> See e.g. the right-to-repair debate. The function is important enough for farmers to demand regulation and drive the prices of old, non-locked-down tractors through the roof.

This is in fact a textbook example for how markets work. By the insane prize increase of old, non-locked-down tractors, every sane market participant can see how much more of a prize farmers are willing to pay for non-locked-down tractors.

I believe every manufacturer of tractors now does a careful market analysis and is probably (secretly) developing a more open, but expensively prized tractor.

My bet: In a few years there will be new tractors on the market that are better repairable, but higher prized - exactly what an economist would predict. It's just that we are currently in a transformation period.

Markets can be in pathological states, what people usually call market failures. Basically when the transition cost from one equilibrium to a "better" is too high (barriers to entry, eg due to regulatory capture, not enough capital available, cooperation problems for the many small agents - for example because the powerful agent can punish those who try to organize, what happens when some workers try to unionize), the market stays put. Waste and rents are generated. (The union organizers fired the cost of labor basically freezed.)

In case of tractors it's not at all obvious how fast the market will provide the tractors with lower TCO, that farmers wish for.