This is one aspect of tech permeating our lives that continues to be used as an insidious way to bias things in...
This is one aspect of tech permeating our lives that continues to be used as an insidious way to bias things in favor of one small group. How many jobs and peripheral industries existed because people could fix their own stuff? How many people did it impact their socioeconomic status and access to jobs or other resources that affected quality of life?
Or, in this case, make the difference between keeping a farm and having to walk away? Because these things become monopolies or near enough and farmers aren't usually rolling in the dough, so the difference between fixing your own stuff and having to pay whatever John Deere wants to charge to get your critical equipment fixed could be the financial straw that broke the camel's back. Nothing is ever simple, but this is not just wrong, it's incredibly short-sighted.
https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/
https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/
Or, in this case, make the difference between keeping a farm and having to walk away? Because these things become monopolies or near enough and farmers aren't usually rolling in the dough, so the difference between fixing your own stuff and having to pay whatever John Deere wants to charge to get your critical equipment fixed could be the financial straw that broke the camel's back. Nothing is ever simple, but this is not just wrong, it's incredibly short-sighted.
https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/
https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/
To play Devil's Advocate, this is a tricky and insidious issue. It's not so apparent with farm equipment, but it's easy to construct scenarios where very bad things can happen if the owner of (say) a self-driving car gets free rein over the software in that car. Or even just mildly bad things, like an aftermarket for coal-rolling software patches or other idiocies.
ReplyDeleteBut that said this whole thirty-year trend of replacing the concept of ownership with some bastardized concept where you're leasing the hardware and software but owning the liabilities has gone way too far.
Nor is this something I see the market fixing on its own-- the incentives for the vendors are too strong. Moreover, there either is no collective bargaining in sight (for things like personal automobiles) or it's been broken (for things like farm equipment) so there is no effective pushback and no healthy equilibrium to be found.
And yet, as far as I can tell, this doesn't yet seem to be on the radar as a political issue. (Clearly it would be the Democrats who need to step up on this; Republicans would see it as a feature, not a bug.)