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What I don't understand is why a couple of the higher quality tractor companies have not started pushing hard to brand "we support repair" and having available

What I don't understand is why a couple of the higher quality tractor companies have not started pushing hard to brand "we support repair" and having available online manuals and software to support this. This seems a perfect marketing/product platform for an underdog that also believes this. Massey, Fendt or similar could really differentiate themself and take market share on the back of this I suspect. Especially with online world having reached farmers as the dealer networks increasingly mean less when you can order equiptment and spares online so JD loses some of the strength they hold by their dominating physical presence alone.

LinuxBender 4y ago
Massey, Fendt or similar could really differentiate themself and take market share on the back of this I suspect. I love the idea. I wish that were a thing but I suspect that it would be seen as a lack of profit model and businesses are more competitive than ever now. I have a 1947 Fordson 2n tractor and there is a large community of people that support it as well as a couple 3rd party parts manufacturers that make parts for many old tractors. I suspect that even if Ford wanted to manufacture parts there are not enough of us to make it profitable. Adding to that modern tractors are much more complicated and have many more parts. It would be really cool if some college were to take on a project to build the "most capable" yet "simplest" tractors that could do everything the modern fancy computer driven tractors can do but using as few parts and as simple and generic parts as possible and then license everything in a way that businesses could not make it proprietary. Perhaps I have an odd fantasy. Open Source Hardware so to speak. If it were to become popular enough perhaps that college could fund their entire department making human and robotic driven simple and pragmatic tractors if for no other reason than bragging rights. "Our $100K tractor can do everything your $2M tractor can do and more." Bonus if it has some Easter-egg hardware like many hidden beer bottle openers. Perhaps colleges could get DARPA and similar funding in the name of international and national security for each country to create something like this to Feed the World as food scarcity becomes more of a thing. Make farming profitable again.
silexia 4y ago
Parents on tons of ridiculous tractor related concepts prevent this. We badly need patent reform or outright abolishment of parents. Parents are the greatest source of monopoly in America.
donw 4y ago
Excellent point. Check out Project Farm on YouTube to get a sense of what the average farmer is like in terms of engineering mindset. They would love this. Farmers are smart. When your combine breaks during harvest, you can't just grab another or wait a couple of days for the repair guy to show up -- you need it fixed now. That's not easy. Not to mention, understanding your soil, your crops, the weather, how they interact, how to handle everything from planting up to post-harvest processing... it's not an easy job. And this starts at a young age, because all the kids help out on the farm, too. You know why licenses for vehicles aren't required on private property? Farms. Early-teenagers need to be able to drive around a truck, then a tractor, etc.
- GalenErso 4y ago
  Farmers also need to understand animal biology (for those who raise animals) and reproduction, the local, state, and national commodities market (and sometimes the international market too), pests and invasive species (plants, insects, and animals alike) and the diseases they can bring, and hydrology. A modern farmer is an engineer, an economist, a biologist and a wilderness expert all in one.
  - heywhatupboys 4y ago
    While I know HN likes to put farmers on a pedistal, and we should all appreciate the people that literally grow our food, the reality isn't that most farmers are "highly educated" in these things, but know barely enough to scrape by
    - lb1lf 4y ago
      While that is true for most smaller farms - there simply is no way a small farm can afford the capital expenditure of someone who could be working day-to-day spending years in study, it still holds true that farmers by necessity are excellent jacks of all trades. You simply do not make enough money off of the farm to rent professional help whenever something goes wrong. Just one data point - when the clutch on our 1994 (methinks) Case tractor broke a few years ago, the quoted cost for having a new one installed was close to $5,000. My father-in-law and I spent two days splitting the tractor, refurbishing the clutch using a $250 kit and reassembling it. No expensive or fancy tools, but a lot of headscratching and educated guesses, plus we needed to craft a couple of rather large stands and jigs using timber already on hand. The $4,750 thus saved is more than we make annually from renting out the fields to a nearby farmer (We just live on the farm, we're not working the land nor having any animals anymore.) I believe this situation is rather typical on smaller farms - you have to make things work on your own or with the help of friends and neighbours, or you're SOL.
supernova87a 4y ago
