Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday January 09 2020, @09:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the tough-row-to-hoe dept.

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)


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by anubi on Friday January 10 2020, @01:25AM (2 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Friday January 10 2020, @01:25AM (#941729) Journal

    Unixnut, you just stated the exact reasons I purchased what was then a 20 year old Ford E350 7.3L IDI diesel van off Craigslist, then spent three times it's purchase price fixing it up.

    It has an old-school purely mechanical diesel engine, made by International Harvester in it.

    It also needed some TLC. Twenty years of use and the suspension is worn. The transmission needed service, etc. New glow plugs. Entire cooling system.

    All in all, I now have about $15K in it. And I think it's pretty decent van. I think of it like an old mule. As far as racing goes, I think anything in my neighborhood would outrun it. So far, it's taken me everywhere I want to go for five years now. It's now 25 years old. I am 70. At this point, loyalty to me, not DRM, is very important. This machine has no DRM whatsoever, doesn't need to phone home. Neither are it's allegiances to the Hitler/Microsoft/Telecom/Google
    Youth Association https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nazi+using+childern+to+report+parents [duckduckgo.com] involved.

    Call me paranoid, but I feel that by allowing a lot of the new technologies in our home, we are allowing various factions to compile reams of data on everytime we violate their wish list. Those can be sold to bounty hunters.

    Oh, incidentally, if you are a farmer/rancher/trucker, there is a forum similar to this one for those of us with an interest in Diesel trucks and tractors...

    https://www.oilburners.net [oilburners.net]

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @02:47AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @02:47AM (#942133)

    Thanks SO much for that link, and for sharing personal details (your age!) which help your situation resonate.

    • (Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday January 14 2020, @02:04AM

      by anubi (2828) on Tuesday January 14 2020, @02:04AM (#942947) Journal

      Yup, I wish I had bought it new, but at that time I needed an inexpensive employee commute car.

      And I did not make the best decisions either.

      Things age have done to me...I do not have near as much energy as I used to, but it's compensated for by experience which guides me from foolish time and energy wasting endeavors.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]