them?
- ahartmetz 4y ago
  Possibly Fendt. Fendt and John Deere have about the same reputation for mechanical durability and technology leadership (in Germany, my dad is a retired farmer). Fendt is owned by Agco, also American, so they might get the MBA disease at some point as well... but so far, the main thing Agco has done with Fendt is investment to improve and expand. https://www.farm-equipment.com/blogs/6-opinions-columns/post/19416-how-afraid-is-john-deere-of-fendts-growing-us-market-share https://www.farm-equipment.com/blogs/6-opinions-columns/post...
  - randomdata 4y ago
    Fendt is considered the cream of the crop around here, at least as far as tractors go, but the dealer network is sparse. I'd run into several Deere dealerships before finally getting to the Fendt dealer. All brands break. If you don't have easy access to parts, it's harder sell. Farmers don't want machines they can't easily fix and so Deere wins on that front. The CaseIH dealer network is just as strong, so that's the actual competition for Deere in these parts.
- warmwaffles 4y ago
  Case IH is one that I have seen starting to become more popular and farmers selling their JDs and replacing them with Case tractors. Case has good service and you can purchase most mechanical parts to replace existing broken parts without having to go through a service technician if you don't want to.
anm89 4y ago
This is the smart money take. They ran an EV calculation on the cost of half heartedly allowing self repair (but in a sneaky way in which surely favors them) with a reduced probability of legislation vs the probability of legislation being imposed on them and figured they can milk more money out of this scenario. They will surely allow DIY in the most convoluted, inaccessible way humanly possible and try to keep this scenario as close as possible to the tractors being unrepairable.
- texasbigdata 4y ago
  EV, enterprise value?
  - teknofobi 4y ago
    Expected value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value
  - hengheng 4y ago
    Expected Value as in poker lingo, but I first read it as electric vehicle myself.
    - gpderetta 4y ago
      EV is really a general statistic term.
      - anm89 4y ago
        Agreed. I'm not interested in Poker at all so that's not where I got this from. This is taught in undergrad economics classes.
  - anm89 4y ago
    roughly, imagine a decision tree where each end node has a set of probabilities and a utility points values per outcome probability. You multiply out the probability of each outcome with it's point value and pick the decision path which maximizes your probability weighted outcome. In most cases utility points equals how much money you make or lose but it doesn't have to be that. So if one path has a 10% chance of -100000 points (ie something terrible happens) and a 90% chance of get 1000 points (something very good happens) this path has an expected value of (.1 * -100000) + (.9 * 1000) = -9100 whereas some other branch has a 100% chance of an outcome of 10 points. You take the branch where you get the guaranteed 10 points because even though the best case is on the other branch, the average case on that branch is worse than on the 10 point branch. And what I'm saying is they decided that their highest average payoff as doing some compromised version of self allowed diy whereas they get a really bad payoff in the case where the diy legislation is written externally and actually forces them to allow reasonable diy
TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
There's a knock-on effect too. I work for a technology-adjacent company, and the biggest push the company has been making for the past 10 years -- right after being woke and going green, of course -- is implementing a whole bunch of "cybersecurity" measures into our product that feels an awful lot like they're cribbing their answers from Deere, to prevent a handful of people from reprogramming the device. The whole thing is excused with, "But but but the customer may make a modification that we didn't endorse, and we could be sued out of existence!" Fine, then go the other way. Ask your Congresspeople to pass a law that says if you "tamper" with the device, all warranties expressed or implied are null and void, and if it breaks, you can't sue. I don't understand what's so hard about that. I really don't.
- staringback 4y ago
  > pass a law that says if you "tamper" with the device, all warranties expressed or implied are null and void This is a terrible idea. There is a very good reason "warranty void if removed" stickers are unenforceable in the US due to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act
  - TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
    "Well... we're waiting!" What's the very good reason? Because it's certainly not apparent to me.
    - marcus0x62 4y ago
      The very good reason is that, as the parent commenter wrote, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty act makes it illegal for manufacturers to deny warranty service because of third-party modifications or repairs, unless they can demonstrate the third-party modification/repair caused a defect in the original product.
      - TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
        So why should something so explicitly... tampering... as, say, REFLASHING an ECM for a diesel engine, NOT exempt the manufacturer from third-party stupidity? This is what I can't wrap my head around. Where's the limit of legal liability? IS there no limit? Are the people milling about my company, excusing every added layer of bureaucracy due to being liable if a customer chips their Dodge Ram, melting the exhaust system onto their garage floor, and burning down their house actually CORRECT?! THIS is the law that is causing us to augment our entire development chain with the ability to sign and encrypt our binaries to prevent this malfeasance?
mikewarot 4y ago
They'll use "safety" as an excuse to subvert this, and keep gouging the farmers. It's the same hack that just happened in New York to their now useless "right to repair" law.

