Re:Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair
by ChicagoBoy11 on Monday December 16, 2019 @03:27PM
(#21806832)
... and as true as that could be in theory, doesn't mean that it couldn't essentially bankrupt a business model that has built a lot of these companies. My family is in heavy farm equipment sales, and the reality is that without the margins on parts and repair, a lot of those business just aren't viable. The lock-in is there to really prevent the fundamental underpinning of their business model. Not saying it is correct or ethical, but it is the economic reality of how a lot of those businesses are structured.
Re:Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair
by labawi on Monday December 16, 2019 @03:51PM
(#21807069)
... so the machines would cost more up-front instead of being offset by subsequent repairs?
Re:Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair
by kempbellt on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @12:21AM
(#21810887)
Why should any company be forced to support a sale they've already made? Unless they are beholden to a warranty promise, a return policy, or it was promised at the time of purchase that support would be available for some amount of time, I don't follow this thought process at all. This actually sounds like a way to run a company/industry into the ground, or make the original products prohibitively expensive - to account for the cost.
>If you can't handle a support call, don't take my money.
Was there a promise of support at the time of purchase? If so, then yeah, that's a problem worth caring about. If not, then why give them money?
Is this the case for auto shops now?
> That it might force companies to publish business secrets
There are many, many ways to compile and preserve business secrets in blobs, but there's probably a fundamental issue if you're dependent on that.
> someone finds a flaw in the API, uses it to ruin other people's machines, and then the company gets sued for it
If you publish crappy code in your paid product and someone suffers for it, you should be sued. That's not a consequence, that's the system working.
> That it forces companies to sell pieces that are not profitable
The company has a line of profit - the initial device. This is not forcing them to take on a new business, this is forcing them to support the purchase I already made. If you can't sell spare parts, don't sell tractors. If you can't handle a support call, don't take my money.