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John Deere Once Again Pinky Swears It Will Stop Monopolizing Repair
from the fool-me-once dept
Once just the concern of pissed off farmers and nerdy tinkerers, the last two years have seen a groundswell of broader culture awareness about “right to repair,” and the perils of letting companies like Apple, John Deere, Microsoft, or Sony monopolize repair options, making repairing things you own both more difficult and way more expensive.
John Deere’s draconian repair restrictions on agricultural equipment (and the steady consolidation and reduction in repair options) results in customers having to pay an arm and a leg for service, or drive hundreds of additional, costly miles to get their tractors repaired.
Like Apple and other bigger companies attempting to monopolize repair, John Deere keeps promising that things will soon be different. Like last week, when Deere struck a “memorandum of understanding” with the American Farm Bureau Federation promising that the company will make sure farmers have the right to repair their own farm equipment or go to an independent technician:
Dave Gilmore, Deere’s vice president of ag and turf marketing, said the company looks forward to working with the farm group and “our customers in the months and years ahead to ensure farmers continue to have the tools and resources to diagnose, maintain and repair their equipment.”
There are a few problems. One, this memorandum of understanding isn’t really binding. It’s part of a self-regulatory system the agricultural industry has constructed to pre-empt actual regulation and accountability. Farm Bureau officials will meet occasionally with Deere to try and work out solutions to “right to repair” issues, but there’s no meaningful enforcement or accountability mechanism here.
The MOU also does something I’d wager was a major reason for the agreement; it requires that the American Farm Bureau Federation avoid supporting any looming right to repair legislation:
AFBF agrees to encourage state Farm Bureau organizations to recognize the
commitments made in this MOU and refrain from introducing, promoting, or supporting federal
or state “Right to Repair” legislation that imposes obligations beyond the commitments in this
MOU.
Companies that have constructed lucrative but harmful repair monopolies desperately want to thwart the growing push for right to repair legislation. And they’ve had significant success in not only killing many such laws before they can be passed, but watering down any bills that do manage to survive as we just saw in New York State.
The other problem is that Deere has made similar promises before.
In late 2018, John Deere and a coalition of other agricultural hardware vendors promised (in a “statement of principles“) that by January 1, 2021, Deere and other companies would make repair tools, software, and diagnostics readily available to the masses. In short, they managed to stall right to repair laws in several states in exchange for doing the right thing.
That didn’t happen. And there’s no reason to think it will start happening now. What John Deere (like Apple and every other company monopolizing repair) wants is to do just enough to convince federal lawmakers to back off of new laws and any enforcement with actual teeth. That fairly consistency doesn’t actually result in reform, it results in theatrics.
Filed Under: hardware, independent repair, right to repair, technology, tractors
Companies: american farm bureau, john deere
Comments on “John Deere Once Again Pinky Swears It Will Stop Monopolizing Repair”
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Tech companies are responsible for ridiculous amounts of social harm
Hence why everyone wants Section 230 to be repealed.
Don’t believe the crap and misinformation spewed by pro-tech liberal idiots on Tech Dirt.
The people on Tech Dirt would easily prefer harming innocent people online to make an extra buck, hiding behind Section 230.
Re:
My man, you know you posted this on an article about right to repair that has nothing to do with section 230?
Re:
Firstly, this has nothing to do with Section 230.
Secondly, John Deere is doing the exact thing you abhor, but you deflecting this very obvious elephant in the room makes me wonder if you truly care about people at all…
Re:
Hey dude: we tend not to delete comments but you’ve posted 15 comments on a story that has nothing to do with Section 230, in which you (ignorantly, stupidly, ridiculously) attack us and Section 230.
So it’s now very clear that you’re spamming. As such if you keep up posting off-topic comments, they will be deleted.
You remain free to post comments about 230 on 230 related articles. But polluting the comments this way is not okay. And we can do this because of Section 230.
Re: Re:
As you know well know, you can do so because of the First Amendment. Section 230 was just a patch to rescue an otherwise unconstitutional law.
Which won’t keep you from being sued in Texas.
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Re: Re:
Its freedom of speech. Don’t be such a communist.
SPAM is part of your daily life. Its like cleaning an email inbox. Did anybody sign up for that?
Re: Re: Re:
I clearly signed to see some on-topic SPAM, at least. Or a spammy defense on how John Deere is totally not gonna break its promise and try to capture the regulators…
Or at least an advertisement of the canned meat product.
How sweet of them trying to suppress speech and political organization. This is hardly a win.
John Deere: 'Trust us, we're certainly not lying THIS time.'
I’d love it if someone involved their bluff on this, whether politician, person at the AFBF and/or person on the news.
‘If you don’t have a problem with right to repair then legislation mandating it wouldn’t be a problem as it merely codifies something you say you support anyway. The only way it would be problematic for you is if you plan on reneging on your not-even-a-pinky-promise a second time, in which case I could see legislation enshrining right to repair being a rightly earned problem for you.’
"We pinky swear!"
They said with their fingers crossed behind their back.
Re:
You kidding? With how well it worked the last time it wouldn’t surprise me if they were holding huge neon signs that said ‘I’m lying but you’re going to fall for it anyway’ as they made the statements.
Or more likely, get you tractor transported hundreds of miles both ways, as a broken tractor will not drive itself very far, and are not the best vehicle to use for a long drive.
“AFBF agrees to encourage state Farm Bureau organizations to recognize the
commitments made in this MOU and refrain from introducing, promoting, or supporting federal
or state “Right to Repair” legislation that imposes obligations beyond the commitments in this
MOU.”
Since it has no teeth to hold Deere accountable, I hope the AFBF will ignore it the same as Deere will.
Re:
It’s also unclear that this “requires that the American Farm Bureau Federation avoid supporting any looming right to repair legislation”, as Karl says. I think it would be compliant for the AFBF to keep introducing, promoting, and supporting federal right to repair legislation, while “encourag[ing] state Farm Bureau organizations” to avoid doing any of that.
Re:
AFBF: Tell you what, we’ll uphold our half of the deal in the same spirit and to the same extent as you do for your half.
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Right to Rep Air
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Right to rep air.
Learn the difference.
Re:
How is it even possible that you’re such a fucking moron?
Re:
I’m sure that on some planet, this is funny.
Your problem is, this is Earth.
Nice try, but John Deere’s shareholders will not allow that.
I couldn’t of said better!
Wow, I hand forgotten about my first lie, “I pinky swear. . . “ I bet for every reader a pinky swear was there first “lie.”
Maybe that should should be VP of Ag and Turf Protection?
Re: ag and turf marketing
Yeh. I’m pretty sure that should be VP of astroturfing