• nucleative@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Ok I’m a proponent of right to repair and despise manufacturing techniques that lock repair shops out, make spare parts from 3rd parties impossible to install, or create planned obsolescence, or any shenanigans like this. It’s basically anti-everybody else and suggests weakness and fear instead of quality and strength.

    But help me understand how it’s possible that our “free market” is enabling this, unless it’s just a controlled market charading as free?

    Is John Deere giving the hardware away for free to those who sign long term subscriptions or something?

    If John Deere is the Apple-esque ecosystem of tractors where is the “PC” diy manufacture and why doesn’t the market support them.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      But help me understand how it’s possible that our “free market” is enabling this, unless it’s just a controlled market charading as free?

      John Deere is relying on DRM enforced by copyright law, which, being a literal government-granted monopoly, is as anti-free-market as it gets.

    • thanksforallthefish
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      1 day ago

      But help me understand how it’s possible that our “free market” is enabling this, unless it’s just a controlled market charading as free?

      • There are very few markets in the US that actually achieve Adam Smith’s “perfect market” (perfect competition)

      • The more expensive the individual item, the harder it is for there to be competition (costs of standing up factories, distribution and support, low volumes of sales etc), it’s extremely expensive to set up in opposition to John Deere

      • There are other market statuses other than “controlled” and “free” - the vast majority of US markets are Oligopolies (few sellers many buyers). Processed / packaged foods for example - 99% of market volume is done by a couple of players.

      • A century ago there were many farm machinery manufacturers - the individual machines were less expensive in real terms, and the complexity much lower. A virtual monopoly (one very large and a few smaller players) has formed through insufficient regulation to protect competition - the big ones gobble up the small and competition gradually dwindles

    • ToastedRavioli@midwest.social
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      1 day ago

      For one, there is no such thing as a “free” market in this world that is not a controlled market. Every market has controls placed on it.

      “Free market” ideology is just anti-regulation ideology, which again is antithetical to how every market in the world actually operates. Which is why being against regulation and market controls wholesale is generally very stupid

      There is nothing wrong with being against certain regulations for specific reasons, thats not what Im talking about. But rather being against regulation in general and imagining all regulation as inherently bad for the economy.

      In this case, consumers having right to repair would be a regulation, and therefore doesnt fit in the ideology of people who jerk it to the idea of a “free” market because they dont understand how the economy actually works. Right to repair does not exist in a free market