The “Right to Repair” movement in farm circles has been swallowed up by consumer and political animus with Big Tech. The mildly surprising decision by the Biden administration to get involved in these consumer concerns by directing the USDA to take action and calling for the independent Federal Trade Commission to address complaints makes the idea of some form of federal legislation more likely. Such a measure would probably override separate and unique state “Right to Repair” actions already in the process of enactment.
As viewers and readers of Top Producer magazine know, I’m not a big fan of the ag-specific measures, believing them to be both overkill and encouraging blatant avoidance of intellectual property rights and environmental regulation. But when sucked into the growing animosity stemming from our love-hate relationship with computer technology and social media, my unpopular opinion matters even less.
However, I think it should be said that I doubt both Big Tech and Big Machine are going to meekly abide by what they see as government sanctioned theft. Nor do I think for a second that they don’t have engineers working overtime for ways to neutralize this economic loss.
For example, just like the new iMacs have Apple’s own unique processor, Case could begin using proprietary hardware. New iMacs also have fewer chips to swap. To combat chip tuning one answer might be to bury that circuit in a larger chip or board. Warranty fine print could add punitive costs to bypassing or replacing technology. Real-time monitoring of controller changes could be mandatory equipment. The machine industry could go to the software subscription business model, where I pay Microsoft a hundred bucks a year to use Excel and cannot buy the software. It’s not much of a leap from there to leasing, not selling new machines. Farmers can’t complain about being able to alter what they don’t own.
As an engineer I am not unbiased in this debate. As a seller of intellectual property (IP) – and you can make your own joke about how intellectual it is – I have learned the disrespect farmers especially have for non-tangible work output. This is just one skirmish in a longer war, I’m afraid. As more of our economy is based on the sale and use of IP, I expect robust counteroffensives from IP creators and manufacturers. It is a conflict that will add inefficiency and cost to our business and strain the relationship between toolmakers and tool users.