CuriousCosmic 4y ago

this probably aims to thwart legislative action probably? From Section 3 of the MOU: In the event any state or federal legislation or regulation relating to issues covered by this MOU and/or "Right to Repair" is enacted, each of AFBF and Manufacturer reserve the right, upon fifteen (15) days written notice, to withdraw from this MOU. https://www.fb.org/files/AFBF_John_Deere_MOU.pdf https://www.fb.org/files/AFBF_John_Deere_MOU.pdf It's a blatant threat that they'll double down on their practices if any state or the federal government tries to pursue right to repair legislation.

labster 4y ago
The easy fix here is to make clauses like this unenforceable in the right to repair bills. Not that they’ll do it, but law outranks contracts.
- CuriousCosmic 4y ago
  I agree but the threat here is that if any one state successfully passes RTR regulation, they'll punish all the other states in response. Basically trying to put regulators and lobbying orgs into a "cold war" against them. This of course means that the only way to fix this without harming consumers is federal laws which is shitty because grassroots legal progress is far more preferable.

mcast 4y ago

But who would replace them?

ahartmetz 4y ago
Possibly Fendt. Fendt and John Deere have about the same reputation for mechanical durability and technology leadership (in Germany, my dad is a retired farmer). Fendt is owned by Agco, also American, so they might get the MBA disease at some point as well... but so far, the main thing Agco has done with Fendt is investment to improve and expand. https://www.farm-equipment.com/blogs/6-opinions-columns/post/19416-how-afraid-is-john-deere-of-fendts-growing-us-market-share https://www.farm-equipment.com/blogs/6-opinions-columns/post...
- randomdata 4y ago
  Fendt is considered the cream of the crop around here, at least as far as tractors go, but the dealer network is sparse. I'd run into several Deere dealerships before finally getting to the Fendt dealer. All brands break. If you don't have easy access to parts, it's harder sell. Farmers don't want machines they can't easily fix and so Deere wins on that front. The CaseIH dealer network is just as strong, so that's the actual competition for Deere in these parts.
warmwaffles 4y ago
Case IH is one that I have seen starting to become more popular and farmers selling their JDs and replacing them with Case tractors. Case has good service and you can purchase most mechanical parts to replace existing broken parts without having to go through a service technician if you don't want to.

anm89 4y ago

This is the smart money take. They ran an EV calculation on the cost of half heartedly allowing self repair (but in a sneaky way in which surely favors them) with a reduced probability of legislation vs the probability of legislation being imposed on them and figured they can milk more money out of this scenario. They will surely allow DIY in the most convoluted, inaccessible way humanly possible and try to keep this scenario as close as possible to the tractors being unrepairable.

texasbigdata 4y ago
EV, enterprise value?
- teknofobi 4y ago
  Expected value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value
- hengheng 4y ago
  Expected Value as in poker lingo, but I first read it as electric vehicle myself.
  - gpderetta 4y ago
    EV is really a general statistic term.
    - anm89 4y ago
      Agreed. I'm not interested in Poker at all so that's not where I got this from. This is taught in undergrad economics classes.
- anm89 4y ago
  roughly, imagine a decision tree where each end node has a set of probabilities and a utility points values per outcome probability. You multiply out the probability of each outcome with it's point value and pick the decision path which maximizes your probability weighted outcome. In most cases utility points equals how much money you make or lose but it doesn't have to be that. So if one path has a 10% chance of -100000 points (ie something terrible happens) and a 90% chance of get 1000 points (something very good happens) this path has an expected value of (.1 * -100000) + (.9 * 1000) = -9100 whereas some other branch has a 100% chance of an outcome of 10 points. You take the branch where you get the guaranteed 10 points because even though the best case is on the other branch, the average case on that branch is worse than on the 10 point branch. And what I'm saying is they decided that their highest average payoff as doing some compromised version of self allowed diy whereas they get a really bad payoff in the case where the diy legislation is written externally and actually forces them to allow reasonable diy

TheRealDunkirk 4y ago

There's a knock-on effect too. I work for a technology-adjacent company, and the biggest push the company has been making for the past 10 years -- right after being woke and going green, of course -- is implementing a whole bunch of "cybersecurity" measures into our product that feels an awful lot like they're cribbing their answers from Deere, to prevent a handful of people from reprogramming the device. The whole thing is excused with, "But but but the customer may make a modification that we didn't endorse, and we could be sued out of existence!" Fine, then go the other way. Ask your Congresspeople to pass a law that says if you "tamper" with the device, all warranties expressed or implied are null and void, and if it breaks, you can't sue. I don't understand what's so hard about that. I really don't.

staringback 4y ago
> pass a law that says if you "tamper" with the device, all warranties expressed or implied are null and void This is a terrible idea. There is a very good reason "warranty void if removed" stickers are unenforceable in the US due to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act
- TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
  "Well... we're waiting!" What's the very good reason? Because it's certainly not apparent to me.
  - marcus0x62 4y ago
    The very good reason is that, as the parent commenter wrote, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty act makes it illegal for manufacturers to deny warranty service because of third-party modifications or repairs, unless they can demonstrate the third-party modification/repair caused a defect in the original product.
    - TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
      So why should something so explicitly... tampering... as, say, REFLASHING an ECM for a diesel engine, NOT exempt the manufacturer from third-party stupidity? This is what I can't wrap my head around. Where's the limit of legal liability? IS there no limit? Are the people milling about my company, excusing every added layer of bureaucracy due to being liable if a customer chips their Dodge Ram, melting the exhaust system onto their garage floor, and burning down their house actually CORRECT?! THIS is the law that is causing us to augment our entire development chain with the ability to sign and encrypt our binaries to prevent this malfeasance?

mikewarot 4y ago

They'll use "safety" as an excuse to subvert this, and keep gouging the farmers. It's the same hack that just happened in New York to their now useless "right to repair" law.