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 accountabili ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
