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Comment by mikey_p | Hacker News Reader

Not sure what scale you're talking about, but Kubota doesn't really compete with Deere on larger tractors. I don't see any tracked options from Kubota and their tractors don't really go much over 200 horsepower.

Deere and Kubota only really compete at the smaller/utility side of things.

Also the reason people get locked into Deere isn't just the tractors, but the vertical integration. Can you run your John Deere NT or DB series planter with Greenstar 2 on a Kubota? Possibly, but you've got to buy the hardware from Deere and you'd have to add auto steer, etc. (FWIW Kubota doesn't even sell planters)

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I live in an extremely rural area. The Deere integrations are a huge reason. Another that's not talked about is Deere field service. It's just DAMN GOOD. If you're running a serious tractor(7-9 series ) and it's the middle of planting/harvest hours can be the difference between red and black margins. Deere will roll out a team with 30ft trailer of parts out in hours if you have an issue. CaseIH will sorta match this, kubota and New Holand will simply not.

Exactly, and at the moment in time you don't care about "right to repair" - you need to get back up and running now. Which has led me to believe "right to repair" is a ruse, but for what?

Right to repair tractors has become talking point because it is a use case that cannot be easily dismissed as "unimportant to real Americans" since many Americans value individualism, hard work, and their countries reputation for food production - all of which are idealized in the concept of the independent American farmer.

A ruse to give people flexibility in how they want to repair their own equipment? What a terrible thing.

> Which has led me to believe "right to repair" is a ruse, but for what?

You what? Being able to repair and control your hardware is good in itself. It doesn't need to be justified, except as a means to counteract the much stronger lobby that is trying to destroy it.

Your point about this maybe being a ruse is like the one that maybe climate change is a ruse: so what if it is? The measures we introduced to combat the (perceived?) threat will result in a net benefit to society, the environment and individual freedoms. Boo, hoo I'm living in a better world unnecessarily. Very tragic.

Nothing about "right to repair" would disallow you to use Deere field service if you want to.

In one of my other comments I noted that disabling emissions controls would probably be top priority for most of the farmers complaining about not being able to modify how their tractors work.

In hours, aren't you already in the red? Is it tens of hours that makes the difference?

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