Maybe there is something about the agricultural tractor (or similar industry) sector where the amount of research and development, manufacturing, sales, support investment it takes, on top of the sales prices/duration, customer dynamic, product lifecycle, etc involved means that the few players who can do it need to earn some margin through service to stay alive profitably. Of course, maybe they're just money grubbing capitalists. But I think there's more factors than meets the eye, and this behavior is not without cause. Otherwise, as you say, plenty of players should be clamoring to offer a fix-it-yourself brand that people would flock to and be loyal to. Maybe sometimes there are real reasons for the way a market and a product are structured.
- __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
  I think it's that unlike other industries, simply giving up and letting DRM control farming is kind of scary. The people who care if you're allowed to flash the firmware on your bluetooth earbuds are few and far between, but the people who dislike the idea of some remote party being able to use math and law to turn off food production... That's pretty much everybody. So they're all money grubbing capitalists. But as money grubbing capitalists go, these are among the bigger threats.
rtpg 4y ago
> What I don't understand is why a couple of the higher quality tractor companies have not started pushing hard to brand "we support repair" and having available online manuals and software to support this. This seems a perfect marketing/product platform for an underdog that also believes this. My understanding is basically all high-capital machinery makes a _lot_ of money from support contracts and repairs. I think there is an idea to do something like this anyways, but it legit feels like something that needs to happen out of the goodness of your heart because you _are_ just leaving money on the table.
- KevinBasto 4y ago
  well, certainly a customer that feels screwed will hate to bring you money, so even if you can force someone to get customer support from you will hate you, and eventually when they can get out, they will, no company is exempted from this reality, people like to feel companies care about them and their product or service makes their lifes easier, else they fly away, but i think those who push this shitty ideas are more likely directives born in rich environments, they don't understand the customer and try to optimize to cut corners instead of trying to be relevant on the market, or shall we say, they rest on their laurels
- Teever 4y ago
  Yeah but didn't they make a lot of money from support contracts before bullshit DRM? So isn't the difference between making a lot of money and a lot more emoney with DRM? And if that's the case can't a defector break from the DRM paradigm and offer tractors without DRM so they still make a lot of money at a minimum, but likely more due to picking up more customers? Like to put it in other terms can't they make up for the difference with increased volume, which drives down per unit production costs and takes money from John Deere? Like why can't someone be the Kirkland brand of tractors?
  - Kalium 4y ago
    Tractors are durable goods. They are not replaced often. Becoming the Kirkland brand of tractors means taking a major hit to sales for years in the hopes that it comes back to you in decades. It means betting the entire tractor business on this, essentially. You'll notice there are no Kirkland brand furnaces.
LegitShady 4y ago
pretty sure they all work off the dealer system and expensive repairs are part of the money making scheme. Differentiating yourself by volunteering to make less money isn't something your shareholders want.
orangepurple 4y ago
Could it be because there is no meaningful competition and the current players possibly collude?
kwiens 4y ago
I don't understand this either. I can tell you that after a decade of advocacy on ag Right to Repair, not once has a manufacturer reached out to us and asked how they could improve repairability. As a Kubota owner, this disappoints me. Fortunately in the electronics world, we have Framework and Fairphone. And Nokia making noises around improving repairability. Google and even Samsung launching independent parts programs. One of the ag manufacturers should break off and take the lead. It's not going to be Deere, or Case, or New Holland.
whalesalad 4y ago
It’s very simple: revenue.
nikanj 4y ago
The same reason Brother has not beat HP in the printer market, despite the latter having scores of customer-hostile policies w.r.t ink DRM.
Maakuth 4y ago
The sector is way more centralized than what you'd think by looking at the tractor brands you see around. Massey-Ferguson and Fendt are both AGCO brands. Besides them and John Deere, there's CNH Industrial making Case IH and New Holland tractors. I expect all of the three make a lot of their revenue from the service business, so there's not that much incentive to be disruptive.
octacat 4y ago
Probably because they have agreement between these companies. They don't really need marketing once they sell their machines.
linuxftw 4y ago
A tractor manufacturer's customers are the dealers, not the end users. Just like the auto industry, most of the margin of dealers is made in service and repairs.
GuB-42 4y ago
I guess it would also mean higher upfront price to make up for losses in servicing. And I guess farmers don't want that. The current situation is market driven and I guess "repairs will be more expensive/planned obsolescence" is more engaging than a higher price. And I think that's where a government has to intervene. Even if the situation is the one that suit manufacturers and customers (even if they don't admit it), it is not the best for the environment and collectivity in general, so regulation is in order.

