6 ms·

AKA the John Deere exception. FFS, Deere's egregious behavior is a large part of the push for RTR legislation. Disappointing, if not unsurprising.

deelowe 3y ago
And as planned, were sitting here blaming Deere and not the politicians who allow this to happen. Deere is simply looking out for its best interests. The real scum are these so called "representatives" who place corporate interests over small businesses and citizens. Walk through your local Lowe's and home Depot and take a close look at their lawn equipment. It's all junk that will be thrown away in a decade. Plastic bushings, plastic spindles, flimsy exhaust mounts, etc. If you seriously take the time to look closely, you can see where you they are engineered to fail. Even contractor brands like Stihl are starting to do this stuff. Most of their trimmers now do not have a grease fill port on the head. To make matters worse, replacing a head costs almost as much as an entire trimmer...
- maerF0x0 3y ago
  And every time the citizenry tries to use regulation to reign in a megacorp it ends up creating more burden for that company's competition. megacorps legal team can easily squeeze into the loop holes, but mom and pops (and entrepreneurs) get ground up like cheap meat.
  - pc86 3y ago
    Then exceptions (if any exist) should be based on company revenue (to include any and all holding companies), not what the tool or device does. Require Deere to make RTR easily available, let small upstarts focus on the product
    - maerF0x0 3y ago
      So I definitely prefer this, and this is used to be a sort of unspoken rule in Canadian law. The law just had this bias built into for the "little guy" in the fight. Seems to have changed under the current Führer, at least from a non-resident's perspective. IMO that's the right bias to have to counter the matthew effect in Capitalism.
- Sindisil 3y ago
  [flagged]
- p_j_w 3y ago
  >The real scum are these so called "representatives" who place corporate interests over small businesses and citizens. I don't see why we can't find both to be scum.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Because only one is being paid for by public funds to be impartial.
    - AYBABTME 3y ago
      The corporation can also be scum by virtue of being an unpleasant actor in society.
      - erulabs 3y ago
        Yes but it's much harder calculus. What's the net of a very large tractor manufacturer existing or not existing? If they lobby in a way you don't like but they also cause cereals to be 15% cheaper, how can you calculate their "unpleasant"-ness? A public official taking a contribution in return for carving out an exception in a law is quite an easy one.
        mjburgess 3y ago
        The same calculus applies to the politician, you're just imparting certain social duties on one and not the other. If you want to know why american society is prone to this sort of privitized corruption: this is it. Business is seen as a pure mechanism, but politics is a place of hyper-individualized duty. In europe, i think the reverse is more often true. Businesses are seen in personalized ways, as having explicit social duties compromised by greed; and politics is a pure mechanism.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        Erm no - businesses can also be moral. In fact there's an enormous social pressure to look good. That's why people get fired for things that happen on Twitter. The only difference is businesses get money for doing something someone else wants, and they need to keep doing that. Politicians take your money and can't even do the one thing they should be doing: be impartial and resistant to even more free money.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  > you can see where you they are engineered to fail Really? Please give an example. I have been hearing this for at least the last 15 years and have yet to find someone who can offer an example of anything that was "engineered to fail" when challenged. Not saying it doesn't exist, but I'd just like to see a single example of it happening. Sacrificial parts that are designed to fail in order to mitigate a more serious failure do not count for the purposes of this request -- that's just Good Engineering Practice.
  - deaddodo 3y ago
    I think people should rephrase it to "not engineered to last/repair". This is a much easier metric to point out and is about equivalent (though, less nefarious) to what they mean. If you use that metric, it's insanely easy to quantify. Just look at the average refrigerator today, compared to one from the 50s-70s. It's a fraction of the cost, but it's built from cheaper/less reliable parts in a repair-unfriendly (but quick to produce) manner. The idea being that you'll buy a new fridge every 8-12 years and recycle (ideally) the old one, versus spending the cost of a car on one and keeping it for a generation or two. This is what planned obsolescence means, usually. The only nefariously intended to "break" items that I can think of are electronic devices that are unrootable and rely on third-party networked services.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
      Oh, I completely agree with you on that. Most consumer items are built to a price point. If you're building to sell at a low price, you have to keep Bill of Materials cost low to make selling the thing worthwhile, so it's not surprising that, e.g., a cheap riding mower is made from thin stamped steel chassis whereas a commercial one is mostly heavy weldments that hold up to being banged around for hours each day. I'm not being difficult. When I read "engineered to fail" that's not the impression I get from the statement.
      - derefr 3y ago
        Honestly seems to me that some BOMs (and therefore some practically-achievable price-points) should be illegal, then. You shouldn't be allowed to market something as a mower, if it's built such that the act of mowing gradually shakes the mower apart. Yes, a change like this would mean that, in the short term, there'd suddenly be no "consumer" version of many products. But that'd only be the short term. In the medium term, I'd expect heavy pressure for innovation in materials science, with all these companies that were fine with plastics before, suddenly investing money and labor into operationalization of e.g. scaling carbon-fiber production.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > so called "representatives" who place corporate interests over small businesses and citizens California farmers have more influence in Sacramento than John Deere. Either they didn’t engage in this fight. Or there is a reason they would want this exempted.
  - deelowe 3y ago
    > Or there is a reason they would want this exempted Well, I'm not in CA, but I do know a ton of farmers and not a single one is happy with the current situation.
- babypuncher 3y ago
  Those representatives get elected because wealthy companies like John Deere spend lots of money to make sure that happens. Take the money out of politics. Pass strict campaign finance reform laws, kill super PACs, and put severe limitations on what qualifies as "lobbying", and a lot of these problems will go away.
  - deelowe 3y ago
    Sure. And guess who needs to do that? The politicians. Again, all the blame sits on their shoulders. Expecting companies to have some sort of morale compass is just a result of the media hiding the truth from everyone.

