I have a group of friends who looked at the BBC article talking about this RTR MOU - https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64206913 - and after reading it, were claiming confidently that it helped push forward right to repair in a good way - I actually spent the time to look at the MOU the article linked and knew right off the bat that it was a load of crap, only meant to extend an easily broken olive branch to farmers. (Right at the bottom, look who is signing the MOU - "SALES AND MARKETING VP" - gee, why isn't it a CEO, or the board of directors?)

It's cementing my personal opinion deeper and deeper within me that that the media is directly responsible for forming the viewpoints and ideas of a huge amount of people - and they're violating this responsibility in huge ways by having inexperienced/irresponsible journalists and journalism - not to mention the corporate and governmental meddling that's pervasive to journalisms core.

It's somehow become a foreign concept though it wasn't long ago that you could take your TV, vacuum, appliance, computer, small electronics, into repair shops and have experienced, knowledgeable people able to diagnose and repair problems quickly and efficiently. Sure, electronics have gotten more discrete, smaller, harder to replace without specialized tools... The concept is still the same despite what these massive corporations tell you.

Apple "supports" individuals by allowing them to pay for a massive/heavy shipments of tools, equipment, instructions, etc. to replace parts on your devices - when they could just provide easily available parts like chips, boards, screens, etc. to third-party repair shops (not "apple-authorized" that come with all kinds of riders and caveats). All so Apple can look at legislators who don't understand intent of laws and societal desires and say "Look, we're trying! We support RTR!"

John Deere is pulling the exact same thing - and the media is playing right along with it.

It's economically cheaper and more advantageous to go through all these motions to extend this fake peace offering to farmers and have the media convince everyone that it's 'actually really totally right to repair guys' while at the same time controlling absolutely everything in their supply chain so they make profit on their devices at every single corner of market capture - sales, repair, maintenance, customer retention (oh dang, it's too expensive to repair my tractor/phone because the part/board costs 40-50% of a new device, might as well buy a new one!)

It's a disgusting anti-consumer practice and it's only going to get worse.

The one good thing about inflation and consumer electronics being more expensive long-term is we might see legislation that forces companies to actually allow consumers to repair and maintain their devices, with access to parts, schematics diagrams, etc. etc. I somehow doubt it though.