LinuxBender 4y ago

Massey, Fendt or similar could really differentiate themself and take market share on the back of this I suspect. I love the idea. I wish that were a thing but I suspect that it would be seen as a lack of profit model and businesses are more competitive than ever now. I have a 1947 Fordson 2n tractor and there is a large community of people that support it as well as a couple 3rd party parts manufacturers that make parts for many old tractors. I suspect that even if Ford wanted to manufacture parts there are not enough of us to make it profitable. Adding to that modern tractors are much more complicated and have many more parts. It would be really cool if some college were to take on a project to build the "most capable" yet "simplest" tractors that could do everything the modern fancy computer driven tractors can do but using as few parts and as simple and generic parts as possible and then license everything in a way that businesses could not make it proprietary. Perhaps I have an odd fantasy. Open Source Hardware so to speak. If it were to become popular enough perhaps that college could fund their entire department making human and robotic driven simple and pragmatic tractors if for no other reason than bragging rights. "Our $100K tractor can do everything your $2M tractor can do and more." Bonus if it has some Easter-egg hardware like many hidden beer bottle openers. Perhaps colleges could get DARPA and similar funding in the name of international and national security for each country to create something like this to Feed the World as food scarcity becomes more of a thing. Make farming profitable again.

silexia 4y ago

Parents on tons of ridiculous tractor related concepts prevent this. We badly need patent reform or outright abolishment of parents. Parents are the greatest source of monopoly in America.

donw 4y ago

Excellent point. Check out Project Farm on YouTube to get a sense of what the average farmer is like in terms of engineering mindset. They would love this. Farmers are smart. When your combine breaks during harvest, you can't just grab another or wait a couple of days for the repair guy to show up -- you need it fixed now. That's not easy. Not to mention, understanding your soil, your crops, the weather, how they interact, how to handle everything from planting up to post-harvest processing... it's not an easy job. And this starts at a young age, because all the kids help out on the farm, too. You know why licenses for vehicles aren't required on private property? Farms. Early-teenagers need to be able to drive around a truck, then a tractor, etc.

GalenErso 4y ago
Farmers also need to understand animal biology (for those who raise animals) and reproduction, the local, state, and national commodities market (and sometimes the international market too), pests and invasive species (plants, insects, and animals alike) and the diseases they can bring, and hydrology. A modern farmer is an engineer, an economist, a biologist and a wilderness expert all in one.
- heywhatupboys 4y ago
  While I know HN likes to put farmers on a pedistal, and we should all appreciate the people that literally grow our food, the reality isn't that most farmers are "highly educated" in these things, but know barely enough to scrape by
  - lb1lf 4y ago
    While that is true for most smaller farms - there simply is no way a small farm can afford the capital expenditure of someone who could be working day-to-day spending years in study, it still holds true that farmers by necessity are excellent jacks of all trades. You simply do not make enough money off of the farm to rent professional help whenever something goes wrong. Just one data point - when the clutch on our 1994 (methinks) Case tractor broke a few years ago, the quoted cost for having a new one installed was close to $5,000. My father-in-law and I spent two days splitting the tractor, refurbishing the clutch using a $250 kit and reassembling it. No expensive or fancy tools, but a lot of headscratching and educated guesses, plus we needed to craft a couple of rather large stands and jigs using timber already on hand. The $4,750 thus saved is more than we make annually from renting out the fields to a nearby farmer (We just live on the farm, we're not working the land nor having any animals anymore.) I believe this situation is rather typical on smaller farms - you have to make things work on your own or with the help of friends and neighbours, or you're SOL.

supernova87a 4y ago

Maybe there is something about the agricultural tractor (or similar industry) sector where the amount of research and development, manufacturing, sales, support investment it takes, on top of the sales prices/duration, customer dynamic, product lifecycle, etc involved means that the few players who can do it need to earn some margin through service to stay alive profitably. Of course, maybe they're just money grubbing capitalists. But I think there's more factors than meets the eye, and this behavior is not without cause. Otherwise, as you say, plenty of players should be clamoring to offer a fix-it-yourself brand that people would flock to and be loyal to. Maybe sometimes there are real reasons for the way a market and a product are structured.

