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> I'd love to see some evidence that the producers aren't profitable without this lock-in.

If the business were profitable without the lock-in, other players would be competing with John Deere on this. Nobody is, that tells me the lock-in is needed to sustain the business.

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You got it backwards, lock-in is a good way to protect a dominant market position by maximizing revenue from an existing, large buyer base. Competitors have no chance to enter because they lack that revenue source, let alone competitors that forgo it completely and front load the price.

There are literally hundreds of tractor manufacturers.

Then why are people so concerned about John deere? Just buy from a manufacturer who doesn't do these shenanigans.

Because there's an entire ecosystem of tools/extensions for each manufacturer with 6 and 7 digit price tags that aren't portable between them, not to mention training and contractual obligations, etc. Swapping everything all at once is not generally viable.

So all of the manufacturers are doing this? Why is only John Deere (Apple and Tesla for some reason) brought into this? If it’s a industry wide problem in farming shouldn’t we be discussing the issue in farming and not just three companies, two of which aren’t in the AG business?

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