7 ms·

> 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 availab

by rtpg 3y 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 3y 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 3y 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 3y 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.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  Knowing nothing about tractors, but there always was a strong push from vendors to not allow repairs by the user. In the olden days it would be weird shaped screws and stickers with "warranty void" kind of bright red wording everywhere that would impact their bottom line. Then potential denial of repair or extra costs ("out of warranty") if they could find any plausible reason to attribute the issue to your intervention where you shouldn't touch. I'd see the introduction of DRM as a way to enforce rules that were already there, more than a radical change to their business model. So yes, I'd expect a lot of resistance to moving to right of repair.
  - radlad 3y ago
    > I'd see the introduction of DRM as a way to enforce rules that were already there, more than a radical change to their business model. Voiding a warranty for DIY repairs is very different from making DIY repairs impossible.
crabmusket 3y ago
Without knowing about the industry, I like to wistfully think that a cooperative would be the way to structure a company that cares about this. Not just worker-owned, but customer-owned as well. If you're buying an asset you expect to last decades, having a stake in the manufacturer doesn't seem like a completely bad idea.
- cobertos 3y ago
  The problem with any cooperative feels like a human one. Keeping everyone informed and active communicants. People like to forget about things when they're stable. A coop loses so much value when it just becomes a one email a year affair with "Hey, it's that time to vote for things again!"
  - crabmusket 3y ago
    Agreed, but from a distance it sounds like farm machinery might be something that keeps interest and involvement, as it's so critical to operations. I'm somewhat influenced by the descriptions of various farming organisations in Seeing Like A State which I recently read. There is a lot of active cooperation, experimentation, knowledge sharing etc. around crop varieties.
  - einpoklum 3y ago
    This is a problem in every social/political organization which is not ruled by interested minorities. So, co-operatives, voluntary social activity clubs, democratic NGOs/associations, professional societies, etc. Democratic states suffer from this also, although it's arguable whether they're not ruled by interested minorities to begin with. In fact, the unfortunate public-opinion manipulations we see in national and international politics are also often present in smaller, local organizations, albeit in less-well-funded and less-spectacular form. I'm always reminded of the Anarchist Peasants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng
- chongli 3y ago
  It’s very difficult to start a worker cooperative in a capital-intensive industry. In most companies, the difference between workers and owners is that the owners provided the capital to get things started. A factory that builds modern tractors is a pretty huge investment. It’s very large and has a ton of very expensive robotics. It also has a huge supply chain that delivers a wide variety of parts to the factory for final assembly. A factory worker, while a lot more skilled than a day labourer working on a farm, does not have access to the kind of capital needed to start a big factory. So how does it happen? The people who have the billions of dollars in capital needed to start the factory aren’t just going to give shares to workers they hire.
lb1lf 3y ago
-This is very much my (anecdotal, but from several companies in the subsea business, ranging from huge multinationals to small fry almost mom-and-pop shops) experience, too: Service work is basically seen as a licence to print money. Contract negotiations for newbuilds are cutthroat, the most important parameter being price, price and price. Hence margins are as you'd expect. Except when it comes to service work, as service rates, parts cost &c are hardly ever touched upon in contracts, probably seeing as they will be relevant for the lifetime of the product, which may run for decades. Hence the contract merely states that the supplier must _provide_ service and parts. Which we do. While we laugh all the way to the bank. Of course, if you become too greedy, a customer is likely to start sourcing any parts not uniquely made by you elsewhere and try to have whoever they can find locally install them. Hence some sobriety is useful when determining service rates and parts markup, but the general principle is: You do newbuilds so that you can get a large installed base to reap service income from. Newbuilds are sold at the slimmest of margins, sometimes even at a loss. You'll recoup it when they start using the gear, anyway.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  The "break-even on initial install, make profit on recurring revenue" model is common in a lot of industries. I've worked for engineering service companies where they'll take on a design at minimal profit, in order to secure the manufacturing contract that's worth far more. Or a medical device company that would provide the instrument (normally sold for around $750k) at cost, in exchange for a lucrative supplies & consumables contract that would be needed for over a decade of operation. I honestly think there's more money to be made in services, generally speaking, than in manufacturing.
  - OkGoDoIt 3y ago
    Sounds like printers to me. It’s harder and harder to find one where you can replace your own ink.
- GordonS 3y ago
  I also worked with subsea companies for a long time, and can concur - they'd do anything to get new engineering and manufacturing contracts, then make the margins later on aftermarket service. It wasn't a secret either, people were quite open about it.
dheera 3y ago
> feels like something that needs to happen out of the goodness of your heart because you _are_ just leaving money on the table. Which means you need to get it off the ground without the help of the stock market or investors, all of which are greedy for that money on the table.
rgmerk 3y ago
Back in the day, Dad ran a photocopier dealership. He had a team of highly-paid salesmen (and they were pretty much all men) driving around the countryside convincing school principals and the like that they needed new photocopiers. The profit margin on the machines was basically zero. But the salespeople earned their keep, because every large photocopier sold also had a service contract that charged a fee for every copy made. The game was up by the early 2000s when the stand-alone photocopier was replaced with networked laser printers, but while it lasted it paid for a lot of salespeople’s fancy cars, boats, and overseas holidays.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > But the salespeople earned their keep, because every large photocopier sold also had a service contract that charged a fee for every copy made. And without the service contracts, schools are fucked when the printer breaks down. Like, here in Germany, a single copier can run through entire crates worth of paper in a day. It's absolutely ridiculous how fossilized our education system has become. We should be using laptops and tablets loaded with e-books and digital worksheets. No one cares about handwriting anything outside of school any more.
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    no - laptops and tablets with e-books break the attention span of students from minutes into only seconds.. Humans are able to see things that change constantly, but there is a cost. Secondly, abundance past a certain level creates apathy and overwhelm. Third, there is a realization that giving any screens to children below a certain age is just basically harmful to regular brain development.
Dennip 3y ago
its why they're spinning up the big bud again! https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/03/20/big-bud-worlds-largest-tractor-at-70000-pounds-is-back-after-40-year-break/ https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/03/20/big-bud-worlds-large...
- yencabulator 3y ago
  Wow. > The Big Bud 747 weighs in at 135,000 pounds fully ballasted and its 1,000-gallon fuel tank topped off. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMD_EPD2D_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=M https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=E... That's a >$3,200 fill-up (give or take volume pricing, with your own larger container). And I thought driving a class A motorhome with a 150 gallon tank hurt to fill up!

