This is actuslly the part where other tractor companies should be stepping in and eating Deere's lunch.
Why aren't they?
Why aren't they?
Being in the latter position is precarious, being in the former is printing free money.
That 1% on 50% of the market can be a downright gold mine. Playing it the other way just ensures that bad ideas never get out competed. Honestly, it just takes less work to make something non user hostile. There has to be a perverse incentive somewhere.
Or a quick death spiral into bankruptcy in response to any disruption in business as usual.
This is a manufacturer of heavy industrial machinery, not a software startup, or a grocery store. You can't just turn down your burn rate by 1% in response to a 1% drop in demand, and you don't have a magical firehose of VC money that will smooth over any rough edges in your quest to improve the world by conquering the industrial machinery market, and driving all potential profits to near-zero with zero vendor lock-in.
Hell, the VCs will run away screaming when you get the 'zero vendor lock-in' part of your pitch.
>Hell, the VCs will run away screaming when you get the 'zero vendor lock-in' part of your pitch.
Well there's your problem, right there. Stop looking at yourself as a financial frigging instrument. You make effing machinery. Not hold people logistically hostage. This is why there is no trust in industry anymore. This is why the same bloody handful of people are sitting on top of everything. This is why people have about had it. Can't solve a damn problem without making half a dozen more. Make tractors. All standard parts. High quality.
But no... Can't do that. Gotta try to exploit the rubes. This is why everyone feels like the damn game is fixed. The same power hungry assholes are the ones all sitting on the damn capital.
Anyone wants to try to compete? Lock em out of capital access! Start organizing? Lobby!