deelowe 3y ago

And as planned, were sitting here blaming Deere and not the politicians who allow this to happen. Deere is simply looking out for its best interests. The real scum are these so called "representatives" who place corporate interests over small businesses and citizens. Walk through your local Lowe's and home Depot and take a close look at their lawn equipment. It's all junk that will be thrown away in a decade. Plastic bushings, plastic spindles, flimsy exhaust mounts, etc. If you seriously take the time to look closely, you can see where you they are engineered to fail. Even contractor brands like Stihl are starting to do this stuff. Most of their trimmers now do not have a grease fill port on the head. To make matters worse, replacing a head costs almost as much as an entire trimmer...

maerF0x0 3y ago
And every time the citizenry tries to use regulation to reign in a megacorp it ends up creating more burden for that company's competition. megacorps legal team can easily squeeze into the loop holes, but mom and pops (and entrepreneurs) get ground up like cheap meat.
- pc86 3y ago
  Then exceptions (if any exist) should be based on company revenue (to include any and all holding companies), not what the tool or device does. Require Deere to make RTR easily available, let small upstarts focus on the product
  - maerF0x0 3y ago
    So I definitely prefer this, and this is used to be a sort of unspoken rule in Canadian law. The law just had this bias built into for the "little guy" in the fight. Seems to have changed under the current Führer, at least from a non-resident's perspective. IMO that's the right bias to have to counter the matthew effect in Capitalism.
Sindisil 3y ago
[flagged]
p_j_w 3y ago
>The real scum are these so called "representatives" who place corporate interests over small businesses and citizens. I don't see why we can't find both to be scum.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Because only one is being paid for by public funds to be impartial.
  - AYBABTME 3y ago
    The corporation can also be scum by virtue of being an unpleasant actor in society.
    - erulabs 3y ago
      Yes but it's much harder calculus. What's the net of a very large tractor manufacturer existing or not existing? If they lobby in a way you don't like but they also cause cereals to be 15% cheaper, how can you calculate their "unpleasant"-ness? A public official taking a contribution in return for carving out an exception in a law is quite an easy one.
      - mjburgess 3y ago
        The same calculus applies to the politician, you're just imparting certain social duties on one and not the other. If you want to know why american society is prone to this sort of privitized corruption: this is it. Business is seen as a pure mechanism, but politics is a place of hyper-individualized duty. In europe, i think the reverse is more often true. Businesses are seen in personalized ways, as having explicit social duties compromised by greed; and politics is a pure mechanism.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        Erm no - businesses can also be moral. In fact there's an enormous social pressure to look good. That's why people get fired for things that happen on Twitter. The only difference is businesses get money for doing something someone else wants, and they need to keep doing that. Politicians take your money and can't even do the one thing they should be doing: be impartial and resistant to even more free money.
HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
> you can see where you they are engineered to fail Really? Please give an example. I have been hearing this for at least the last 15 years and have yet to find someone who can offer an example of anything that was "engineered to fail" when challenged. Not saying it doesn't exist, but I'd just like to see a single example of it happening. Sacrificial parts that are designed to fail in order to mitigate a more serious failure do not count for the purposes of this request -- that's just Good Engineering Practice.
- deaddodo 3y ago
  I think people should rephrase it to "not engineered to last/repair". This is a much easier metric to point out and is about equivalent (though, less nefarious) to what they mean. If you use that metric, it's insanely easy to quantify. Just look at the average refrigerator today, compared to one from the 50s-70s. It's a fraction of the cost, but it's built from cheaper/less reliable parts in a repair-unfriendly (but quick to produce) manner. The idea being that you'll buy a new fridge every 8-12 years and recycle (ideally) the old one, versus spending the cost of a car on one and keeping it for a generation or two. This is what planned obsolescence means, usually. The only nefariously intended to "break" items that I can think of are electronic devices that are unrootable and rely on third-party networked services.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
    Oh, I completely agree with you on that. Most consumer items are built to a price point. If you're building to sell at a low price, you have to keep Bill of Materials cost low to make selling the thing worthwhile, so it's not surprising that, e.g., a cheap riding mower is made from thin stamped steel chassis whereas a commercial one is mostly heavy weldments that hold up to being banged around for hours each day. I'm not being difficult. When I read "engineered to fail" that's not the impression I get from the statement.
    - derefr 3y ago
      Honestly seems to me that some BOMs (and therefore some practically-achievable price-points) should be illegal, then. You shouldn't be allowed to market something as a mower, if it's built such that the act of mowing gradually shakes the mower apart. Yes, a change like this would mean that, in the short term, there'd suddenly be no "consumer" version of many products. But that'd only be the short term. In the medium term, I'd expect heavy pressure for innovation in materials science, with all these companies that were fine with plastics before, suddenly investing money and labor into operationalization of e.g. scaling carbon-fiber production.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> so called "representatives" who place corporate interests over small businesses and citizens California farmers have more influence in Sacramento than John Deere. Either they didn’t engage in this fight. Or there is a reason they would want this exempted.
- deelowe 3y ago
  > Or there is a reason they would want this exempted Well, I'm not in CA, but I do know a ton of farmers and not a single one is happy with the current situation.
babypuncher 3y ago
Those representatives get elected because wealthy companies like John Deere spend lots of money to make sure that happens. Take the money out of politics. Pass strict campaign finance reform laws, kill super PACs, and put severe limitations on what qualifies as "lobbying", and a lot of these problems will go away.
- deelowe 3y ago
  Sure. And guess who needs to do that? The politicians. Again, all the blame sits on their shoulders. Expecting companies to have some sort of morale compass is just a result of the media hiding the truth from everyone.