[yupyup54133]

What gets missed in this discussion is that John Deere and other large machine manufactures offset the purchase price of these machines with the expected cost of maintenance for the lifetime of the machine. This lets business owners (in this case farmers) obtain financing for machines that might in other situations be difficult to obtain. In other words, these large machine manufactures are taking on part of the cost to "finance" these machines because in the past other financial institutions have been reluctant to do so.

[GaveUp]

I'd argue that's a sign that John Deere is just out to maximize their profits at the expense of everyone else. Plenty of evidence out there to support that. Sure, any company's goal is to maximize profits to some degree, but instead of manipulating the market to extract additional money target a product to what the market can afford. If a market can't afford the product the problem isn't the market, it's the product. Instead Deere has has manipulated the market to extract money the market can't sustain.

[mistrial9]

overall, the economy is not "fair" by most measures.. older industries do not get new influx of dollars and talent.. people only want to pay so much for a commodity product.

... far from defending John Deere, instead realize that this is an example of a truly "political" problem.. the needs and wants of direct stakeholders are vastly one-sided, compared to the outputs over time for the rest of society.

[JohnFen]

If that's the business model manufacturers want to follow, surely it could be done more honestly by requiring a service contract in exchange for financing or a reduced initial price.

[jackmott42]

Would be cheaper than doing work to make the thing non self repairable as well.

[WaitWaitWha]

There is nothing in the JD tractors that cannot be accomplished with open source. Nothing.

Most recently I saw it as retrofit in a Workmaster 60. It had not only engine control, but lane tracking, soil sampling, and more. Al kinds of cameras, relays, and stuff. It was a Frankenstein's dream, but it worked.

The cost offset justification is horse lemons. Much of JD's smarts come from off the shelf code and material, including open source.

[celestialcheese]

Even worse - john deere uses open source code, and doesn't honor its licenses.

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/mar/16/john-deere-gpl-vi...

[kube-system]

If they want to move product, they're going to have to do that anyway. The auto industry still subsidizes loans through their own lending operations even though we have Magnuson-Moss which allows people to go to non-manufacturer affiliated mechanics.

[mountainofdeath]

That makes sense. Perhaps go to the full SaaS model like Rolls-Royce did for jet engines with "Power by the hour" where you lease the engine on a per flight-hour basis with all maintenance included.

[flangola7]

They did what now?

[rkagerer]

>> What gets missed in this discussion is that John Deere and other large machine manufacture[r]s offset the purchase price of these machines with the expected cost of maintenance for the lifetime of the machine. This lets business owners (in this case farmers) obtain financing for machines that might in other situations be difficult to obtain.

That would be fine and dandy if there were a *choice* to discount the price in exchange for the reduced degree of ownership. (And if they were decent folks, once equity had been fully paid off they would unlock everything).

The reality is nothing more than rent-seeking MBA bastards trying to improve their own bottom line.

It's dangerous when companies get into the financing business with their products and dictate the terms in user-hostile ways for which you have zero bargaining power. You wind up with problems like phones you can't transfer to another provider and cars that want to lock you out if you're late on a payment.

As consumers our best way to fight this bullshit is to just say NO, and stop buying products that are encumbered with such shenanigans.

It's one reason I never buy my phone from the same company that sells my service. I hold the unorthodox view they have no business being device resellers, and I wish they just stuck to selling me airtime and focused on being good at that (fast speeds, good coverage, network capacity, customer service, etc). Instead they load products up with bloatware, and over time poisoned the incentives of manufacturers to prioritize their interests over my own user experience. In any event I find better deals and truly unlocked units off eBay, usually from a region of the world where the model supports the ROM I prefer to use.

Unfortunately it's becoming harder in practice to locate alternative supply, and not everyone is in a position to make this principled choice. Some can't afford it, but most of us are ambivalent and just want to get a phone and get on with our lives.

A traditional financing outfit could care less about restricting what features you can use on your product or who you're allowed to pay to fix or upgrade it (as long as the repairs are competent, which is justifiable seeing as they are part-owners, and such conditions are all lifted once you buy them out). While I dislike government dictating relationships between businesses and consumers, I feel like there should be anti-compete laws to keep some degree of separation between corporations "product" and "financing" arms to avoid customer-harming conflicts of interest. Particularly when that corporation is the manufacturer. There's just too much temptation for them to degrade toward the direction I described above, and in practice not enough market diversity for consumers to fight back in other ways.

____

Edit: Quoted portion of your post so folks who can't see the text of deleted comments have some context.

[sigden]

I believe the point was they are offering the reduced price as-is. What they aren't offering is a higher priced variant where have you have the right to repair.

[kmeisthax]

Right, but they're never going to sell the "you will own everything and we will be pissed" version of the tractor. Because the value to the consumer for being able to repair what they own is less than the control premium that companies are willing to pay in order to lock people into branded repair. Furthermore, providing you the actual repairability often requires re-engineering the product to support it. Like, I don't think most people would pay just to have, say, Apple get rid of the iPhone's Face ID lock and nothing else. They want an actually repairable phone.

A similar problem happens with advertising. Theoretically I should be able to pay for first-party ad block from every site and social platform I visit. In practice the value that a larger ad inventory commands is always greater than the small fractions of people who would pay X/mo for an ad-free version of that service, minus however much it costs to maintain the ad-free option. Why serve a niche that cuts into your bottom line?

The few exceptions to the above that I can think of largely prove the rule:

* Framework and Fairphone are able to market repairable phones and laptops. In this case, they aren't actually charging a repairability premium over an existing product, they're just selling into higher-end markets. Repairability is built into both the product and the pricing in ways that aren't separable - you wouldn't be able to sell a cheaper Framework that isn't repairable.

* YouTube sells ad-free access, but this is mainly because online video ad revenue has cratered badly. Advertising is a moat that keeps YouTube out of profitability, not in it.

* Twitter tries to sell ad-free, except it's "less ads", and mostly exists because Elon desperately needs to justify how much money he spent on buying the crack factory he was addicted to.

Whether or not repairability commands a premium or having everything locked down comes with a discount is immaterial. Consumers are not in a position to actually realize said discount or pay said premium. Because it's not a matter of consumer choice. It's a matter of control. We (the MBAs) put shit in the product you were going to buy anyway, and it isn't immediately causing you to run to the hills, so we win.

[yupyup54133]

> Edit: Quoted portion of your post so folks who can't see the text of deleted comments have some context.

I'm confused; I didn't delete anything, were you just assuming I would delete my comment? Also, your comment has this weird vibe; like you are trying to argue with me. However, I wasn't stating an opinion on the issue, merely explaining why propriety hardware and software is used by large machine manufactures.

[rkagerer]

Your comment shows up in light grey (it didn't when I first replied) and I thought that meant it was deleted.

Not intending to argue, or attack *you*. My beef is with the manufacturers who are doing this, and to some extent the culture of consumer apathy that accepts it (perhaps I exhibited a "lecturing" undercurrent that lent that vibe). I don't dispute your point, I just think it's important it isn't accepted as an excuse or justification for what's been going on.

[fallingknife]

Well if that's so beneficial to farmers I'm sure we will hear them loudly protesting because they want it back. I don't hear anything.

[ClumsyPilot]

Where is the proof that this results in lower price of machines?

You are truing to justify a straight forward cash grab

[yupyup54133]

> Where is the proof that this results in lower price of machines?

It does. Source: Confidential

> You are tr[y]ing to justify a straight forward cash grab

No; I provided context without opinion.