Hacker News Reader

Except here's the twist: Imagine if John Deere made their tractors from day one with the proprietary gasoline formula. And that people liked their tractors from day one and grew them into the behemoth they are today despite the formula.

That's more like what the current situation is.

John Deer tractors are locked down... just go talk to a real farmer and see what he says.

John Deere unfortunately does do this. To the court's credit, at least they keep losing right to repair lawsuits. To law enforcement's discredit, they don't change the behavior and suffer no punishment.

A better analogy would be if Deere required a new fuel formulation that all the industry players had access to but no one else had sufficient clout/“courage” to use.

Do Apple devices use special Apple Electricity? No? Then your analogy is nonsensical, as analogies always are.