It was the bait and switch - it's the end of most incredibly successful capitalist corporations. The reputation JD built was very well earned so they defacto be

It was the bait and switch - it's the end of most incredibly successful capitalist corporations. The reputation JD built was very well earned so they defacto became the everyman's tractor and for good reason. At some point all corporations start to trim expenses or generate new revenues from existing avenues - so that reputation was used to get everyone kinda trapped in their JD world that was essentially made "unrepairable" overnight. This is the same thing Monsanto did with seed, Dow chem with Roundup and Microsoft with windows for a non farm example. Once you envelop an ecosystem of products and services the people within that system are largely at the mercy of it. Apple and their batteries intentionally being made to fail scandal a few years back is another great example. It's just the numbers are much bigger in the agricultural world than the consumer tech world. The tractor that has essentially a SaS contract/required yearly operating expense for maintenance and upkeep might cost millions in the first place. Many farmers have machine shops that are plenty capable of repairing tractors - bc they've always done so. JD is trying to fundamentally change the game - it's not the farmers fault for being a loyal customer for 10-40+ years, as many farmers today inherited farms that already had JD equipment from their fathers/grand fathers. JD is exploiting that and their supply chain to make tractors and farm equipment glorified rentals.