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American Farmers Are Still Fighting Tractor Software Locks (npr.org)
Manufacturers lock consumers into restrictive "user agreements," and inside "there's things like you won't open the case, you won't repair," complains a U.S. advocacy group called The Repair Association. But now the issue is getting some more attention in the American press. An anonymous reader quotes NPR:
Modern tractors, essentially, have two keys to make the engine work. One key starts the engine. But because today's tractors are high-tech machines that can steer themselves by GPS, you also need a software key -- to fix the programs that make a tractor run properly. And farmers don't get that key.
"You're paying for the metal but the electronic parts technically you don't own it. They do," says Kyle Schwarting, who plants and harvests fields in southeast Nebraska... "Maybe a gasket or something you can fix, but everything else is computer controlled and so if it breaks down I'm really in a bad spot," Schwarting says. He has to call the dealer. Only dealerships have the software to make those parts work, and it costs hundreds of dollars just to get a service call. Schwarting worries about being broken down in a field, waiting for a dealer to show up with a software key.
The article points out that equipment dealers are using those expensive repair calls to offset slumping tractor sales. But it also reports that eight U.S. states, including Nebraska, Illinois and New York, are still considering bills requiring manufacturers to sell repair software, adding that after Massachusetts passed a similar lar, "car makers started selling repair software."
"You're paying for the metal but the electronic parts technically you don't own it. They do," says Kyle Schwarting, who plants and harvests fields in southeast Nebraska... "Maybe a gasket or something you can fix, but everything else is computer controlled and so if it breaks down I'm really in a bad spot," Schwarting says. He has to call the dealer. Only dealerships have the software to make those parts work, and it costs hundreds of dollars just to get a service call. Schwarting worries about being broken down in a field, waiting for a dealer to show up with a software key.
The article points out that equipment dealers are using those expensive repair calls to offset slumping tractor sales. But it also reports that eight U.S. states, including Nebraska, Illinois and New York, are still considering bills requiring manufacturers to sell repair software, adding that after Massachusetts passed a similar lar, "car makers started selling repair software."
Don't worry, the market will work it out. Some upstart company will...
Nah, the sort of company that does this to farmers will have a large portfolio of dumb patents and an army of lawyers to back it up.
No sig today...
Except that if you buy Chinese you will have to buy a new tractor each time it breaks down. But maybe that's cheaper - you may get two Chinese tractors for the price of one American.
That's not necessarily a bad thing although I'd go for E-European or Ukrainian before Chinese but that requires you to be a bit more hands-on (like farmers used to be) and fix stuff yourself unlike when you use western equipment where you typically call in a service person. If Americans can use AK-47s without being worried about catching communism from them why not Ukrainian trucks or tractors? I came across a bunch of civilianized Ukrainian KrAZ army trucks in a farming village in western Europe and we're not talking some former communist nation, this was deep inside bedrock NATO territory. So I'm walking around these things taking a very close look, largely because I'd seen these beasts in news footage from war zones except painted green instead of red and with rocket artillery or AAA guns in place of the hydraulic open-box bed, when this guy shows up. He asks if he can help me so I just told him the truth, that I was pretty amazed to see these things in that particular corner of the world, which made him quite a lot more friendly and we got talking. He told me that him and several farmers in the area had decided to set up a truck pool and found it was an expensive proposition until somebody discovered that several of these Soviet/Ukrainian cold war army trucks could be had brand spanking new for the price of a much smaller number of MAN,Mercedes,Volvo,... trucks, so they just bought a couple of dozen of these things. There was little that could break down, when it did the parts were cheap, electronics were minimal and they had hired a Ukrainian mechanic to maintain them who knew these things better than his own trouser pockets.
I don't think you know what socialism is. It's not this.
What you're looking at is monopolistic competition; it's a routine outcome of an underregulated capitalist system.
And then, to compound your misunderstanding of socialism, the remedy you're after is regulation.
One farmer interviewed on CBC radio said the seasonal nature of farming ensures there's nowhere even close to an adequate supply of service people available when they're needed, and calls for service are often hundreds of miles apart. So during the time he desperately needs his tractor working, and could fix it easily himself, he's required to wait for hours or even days for a service rep to show up, plug in a USB drive, and fix some software glitch in a matter of seconds.
The farmer, whose identity was protected, had downloaded "grey market" software to do such repairs himself.
The manufacturer's representative who was interviewed afterward made a completely unconvincing case. He claimed they would have somebody at a farm almost instantly, and that they weren't interested in prosecuting farmers who downloaded hacked repair software. In other words, the manufacturer's representative was a bare-faced liar.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
This is ALL contingent upon the coercive IP laws that are imposed and enforced by government. Free market my ass.
I think what they're getting at is anything that says you can't legally repair something is an artificial market protection.
In a completely free market, no such clause would be legally enforceable, and any secondary market vendor who wanted to hack the system and repair it for a lower charge than the manufacturer could do so without any legal headaches.
All the trouble that comes along with the DMCA or things like Monsanto copyrighting seeds and such is most certainly NOT free market capitalism.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
You don't seem to be very well informed either. The US has antitrust laws since the late 19th Century whose main purpose is to prevent monopolies. They have been weakened by strong lobby groups, though, like anyone else that would enable stronger competition. It's also not hard to see that unregulated capitalism leads to monopolies and/or collusion at least in some markets, and no economist who knows his or her profession would deny that. It follows even from simple game theoretic models. There is plenty of disagreement about ways to prevent monopolies and the amount of intervention needed, of course, but that's another matter.
Regulation works fine in other countries, so if it doesn't work in the US, as you agree with, then I guess that's because US senators can be quite literally bought in ways that would be illegal on many other high-level industrialized Western countries.
Another issue that should be mentioned is that capitalism can only 'work' at all whenever there are free markets. In many domains there can be no free markets, e.g. roads and utilities, including physical cables. A free market requires dozens of competing participants, you will never get a free market with only 3-4 players like Comcast or AT&T, it's impossible. So your FCC example is particularly misleading and ignorant.
And passed by REPUBLICAN senators and represenatives.
You assholes deserve as much blame.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Let's see. First we have more than one can reference on the swamp draining:
Search google for "Trump drain the swamp" and you'll find a quick 469,000 articles to reference.
As for the corporate profits, I think a quick review of his stock portfolio might shed some light:
http://www.businessinsider.com...
A quick search for his financials leads a to a whole lot more. He made a nice penny off the spike in oil last week after a little fireworks show.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/06...
http://www.reuters.com/article...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
And one of his holdings stands to make a pretty penny on replacing those little rockets:
http://www.raytheon.com/capabi...
I can find you more if this isn't enough.
It is actually a pretty common usage. It came up a lot around the crash of 2008. The banks had, for years, kept profits for their investors, but when they were faced with losses, they wanted those losses socialized - spread around to everyone (or to "society").
It isn't, strictly speaking, a reference to Marxist "socialism".
See that "Preview" button?
Mussolini never said that. Really.
There is not one single source for that quote.
And if you think Obamacare is fascism you're deluded.