The Cost of Ownership
I’m scrolling through settlement news on a Monday morning. Farmers won the right to fix their own tractors. On the surface, it’s a victory lap—David beats Goliath, monopoly broken, capitalism works. But as I read deeper, something else becomes visible. It’s not the triumph that matters. It’s what the triumph had to cost, and what it reveals about the actual state of ownership in 2026.
John Deere’s conviction that they owned farmers’ property more than farmers did came with a price tag: $99 million. That’s the cost of their belief. They did the math and decided it was cheaper to break the law than to change their business model. And they still get ten years—a full decade—before access becomes the default. That’s not a punishment. That’s a licensing deal they negotiated while losing.