Chris Berube

As a farmer, it's not as easy as you go to the repair shop down the road and they fix something for you.

Because usually independent repair places, they don't have the tools that John Deere corporate has.

Because John Deere is not making that stuff available unless the repair person is paying a big fee.

So because John Deere makes it expensive for independent repair shops to fix John Deere products, as a consumer, you're stuck paying whatever John Deere is charging.

And this is a big way you get locked in.

It's replacement parts.

So if Jared buys a replacement part, he probably needs to buy it from John Deere because he doesn't have a lot of options for where else you can buy the thing.

I'm getting very angry, Chris.

This is very upsetting to me.

Keep some room, okay?

Keep some room.

We need a ceiling that we can achieve later on in the episode.

You're going to get there.

So, Roman, in the past, farmers could actually buy a generic replacement part, right?

Like a part that was built by somebody who isn't John Deere.

But today, with the software, John Deere does this trick called parts pairing.

So if you want to replace a drill, something like that, certain parts are not going to work unless they are compatible with John Deere software.

So that's parts pairing.

And this is related to this really important concept called interoperability.

I've definitely heard that term before.