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Comment by buro9 | Hacker News Reader

No-one wants to sell hardware any longer, it's not as profitable as providing it on a subscription (dare we say "rent") and forcing all support, maintenance and additions to go through your channels as part of the subscription package.

Unfortunately this trend is everywhere now. It happened to servers, media, has started to happen to cars... but it's happened already to agricultural hardware.

Super profitable if you are the provider (especially with all the data one can yield from operating the hardware), super annoying and frustrating if you are the consumer.

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> No-one wants to sell hardware any longer...

Then they should stop selling hardware and start renting it; but they don't do that, as that signals an honest intention to the customer and I'm pretty sure comes with a bunch of legal restrictions, both obvious and subtle. Instead, they want all the money and lack of liability that comes from selling something outright to someone else, and yet they still somehow want to maintain total control over the device in the field in order to extract revenue over time and, notably, spy on their customers. The result is that these technological locks that side-step the notion of ownership and turn every object you purchase into a sleeper agent for the manufacturer; and, as you note, no one wants to actually sell things anymore as it is going to be more profitable to build in all of these locks, so "voting with your dollars" has become all but impossible unless you either are willing to tolerate not only paying more (which is fine) but getting a shit product (as none of the good manufacturers even bother offering "own your hardware" as an option no matter how much you are willing to pay) or have so much money that you can build an entire company to commission custom hardware. :(

"Just say no." -Nancy Reagan

Some underlying fundamentals are known for quite a long time: "All in all, wealth consists more in use than in possession; for the actualization of the potentialities of such things and their use is wealth" -- Aristotle’s On Rhetoric

> "voting with your dollars" has become all but impossible

If possessing is more often than not the best way someone may understand it and also understand when smart farmers will also understand it, then develop an adequate offering, and if it performs better most will understand. It is only "more profitable to build in all of these locks" when you have customers. Am I delusional?

Done right, this could actually be better.

I own a lawn mower. In fact I usually own two lawn mowers--the new one and the one I just need to repair a bit.

All of my neighbors own lawn mowers. We all use our lawn mowers about an hour per week. It's extremely wasteful to purchase 5 lawn mowers to perform 5 hours of mowing per week.

We could all hire Suwanda down the street to mow our lawns, but that would cost a lot more than buying a mower. That's mostly because of the labor costs. So what if Suwanda just rented the mower to us and charged us enough to keep the blade sharp and the engine tuned? And what if we didn't pick it up and return it to Suwanda? What if we just passed it around between us, and Suwanda was the 6th stop in the rotation?

And every once in a while, the person who got it after Suwanda noticed it was a completely different mower. So 5-6 neighbors pay $5/month and always have a mower in tip-top shape, but never actually maintain it and never shop for a new one.

I thought about this a lot. What if we just share a lot of tools with our neighbors. It will prevent waste and free up space in your house. However, for me, it's more convenient to have my own tools. I have the freedom to mow the lawn whenever I want. Also on that sunny afternoon when all the other neighbors also want to mow their lawn. And I want a tool that's in the right condition. When I have time to do a job around the house, my tools should work. Not broken, dirty or missing a part. And I don't want a difficult conversation with my neighbor about it. Sharing and borrowing tools with my neighbors directly is fine for me. Co-owning or continuously renting together is not my cup-of-tea.

Absolutely. I completely agree with everything you said. But I still see the benefit in other models. And I wonder what innovation might occur if we spent more time exploring options.

Absolutely! I guess the main innovation will be social. Thinking of a way that people feel responsible for shared tools, a non-awkward way of selecting neighbors who you are willing to share with and some kind of emergency-button if you need a tool now and all the shared tools are taken.

So let's you and I spend an hour offline ironing this out so we can pitch HN for $20 million of seed money next week.

We'll start with mowers and expand into kitchen blenders and frying pans. We'll displace Amazon in about 15 years!

This reminds me of how all the city e-scooters are treated. Those rented by people with apps are treated terribly and thrown around like trash by their operators. Those actually owned by people are treated very well. At it's core it's basically a strong argument in support of private property (at least in this instance).

I would love it if you could solve this sort of social issue, but I wouldn't underestimate the difficulty of doing so. Successfully making people feel responsible for shared tools is almost equivalent to "building a better society". It's a worthy goal, but people have been trying to do so for basically all of human history.

Tool lending libraries are great!

https://oaklandlibrary.org/locations/oakland-tool-lending-li...

You could also have a community tool lending library where everyone can borrow from it.

https://oaklandlibrary.org/locations/oakland-tool-lending-li...

You can rent equipment already from Home Depot or some "Rent-a-Center" place however they need to pay for their overhead so there is a hefty markup. But it makes sense for tools you use occasionally like a sod cutter or tiller.

Have you talked to your neighbors about sharing lawn mowers? Why does Suwanda need to be involved?

That's really because customers are demanding software now. They want auto steer, variable rate application, they want to mark their tile inlets or waterways on their fields before they upload into the tractor. They want their sprayer or planter to integrate and show them singulation and population or rates right there in the cab. Lots of famers are using iPads along with multiple in cab systems to manage all the technology and record additional data. I've see farmers planting with as many as 4 or 5 screens in their tractors and it's getting to where there's an aftermarket just for mounts to hold more screens and computers. Farmers aren't just accepting that, but they are buying additional systems that require more software all the time because at the end of the day, it's business.

I mean you vote with your dollar. Stop supporting these bad practices. I don't, it's a hull to get everyone to stop and force themselves to work around. Maybe it's a losing battle, but stop giving them money and we'll be better off. I would not purchase a product with an underlying subscription. I even go as far as getting older cars so I don't have to worry about it.

> I would not purchase a product with an underlying subscription.

Not even your phone?

Indeed, not even my phone. Why would that be hard to understand?

The flipside to this, is that there is perhaps no longer an incentive to sell hardware with a limited lifespan.

Thats the point though isn't it, they dont sell it anymore.

So any gains in lifespan are reaped by the company, not consumer

Hopefully more durable products means less landfill and digging up the planet looking for more raw materials. This ultimately benefits everybody.

As long as there are competing suppliers (not colluding), they would compete to sell at lowest price.

The opposite, surely.

If there's no market for old hardware, there's no benefit to making new products which hold their value.

When a company rents out equipment, the longer the equipment is usable, the more rent can be earned on it. So there is an incentive to have durable products when the income is on a subscription basis.

It could be even more profitable to do a subscription with a "swap your old one for a new one for a big discount" on a regular basis.

Nah. They'll sell you cheaply made crap for $80 along with a subscription for $10/mo then sell you slightly better cheaply made crap for $105 a year down the road and bump the sub to $12/mo for the 'increased functionality'.

Post Ownership society where MBA's have decided that it better to have high OPEX and no CAPEX .....

Higher TCO, lower ROI, but hey those quarterly reports look great...

> it's not as profitable as providing it on a subscription (dare we say "rent")

Simple but excellent point. We should just start calling it what it is. xbox game pass, adobe software, it's all just renting. Subscriptions are supposed to be for access to new stuff, not continuing access to the existing stuff.

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