[cantrevealname]

> the remaining ungrouped users, by process of elimination..."

This being hacker news, I can't help but appreciate the pure evil genius of this. It reminds me of some other cases cunning corporate ingenuity:

- Monsanto and their "terminator" seeds that prevents farmers from planting seeds they harvest, requiring them to purchase new seeds for every planting.[1]

- Volkswagen and how they programmed diesel engines to activate emissions controls only during laboratory emissions testing.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#%22Terminator%22_seed...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

[echoangle]

> Monsanto and their "terminator" seeds that prevents farmers from planting seeds they harvest, requiring them to purchase new seeds for every planting.

Kind of misleading to just state it like this if your source points out that Monsanto never sold this, pledged 25 years ago they won’t do this, and according to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_tech... , they also didn’t invent it.

[HDThoreaun]

Monsanto isn’t forcing anyone to buy their product. Farmers use it because they’re better than uncopyeighted seeds.

[harimau777]

They are forced in the sense that it's a prisoner's dilemma type of thing: Farmers would be better off if none of them used exploitative seeds. However since they are competing with farmers who are using those seeds then have to do so as well in order to stay competitive.

[HDThoreaun]

I dont see how that is the case. How does one farmer using monsanto seeds mean another needs to as well? Each farmers seed choice has no effect on others choices. If the monsanto seeds cost more than they were worth farmers wouldnt use them. In fact saying that you need to use their seeds to be competitive makes it clear that you understand that the seeds are worth it, you just wish they were free or cheaper. But in order to create these seeds monsanto needs to be paid.

[Manabu-eo]

If you neighbor uses monsanto seeds, he also sprays pesticides that might kill your crops or make them have too much pesticides to be edible. It's also basically impossible to do organic farming besides such a farm.

https://investigatemidwest.org/2020/12/04/buy-it-or-else-ins...

https://inthedirt.substack.com/p/when-the-neighbor-kills-you...

[tekknik]

This is an interesting twist of the original urban legend around these seeds. The story was that if you didn’t pay for monsanto seeds, and your neighbor did and planted them, and one blew into your yard then you’d be targeted by a lawsuit.

in reality though, i’d like to see this farmland so close to another that they can’t accurately spray or sow. there’s fences and access roads between fields, sometimes trees as well.

[kelnos]

My guess would be it's about pricing. Let's imagine a world where there are only two farms, mine and my neighbor's. We're both using regular seeds, and we do a decent job, but it's not wonderful, and some years our yield isn't so great.

Then Monsanto comes along and wants to sell us a product that gives us better, more consistent yields, even better than our best harvests with the regular seeds. The catch, of course, is that we have to buy new seed from them every year, and can't propagate seed from the prior year's crop.

So my neighbor decides to start buying Monsanto's seeds, but I don't like the terms of the deal, so I don't. My neighbor sees amazing yields, even to the point of surplus. He decides to undercut me by lowering his prices because he has so much to sell, and can still make out better than before, with those lower prices. Nothing's changed for me, so I can't lower my prices. My neighbor's entire inventory sells out, but because of his surplus, only half of my yield gets sold. Fortunately I have some savings to fall back on, so I burn my entire savings feeding my family for the rest of the year, and then grudgingly buy Monsanto seeds for next year.

I'm sure this exact scenario doesn't scale up to the global agricultural system, but I think it's more likely than your naive "no one forces anyone to buy anything; if they buy it, it's because it's worth it" view of economics... things are rarely that simple.

[vsensei]

In your story nobody is forced to anything. The farmer that doesn't like the monsanto deal made their choice, effectively rendering their farm business less competitive (unable to lower prices like the other farmer). That was predictable, it's also why the other farmer took the deal. Yeah, forced by market to not ignore progress to be better at what you do, that may be, but can't see that as negative.

[harimau777]

They are forced in the sense that they don't have a viable choice other than taking a bad deal.

Note that the issue isn't ignoring progress. Neither farmer has an issue with using more sophisticated seeds. The issue is with the deal that goes along with the seeds.

[tekknik]

You do realize that most farming is subsidized by the gov these days right? So in your scenario here, likely no farmer is making profit and the gov is paying the difference.

[chrz]

They were buying farms out and suing neighbour farmers for using monsato seeds blown by wind from their farms. Theyre pure evil. They have a deal with Bayer

[HDThoreaun]

There are zero cases of monsanto suing farmers for seeds blown by the wind.

[chrz]

Hmm true, I was lied by internet it seems. But https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/12/monsanto...