Hacker News Reader

Comment by fanquake | Hacker News Reader

Which provider do you propose we boycott, and which one do we use in the mean time? JohnDeere, CASE, New Holland etc dominate the industry, and no farmer is going to (let alone can afford to) stop using their current equipment, and spend millions of dollars (it would easily cost us this much) buying different brand machinery. Let alone dealing with the hassles that come with swapping from one stream of ag software to another.

What's most likely to happen is farmers will just keep modifying their machinery at will. It's already common place to chip your engine, or to physically modify machines/implements to improve performance or your production methods. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

View on HN

> JohnDeere, CASE, New Holland etc dominate the industry

Look out, here comes China/Korea. Surely this policy of restricted software editing is intended to do one of two things:

1. force customers into dealerships for updates/repairs

2. stop a Chinese tractor appearing in the US market using the same or almost same but modified software that John Deere developed.

If it's the 1st then farmers will choose an alternative machine for future purchases, the tractor market in Europe at least has 20 brands jostling for market share.

If the 2nd argument is true, surely a license that allows users to modify and repair all the while restricting modified or original source from being distributed with the sale of a product, including resales, would solve this issue.

I think what the parent was suggesting is an arbitrary boycott for all future purchases. In other words, if they all use the same tactics, then make an example out of one to scare the others.

It sounds vindictive and harsh, until you consider that's exactly how the legal system is used all the time.

In the 1990s, when Smith and Wesson made a deal with the Clinton Administration, gun buyers and sellers did something similar.

We stopped buying Smith and Wesson firearms and their profits dropped like a stone. They thought that the increased business from the Federal government would make up for lost civilian sales but those Federal sales weren't what they were expecting and the civilian boycott was bigger than they expected.

It got so bad for the company that the owners had to sell it to get out from under the deal.

Bingo, thanks for explaining well. This will work if the switching costs between vendors is relatively low (like with guns); if not, the boycott would be harder, but likely sustainable for a limited amount of time, which would still extract a toll from whatever manufacturer was chosen.

Case IH and New Holland are both under the CNH (Fiat) umbrella, so at least you don't have to choose between them.

Perhaps delay purchases for a year? I didn't realize switching manufacturers wasn't possible.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com