oatscoop
It's a lack of negative reinforcement. Normal people face negative reinforcement every single day: if you screw up you lose something. Relationships, jobs, money, etc.
After a certain amount of wealth the negative reinforcement starts to disappear. You don't need to give a shit about what "little people" think when you can always find an audience that agrees with you. When people will put up with your shit because you're the one footing the bill. When expensive mistakes are pennies to you.
The only thing you can’t do is legally modify the firmware on the controllers because that is usually done to bypass emissions controls
We are talking about basic access to the software in a way that allows diagnosing and repairing problems.
Every major part of a tractor is computer controlled and "smart", and because of that JD locks the owner out from accessing diagnostic information or swapping parts. Doing so requires hooking up a laptop with JD Service Advisor -- which isn't available to anyone apart from JD service techs.
The GPS module (or any other "smart" part) died and you want to swap it with an identical spare you have on hand? Tough shit, you need to call a tech to hook their laptop up before the computer will accept the new part. Want "trouble codes" to diagnose a problem -- too bad, you don't have JD Service Advisor to pull them. Fix a problem and want to take the tractor out of "trouble mode" ... nope.
As for "modifying firmware": the firmware controls everything. You can't use 3rd party parts, and you can't even use older (but still working) John Deere parts that are "unsupported".
Jesus, the misinformation on this subject is depressing
Yeah, by people that have obviously never touched JD equipment.
I get what you're saying, but an "enlightened centrist" is someone that argues for compromise between a sane position and an insane or evil one -- their "middle ground" is still awful.
A "centrist" take between two relatively sane positions isn't enlightened centrism. "Moderate" used to be the word for that, but given how extreme the political discourse has become the meaning of that word is changing too. You're better off qualifying what positions you're moderate on and how, or people will make unkind assumptions.
No, candidates "earn your vote" in the primaries -- the general election is damage control. The fact that needs to be explained is depressing.
We saw what abstaining and protest votes got us in 2016 and nobody should be stupid enough to fall for that again. I will absolutely shame someone for being an idiot incapable of pragmatism in a choice between "bad" or "irrecoverably catastrophic" when the options are already outside of their control.
You know Biden or Trump (or his proxy) is going to be the president in 2024. You also know MAGA voters are organized, motivated, and will turn out to vote for their candidate. It is a bald fact that 3rd party or protest votes will only serve to help Donald Trump get elected and nothing else.
Good fucking luck forwarding any leftist cause or candidates in your lifetime if Trump is elected.
Some people will steal anything they think they can sell for a couple bucks -- particularly addicts. Some people just suck and will think the owner deserves to have it stolen for not securing it.
You're banking on not a single one of those people seeing it and taking it. It's not hard to sell it for cheap to someone who'll list it on ebay.
In their defense the cabin and engine air filters do need to be changed frequently.
That being said, they're incredibly cheap at any parts store and stupidly easy to replace. Better yet: buy washable ones.
So ... what part of that has anything to do with a farmer getting screwed when their equipment breaks down and they're locked out of effecting a repair they're more than capable of doing?
When they're racing time and the weather waiting on an overbooked repair tech that can get them in at their convenience a few days from now, and charge an arm and a leg for the pleasure? Who's liable to tell them they need to bring it to the shop 50+ miles away?
Sure: they could buy another brand ... that doesn't work as nearly as well. That's not compatible with the $500k+ of JD equipment and attachments they already own. That isn't well supported in their region.
Farmers aren't pissed because JD is preventing them from doing stupid shit. They're pissed because JD is using every anti-consumer practice in the book to extract as much money as possible from a captive market and fucking them at the same time.
warranty
Warranties don't cover damage from abuse, misuse, and user modifications already.
That can happen with kids too, and it's far worse. At least with pets you know they're only going to live around ___ years.
Assuming that additional income isn't being wrestled back from the "profiteering rich" class: yes.
That's the best part: it doesn't!