Comment by Aboutplants
17 hours ago
A subscription for the right to repair your own machine seems completely insane to me. How is this a thing that is allowed?
17 hours ago
A subscription for the right to repair your own machine seems completely insane to me. How is this a thing that is allowed?
Maybe I’m understanding wrong, but imho this doesn’t feel too different from apple care.
I pay a monthly fee for the right to pay Apple more money to repair my phone.
I know some repairs are included/free, but still…
Well you see, requiring companies to let farmers fix their own tractors is Socialism. And the USSR had "socialist" in the name, so Socialism bad. In the big, beautiful Land of the Free(tm) they don't do Socialism because that's commie shit.
The American Way is to let corporations fuck you over in any way that increases profits. Sure, they have the least efficient healthcare system in the world, ineffectual public education, massive wealth disparity, crumbling national infrastructure, and a different school shooting every week.
But at least they're not socialists.
not sure what's socialist about it. farming is a weird sector though (and a small one; crucial, of course)
>the least efficient healthcare system in the world
and the most advanced healthcare
>ineffectual public education
actually it's better than most rich countries after controlling for race/ethnicity
that said, healthcare, education, and most of all housing are massively far from free markets, they're the most regulated parts and it's hard to innovate. the more free you make those markets, the better they'll get.
>massive wealth disparity
because, and this is no exaggeration, we are way fucking wealthier than almost anything except oil-rich Norway and tiny Luxembourg. it's a lot easier to have disparity when some grasses grow tall.
>crumbling national infrastructure
depends; California and New York yes, Texas no
>and a different school shooting every week
not that often but this is an american pathology yeah
> the least efficient healthcare system in the world
> the more free you make those markets, the better they'll get.
How can you concede the first point and argue the second in the same breath? Are you about to tell me European healthcare is cheaper because its some bastiom of deregulation?
> and the most advanced healthcare
(ignoring Australia and other countries having longer life expectancies and better cancer recovery rates, sure)
> not that often
It's telling you have to downplay this at all.
> depends; California and New York yes, Texas no
and the more than 40 other states? See the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Infrastructure Report Card (spoiler, it's a C)
>>crumbling national infrastructure
> depends; California and New York yes, Texas no
lol. lmao.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis
> actually it's better than most rich countries after controlling for race/ethnicity
Yikes dude
Never has a man of straw been so completely eviscerated. An absolute massacre. Bravo.
A lot of vehicle manufacturers don't even give you access to their repair/diagnostic software even if you want to pay.
Tesla for example lets you pay to access their diagnostic software, so why is John Deere the bad guy here?
Oh that's simple. Both Tesla and John Deere are bad guys.
And yes. I am happy to expand that list to literally every other manufacturer you have in mind. They are all bad guys too. If manufacturers were altruistic good guys, they would need no regulation.
If all manufacturers except one were altruistic good guys, the one malevolent bad guy would undercut the altruists and drive them out of business.
Regulation is the solution to this prisoner’s dilemma.
15 replies →
When I bought my current car, it came with an owners manual--for free!!
I can grab any data I want from the OBD port. The hardware was cheap, the software to use it is, again, free.
I'm not excited about this brave new world where you have to pay a subscription fee to plug a cable into a device you own and interact with it, and even less excited there are people here defending the idea.
You may not be aware but there are a lot of proprietary PIDs on your OBD2 bus you can't interpret without specialized software - you can get like oil pressure and temperature, but not say, shift points or anything the manufacturer doesn't think you should see. True right to repair would mean all of the PIDs get documented and there is a marketplace where I can purchase software or documentation without having to be a certified brand X mechanic.
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What you want is the service manual. Owner manual should be implicit. OBD port can work for some cars, for some of the data. But other cars do have specialized gear they require to either access either reset some stuff in some of the car's computers.
8 replies →
This is actually pretty widespread on newer models. There are cars for which you need a subscription costing thousands of dollars every year to put your parking brake into "maintenance mode", without which you can't fix your own brakes.
Like others have said: Tesla is the bath guy here. I'm pretty sure most people are focused on the other ways Tesla has been fing around that they just haven't gotten this far down the list.
Also, there's something special about tractors. Their owners (farmers) are both willing and capable of repairing tractors, in general, so John Deere is demonized for taking that ability away. Where as Tesla's owners are comfortable not changing their own oil, so "less" was taken away. (Yes, I know Tesla doesn't have engine oil, don't get hung up on that)
A tractor - and all farm equipment - is ridiculously expensive, the core platform is not much different from previous generations and they are used by a respected segment of our society to grow us food. All of this adds up to make JD's impact large and feel much worse than the relative nitpicks we have with many car manufacturers.
Because in agriculture you are absolutely expecting to be able to repair stuff yourself.
I work on a project related to it and was absolutely surprised at how the company gave instructions to the clients to help them fix their machines (stuff I wouldn't be able to do myself).
Having a non-working machine can mean big $$ lost everyday.
Real life isn't as simple as the one in fairy tales, there's usually more than one villain.
Tesla is the bad guy too.
Whataboutism. Two evils are still evil.