__MatrixMan__ 4y ago
I think it's that unlike other industries, simply giving up and letting DRM control farming is kind of scary. The people who care if you're allowed to flash the firmware on your bluetooth earbuds are few and far between, but the people who dislike the idea of some remote party being able to use math and law to turn off food production... That's pretty much everybody. So they're all money grubbing capitalists. But as money grubbing capitalists go, these are among the bigger threats.

rtpg 4y ago

> What I don't understand is why a couple of the higher quality tractor companies have not started pushing hard to brand "we support repair" and having available online manuals and software to support this. This seems a perfect marketing/product platform for an underdog that also believes this. My understanding is basically all high-capital machinery makes a _lot_ of money from support contracts and repairs. I think there is an idea to do something like this anyways, but it legit feels like something that needs to happen out of the goodness of your heart because you _are_ just leaving money on the table.

KevinBasto 4y ago
well, certainly a customer that feels screwed will hate to bring you money, so even if you can force someone to get customer support from you will hate you, and eventually when they can get out, they will, no company is exempted from this reality, people like to feel companies care about them and their product or service makes their lifes easier, else they fly away, but i think those who push this shitty ideas are more likely directives born in rich environments, they don't understand the customer and try to optimize to cut corners instead of trying to be relevant on the market, or shall we say, they rest on their laurels
Teever 4y ago
Yeah but didn't they make a lot of money from support contracts before bullshit DRM? So isn't the difference between making a lot of money and a lot more emoney with DRM? And if that's the case can't a defector break from the DRM paradigm and offer tractors without DRM so they still make a lot of money at a minimum, but likely more due to picking up more customers? Like to put it in other terms can't they make up for the difference with increased volume, which drives down per unit production costs and takes money from John Deere? Like why can't someone be the Kirkland brand of tractors?
- Kalium 4y ago
  Tractors are durable goods. They are not replaced often. Becoming the Kirkland brand of tractors means taking a major hit to sales for years in the hopes that it comes back to you in decades. It means betting the entire tractor business on this, essentially. You'll notice there are no Kirkland brand furnaces.

LegitShady 4y ago

pretty sure they all work off the dealer system and expensive repairs are part of the money making scheme. Differentiating yourself by volunteering to make less money isn't something your shareholders want.

orangepurple 4y ago

Could it be because there is no meaningful competition and the current players possibly collude?

kwiens 4y ago

I don't understand this either. I can tell you that after a decade of advocacy on ag Right to Repair, not once has a manufacturer reached out to us and asked how they could improve repairability. As a Kubota owner, this disappoints me. Fortunately in the electronics world, we have Framework and Fairphone. And Nokia making noises around improving repairability. Google and even Samsung launching independent parts programs. One of the ag manufacturers should break off and take the lead. It's not going to be Deere, or Case, or New Holland.

whalesalad 4y ago

It’s very simple: revenue.

nikanj 4y ago

The same reason Brother has not beat HP in the printer market, despite the latter having scores of customer-hostile policies w.r.t ink DRM.

Maakuth 4y ago

The sector is way more centralized than what you'd think by looking at the tractor brands you see around. Massey-Ferguson and Fendt are both AGCO brands. Besides them and John Deere, there's CNH Industrial making Case IH and New Holland tractors. I expect all of the three make a lot of their revenue from the service business, so there's not that much incentive to be disruptive.

octacat 4y ago

Probably because they have agreement between these companies. They don't really need marketing once they sell their machines.

linuxftw 4y ago

A tractor manufacturer's customers are the dealers, not the end users. Just like the auto industry, most of the margin of dealers is made in service and repairs.

GuB-42 4y ago

I guess it would also mean higher upfront price to make up for losses in servicing. And I guess farmers don't want that. The current situation is market driven and I guess "repairs will be more expensive/planned obsolescence" is more engaging than a higher price. And I think that's where a government has to intervene. Even if the situation is the one that suit manufacturers and customers (even if they don't admit it), it is not the best for the environment and collectivity in general, so regulation is in order.