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Comment by itchyjunk | Hacker News Reader

"farmers could damage the machines, like bypassing pollution emissions controls to get more horsepower."

Isn't this the problem with warranties? People could try to mod it, end up damaging it and try to get it replaced with warranties.

I also don't fully understand this software. Is it just completely vendor locked? That sounds really unreasonable. It should allow for at least basic debugging and trouble shooting.

Is this software locking only in large $100k + harvester type equipment? Does the vendor have other reasonable explanation of doing this?

I wonder if the software designer for this equipments would have reasonable arguments for such locks or if this is just profit driven decision.

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Can confirm it's usually proprietary and locked. An old roommate is employed by an implement manufacturer--his sole job is traveling the western united states, making housecalls to upload newer versions of control software to equipment. They absolutely DO NOT trust the owners to do it themselves.

This has pretty frightening implications for the state of consumer goods, if industrial goods are already going this direction.

Consumer electronics have been disposable for 25 years now. You don't exactly see an electronics repair shop in every town anymore.

Or even basic electrical appliances. I have a toaster, a kettle and a vacuum which are all bricked because of peripheral failures - two poorly (deliberately..?) designed mechanical switches and a charger - which in many cases would cause the whole otherwise functional appliance to be junked. Only somewhat resourceful and stubborn folk like myself bother to fix these things themselves.

"This has pretty frightening implications for the state of consumer goods, if industrial goods are already going this direction."

This scenario has played out thousands of times in the manufacturing/industrial sector over the past 30 years. The end result is that the vendor trying to lock their customers in to a service contract loses out to whoever makes a remotely comparable product that isn't locked in within a decade. The sales generated by virtue of being the "non-bullshit" vendor far outweigh the profits associated by following the market leader into the world of walled gardens.

Except the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

The issue is that any open version of a product has to compete in such a way that matches the buy cycle of the product. I don't imagine farmers buy new combines every year! These things has to work for decades! Ditto with a lot of idustrial machinery.

> Except the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

This applies solely to stock market speculation, due to a perfect amalgamation of human psychological biases and fallacies.

In consumer economics we use utility value (iirc, it's been far too long since I've opened a textbook). Consumers will definitely drop their JD's if a "no-bullshit," almost as good option comes along, because the utility value gained will be higher than the asset loss.

This assumes consumers actually rationally assess the value and don't value emotional brand attachments.

We're talking about farmers, not porn viewers. We not only can assume they're rational, but have spreadsheets for financial modeling and a dedicated capital expenditures budget. And if they don't do any of these, it would be easier to buy them out and replace them with someone who does.

I'm not sure people are worried about the warranties - if you mod your gear the warranty is no longer valid - no great problem. The problem is they don't want you to modify your equipment ever regardless of whether it's under warranty or not.

Environmental concerns is one of the two big reasons I would accept non-user-servisable hardware/software, second reason being safety of others (think people modding self-driving software in cars).

Because the minute an easily applicable patch that makes tractors do more for less, but with more pollution becomes available, a lot of people will apply it. Diesel cars already have this problem with particle filters.

It's not just companies that are greedy and want to profit off externalities; so are many (most?) people, especially when incentivized by financial pressures.

It is usually 100% proprietary, think of iOS devices and game consoles

forget damage the [million dollar] machine". an incorrectly modded component could, rather easily, kill or maim the operator. John Deere may not have authorized the component/root cause of the death, but you know they're gonna get dragged to court anyway

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