by rtpg 3y ago

KevinBasto 3y 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 3y 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 3y 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.
makeitdouble 3y ago
Knowing nothing about tractors, but there always was a strong push from vendors to not allow repairs by the user. In the olden days it would be weird shaped screws and stickers with "warranty void" kind of bright red wording everywhere that would impact their bottom line. Then potential denial of repair or extra costs ("out of warranty") if they could find any plausible reason to attribute the issue to your intervention where you shouldn't touch. I'd see the introduction of DRM as a way to enforce rules that were already there, more than a radical change to their business model. So yes, I'd expect a lot of resistance to moving to right of repair.
- radlad 3y ago
  > I'd see the introduction of DRM as a way to enforce rules that were already there, more than a radical change to their business model. Voiding a warranty for DIY repairs is very different from making DIY repairs impossible.

crabmusket 3y ago

Without knowing about the industry, I like to wistfully think that a cooperative would be the way to structure a company that cares about this. Not just worker-owned, but customer-owned as well. If you're buying an asset you expect to last decades, having a stake in the manufacturer doesn't seem like a completely bad idea.

cobertos 3y ago
The problem with any cooperative feels like a human one. Keeping everyone informed and active communicants. People like to forget about things when they're stable. A coop loses so much value when it just becomes a one email a year affair with "Hey, it's that time to vote for things again!"
- crabmusket 3y ago
  Agreed, but from a distance it sounds like farm machinery might be something that keeps interest and involvement, as it's so critical to operations. I'm somewhat influenced by the descriptions of various farming organisations in Seeing Like A State which I recently read. There is a lot of active cooperation, experimentation, knowledge sharing etc. around crop varieties.
- einpoklum 3y ago
  This is a problem in every social/political organization which is not ruled by interested minorities. So, co-operatives, voluntary social activity clubs, democratic NGOs/associations, professional societies, etc. Democratic states suffer from this also, although it's arguable whether they're not ruled by interested minorities to begin with. In fact, the unfortunate public-opinion manipulations we see in national and international politics are also often present in smaller, local organizations, albeit in less-well-funded and less-spectacular form. I'm always reminded of the Anarchist Peasants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng
chongli 3y ago
It’s very difficult to start a worker cooperative in a capital-intensive industry. In most companies, the difference between workers and owners is that the owners provided the capital to get things started. A factory that builds modern tractors is a pretty huge investment. It’s very large and has a ton of very expensive robotics. It also has a huge supply chain that delivers a wide variety of parts to the factory for final assembly. A factory worker, while a lot more skilled than a day labourer working on a farm, does not have access to the kind of capital needed to start a big factory. So how does it happen? The people who have the billions of dollars in capital needed to start the factory aren’t just going to give shares to workers they hire.

