alt Hacker NewsLast year was 5b net profit on 44b revenue. Attributing more than a tiny fraction of profit to the right to repair stuff is wild dreams, given the amount of physical goods they sell.
Nothing in their SEC filings shows anything mentionable about such claims. It does break out actual profit by company sectors.
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Why would it be a "tiny fraction" of profit in particular? If they broke even, would we say they couldn't have made any money off of these practices?
Even a tiny fraction of revenue, on the other hand, could easily reach $10B. 4% of ~40B times 12 years = $19B.
The net profit figure isn't all that relevant. But I would be completely unsurprised if they made significantly more than $1M via their anti-right-to-repair practices.
Do they mention about how much revenue comes from selling parts and maintenance? That is what is directly impacted.
Repair is everything with such equipment. Be it an airliner, fighter jet, TBM, those big trucks in mines, factory robots ... any industrial machine that moves will, over its lifetime, cost more in repair and maintenance than its sticker price.
I talked to a hobby farmer once about a tractor. It wasnt cheap, but he spent more to biuld it a proper shed than he spent on the (used) machine. Leave it out in the rain/snow/mud all winter and it wont be there for you in spring. Maintenance and support is everything.
John Deere itself went far to prevent repairs and fought tooth and nail against it in the court - why would they spend so much effort on something that's not profitable?
The corporation you're defending is disproving your point by their own actions.
Admittedly I have never worked in the agriculture industry, but I have been a mechanical engineer for multiple industries before I became a software engineer (a good 5 years I was in a position where I quoted customers). You really cannot imagine that out of the 44B gross revenue and 5B net, that a "non tiny fraction" was not related to right the repair? Collections of receivables + Proceeds from sales of equipment on operating leases is north of half of the 44B gross. How much of that gross would have not existed should there been a third party market to repair and service exist products? I honestly can't give a number but I doubt its "tiny". Look at the car industry, about 20% of the global revenue is aftermarket. You simply cannot naively think that "right to repair" only effects the service contracts. Theres aftermarket parts and 3rd party repair shops that COULD have been a bigger market without John Deere's anticompetive practices.