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This might make sense if each additional acre added high costs to the SaaS service but I question that. I wonder how much of this $60k/yr is just rent seeking t

This might make sense if each additional acre added high costs to the SaaS service but I question that. I wonder how much of this $60k/yr is just rent seeking to extract as much value from the land as possible.

bombcar 4y ago
You'd have to know the "value add" and what it is saving, which I'm sure farmers have done. But it's not the case that you get zero apples (or whatever) without it, but maybe it increases yield or prevents total crop loss.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  Oh clearly the farmer thinks this is worth it, but then when the mob demands protection money that is worth it too. My question is, how much is this business twisting the farmer's arm, or more directly, how much of this cost is profit-seeking and how much of this is actual costs incurred. Because I am always curious what the opportunity for open source alternatives would be. If enough farms pay $5k/yr to developers to make stable software, and another $5k/yr to someone doing data management, perhaps they could save $50k per year in money going to some VC firm. I just don't like the way investment firms will design products specifically to extract profits from farmers (or anyone), and I am interested in the concept of software that has minimal overhead costs, so all possible profits flow to the users rather than up to the top of some hierarchy.
ilyt 4y ago
Well, it' niche (you don't have that many customers compared to normal software) that is also highly specialized, and that is never cheap. And it's not "a piece of software for 60k" but likely "a bunch of specialized pieces of software"
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  > And it's not "a piece of software for 60k" but likely "a bunch of specialized pieces of software" Right but my question still stands, which is that I wonder how much of that total, summed from all the pieces, is rent seeking or profit extraction. AKA what is the markup on this and how much of it is going to pay high returns to VC firms. I say this because I work in open source farming automation and I am particularly interested in lowering costs through open source.

bombcar 4y ago

You'd have to know the "value add" and what it is saving, which I'm sure farmers have done. But it's not the case that you get zero apples (or whatever) without it, but maybe it increases yield or prevents total crop loss.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
Oh clearly the farmer thinks this is worth it, but then when the mob demands protection money that is worth it too. My question is, how much is this business twisting the farmer's arm, or more directly, how much of this cost is profit-seeking and how much of this is actual costs incurred. Because I am always curious what the opportunity for open source alternatives would be. If enough farms pay $5k/yr to developers to make stable software, and another $5k/yr to someone doing data management, perhaps they could save $50k per year in money going to some VC firm. I just don't like the way investment firms will design products specifically to extract profits from farmers (or anyone), and I am interested in the concept of software that has minimal overhead costs, so all possible profits flow to the users rather than up to the top of some hierarchy.

ilyt 4y ago

Well, it' niche (you don't have that many customers compared to normal software) that is also highly specialized, and that is never cheap. And it's not "a piece of software for 60k" but likely "a bunch of specialized pieces of software"

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
> And it's not "a piece of software for 60k" but likely "a bunch of specialized pieces of software" Right but my question still stands, which is that I wonder how much of that total, summed from all the pieces, is rent seeking or profit extraction. AKA what is the markup on this and how much of it is going to pay high returns to VC firms. I say this because I work in open source farming automation and I am particularly interested in lowering costs through open source.