Digital Rights/Restrictions Management (DRM) technologies affecting new tractors are behind the continuing rise in popularity of the models. Particularly in the midwest, farmers are finding that 40-year-old tractors do the job with less trouble and expense.
Tractors manufactured in the late 1970s and 1980s are some of the hottest items in farm auctions across the Midwest these days — and it's not because they're antiques.
Cost-conscious farmers are looking for bargains, and tractors from that era are well-built and totally functional, and aren't as complicated or expensive to repair as more recent models that run on sophisticated software.
"It's a trend that's been building. It's been interesting in the last couple years, which have been difficult for ag, to see the trend accelerate," said Greg Peterson, the founder of Machinery Pete, a farm equipment data company in Rochester with a website and TV show.
Previously;
Reeducating Legislators on the Right to Repair (2019)
John Deere Just Swindled Farmers Out of Their Right to Repair (2018)
US Copyright Office Says People Have the Right to Hack their Own Cars' Software (2015)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @12:21AM (2 children)
German cars are seen as reliable in Europe because they are usually made in Germany or some other European cars. German cars in the U.S. are made in Mexico or "assembled" in the U.S. with imported parts. If you actually check the prices for used cars in the U.S., the prices of ones that come from German factories are much higher than others because of the difference in quality. My mechanic can tell them apart, usually on sight of the exterior or engine, and once showed me a spreadsheet of all the work he does on cars and the difference between where the German brands were made was astounding.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday January 10 2020, @07:03PM (1 child)
> German cars are seen as reliable in Europe because they are usually made in Germany or some other European cars.
OTOH, French, Italian and British cars have a terrible reputation for reliability...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @10:01PM
Yeah, that second cars at the end of the sentence was supposed to be "country" as a reference to the location of the factories.