I suspect that John Deere and friends will find a way to challenge this in court and -- if they eventually lose -- find a way to maliciously comply with the law. Their behavior has been actively hostile to their customers for years, and they have zero incentive to change.
Like Apple's repair kits mentioned in another comment, I suspect their strategy will involve providing tools that cost nearly as much to rent as it would take to buy a new machine. Then, only the most well-capitalized farmers will be able to afford to lock up the extraordinary amounts of cash required to perform their own repairs.
Without legislation that absolutely eviscerates their monopolistic business practices, I would be shocked if anything changes for the average farmer.
Apple's repair kits are a weird comparison here. The rental is $49, and that's probably at cost or close to it given the shipping costs both ways for a 79-pound box.
There's nothing malicious compliance about it... it's just a pain in the ass to repair modern ultra-light and ultra-efficient phones the "right" way.
What the phone repair companies want is to be able to buy parts (without all the weird rules that apple has for licensed companies now).
The repair shops can figure out how to glue a screen to a housing on their own. The problem is they can't buy new parts, and they can't swap used parts because of software locks.
Apple very much found a way to allow repairs while preventing it from being profitable, and it's likely John Deere will (try to) do the same.
Like Apple's repair kits mentioned in another comment, I suspect their strategy will involve providing tools that cost nearly as much to rent as it would take to buy a new machine.
That reminds me of how much things have changed since the "good old days". I have some service manuals for mid-century equipment that don't need much in the way of special tools, and where one is needed or would be helpful, they tell you how to make one.
> In January—the beginning of the legislative season—Deere and the American Farm Bureau Federation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), promising to give farmers access to some previously restricted repair materials. And on the very day of a critical hearing, Case IH and New Holland signed their own memorandum of understanding at the last minute, a desperate attempt to smother the bill. However, legislators determined that both MOUs were vague, incomplete, and unenforceable. Suspiciously, they also required that members of the American Farm Bureau Federation cease advocating for Right to Repair laws.
As a farmer, I was extremely angry to hear that the Farm Bureau negotiated with these terrorists. Their MOUs were not worth the paper they were written on, and I am glad to see some legislators saw through their machinations (as mentioned in a sibling comment here).
The Farm Bureau should be ashamed for its part in this, and this caused them to lose my own trust that they will represent farmers in other important matters. It actually makes me embarrassed to be a member.
Good coverage of the issue by news outlets, including naming John Deere specifically, would be far more effective not only at motivating Deere to improve their practices, but also helping the populace at large to understand the problem, build popular support for good legislation, motivating legislators to deal with the problem, and motivating other companies to avoid copying Deere's example.
Naming and shaming individuals (besides a CEO) within a company is unnecessary, and can cause destruction to lives, families, and communities that have nothing to do with the problem. It also overestimates the individual agency these people hold over what is most often a cultural and policy issue at a company.
> Name, shame, and industry blacklist Deere product managers.
Why would you give them that kind of free advertising?
Do you think the people that hire them don't want them to behave in that way?
It's like trying to shame a door-to-door salesperson for being too pushy. All you're doing is advertising that he's really good at his job.
'Name and shame' is a feel-good knee-jerk to social problems that need to be solved by legislature. There's always going to be assholes who will try to turn a quick buck by burning their reputation for a profit.
That makes me think about the sequence from Wolf of Wall St, where there's a very negative article posted about Jordan Belfort's practices, and Jordan Belfort is feeling ruined, but then the next day, the article had a positive effect on the firm's recruiting efforts. Turns out the negative attention encouraged cutthroat salesmen to join the team in the hopes of making a lot of money.
What the movie fails to underscore is the attention from the SEC that the article also brought, which is what lead to his downfall.
Let the assholes turn their quick buck. Karma will get them in the end. Meanwhile, the rest of us want to know who to avoid working with. If someone wants to go work for Travis Kalanick, Adam Neumann, Anthony Levandowski, or Elizabeth Holmes, they're welcome to go right ahead. I'm happier knowing their stories so I don't end up working at one of their companies.
No, it won't. The universe isn't just, there's no scales that get balanced out, and people the world over have very comfortably built and kept their empires and fortunes by planting their boots firmly on the bodies of others.
And fighting right-to-repair isn't even in the same league as the actually evil shit that people do.
Like Apple's repair kits mentioned in another comment, I suspect their strategy will involve providing tools that cost nearly as much to rent as it would take to buy a new machine. Then, only the most well-capitalized farmers will be able to afford to lock up the extraordinary amounts of cash required to perform their own repairs.
Without legislation that absolutely eviscerates their monopolistic business practices, I would be shocked if anything changes for the average farmer.