Well, apparently you do what people on HN are suggesting here: You wait until someone else builds a hackable tractor, you buy it promising you won't hack it, then you complain about it and hope you can pressure the government into making it legal for you to hack the hackable tractor.
Why are people buying these annoying tractors anyway? The reason to me seems: They are worth the trouble.
Sure, but when the other option is "stop farming", what would you have them do? The typical farmer doesn't know how to build a tractor from scratch, just as the typical car-owner doesn't know how to reproduce a Honda Accord.
So I buy a different brand. Or I comply with the rules I accepted at buy-time. In this tractor case I'd be mad at myself that I missed such a shitty condition of the contract, I'd write a blog post about how shitty it is. I'd try to pressure the manufacturer into giving me more rights. But not via the government, that just seems unfair. John Deere invents something, they proudly bring it to market, people (who did not have a John Deere smart-tractors before) start complaining and now that want you to alter your beautiful product? Go away! John Deere does not force anyone to buy their stuff! Why would you be allowed to force them into complying with your needs?
> But not via the government, that just seems unfair.
> Why would you be allowed to force them into complying with your needs?
Here's the thing. They should be able to lease equipment with restrictions. However, if you're going to call it a sale, then I don't see why they should have the right to restrict your ability to modify it. A sale implies a change of ownership. If they can restrict what you can do with the product after you bought it, then there wasn't really a change of ownership, was there?
Why are people buying these annoying tractors anyway? The reason to me seems: They are worth the trouble.