lb1lf 3y ago

-This is very much my (anecdotal, but from several companies in the subsea business, ranging from huge multinationals to small fry almost mom-and-pop shops) experience, too: Service work is basically seen as a licence to print money. Contract negotiations for newbuilds are cutthroat, the most important parameter being price, price and price. Hence margins are as you'd expect. Except when it comes to service work, as service rates, parts cost &c are hardly ever touched upon in contracts, probably seeing as they will be relevant for the lifetime of the product, which may run for decades. Hence the contract merely states that the supplier must _provide_ service and parts. Which we do. While we laugh all the way to the bank. Of course, if you become too greedy, a customer is likely to start sourcing any parts not uniquely made by you elsewhere and try to have whoever they can find locally install them. Hence some sobriety is useful when determining service rates and parts markup, but the general principle is: You do newbuilds so that you can get a large installed base to reap service income from. Newbuilds are sold at the slimmest of margins, sometimes even at a loss. You'll recoup it when they start using the gear, anyway.

HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
The "break-even on initial install, make profit on recurring revenue" model is common in a lot of industries. I've worked for engineering service companies where they'll take on a design at minimal profit, in order to secure the manufacturing contract that's worth far more. Or a medical device company that would provide the instrument (normally sold for around $750k) at cost, in exchange for a lucrative supplies & consumables contract that would be needed for over a decade of operation. I honestly think there's more money to be made in services, generally speaking, than in manufacturing.
- OkGoDoIt 3y ago
  Sounds like printers to me. It’s harder and harder to find one where you can replace your own ink.
GordonS 3y ago
I also worked with subsea companies for a long time, and can concur - they'd do anything to get new engineering and manufacturing contracts, then make the margins later on aftermarket service. It wasn't a secret either, people were quite open about it.

dheera 3y ago

> feels like something that needs to happen out of the goodness of your heart because you _are_ just leaving money on the table. Which means you need to get it off the ground without the help of the stock market or investors, all of which are greedy for that money on the table.

rgmerk 3y ago

Back in the day, Dad ran a photocopier dealership. He had a team of highly-paid salesmen (and they were pretty much all men) driving around the countryside convincing school principals and the like that they needed new photocopiers. The profit margin on the machines was basically zero. But the salespeople earned their keep, because every large photocopier sold also had a service contract that charged a fee for every copy made. The game was up by the early 2000s when the stand-alone photocopier was replaced with networked laser printers, but while it lasted it paid for a lot of salespeople’s fancy cars, boats, and overseas holidays.

mschuster91 3y ago
> But the salespeople earned their keep, because every large photocopier sold also had a service contract that charged a fee for every copy made. And without the service contracts, schools are fucked when the printer breaks down. Like, here in Germany, a single copier can run through entire crates worth of paper in a day. It's absolutely ridiculous how fossilized our education system has become. We should be using laptops and tablets loaded with e-books and digital worksheets. No one cares about handwriting anything outside of school any more.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  no - laptops and tablets with e-books break the attention span of students from minutes into only seconds.. Humans are able to see things that change constantly, but there is a cost. Secondly, abundance past a certain level creates apathy and overwhelm. Third, there is a realization that giving any screens to children below a certain age is just basically harmful to regular brain development.

Dennip 3y ago

its why they're spinning up the big bud again! https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/03/20/big-bud-worlds-largest-tractor-at-70000-pounds-is-back-after-40-year-break/ https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/03/20/big-bud-worlds-large...

yencabulator 3y ago
Wow. > The Big Bud 747 weighs in at 135,000 pounds fully ballasted and its 1,000-gallon fuel tank topped off. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMD_EPD2D_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=M https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=E... That's a >$3,200 fill-up (give or take volume pricing, with your own larger container). And I thought driving a class A motorhome with a 150 gallon tank hurt to fill up!