What public interest is served by allowing companies to engage in anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices like locking people into proprietary systems?
The world is a better place because regulators mandate things like interoperability in phones or requirements that auto manufacturers supply parts for 3rd party mechanics to fix vehicles.
For this reason, it's very hard for competition to break in. No one wants to wait 2 weeks for a part for their tractor during crop season.
2) No other manufacturers offer real choice (and the required logistics I mentioned above), so it's not something the free market will fix.
[1] https://reason.com/2024/01/08/how-john-deere-hijacked-copyri...
“Actually I think it’s good that companies don’t allow you to repair their products. And it’s an abuse of power for the government to stop them”
You realize that forcing companies to respect the right to repair actually makes the economy stronger?
Independent repair shops can exist in that environment. The market becomes more free in that sense…
Problem was, the water wasn't suitable for giving babies that young, resulting in some babies dying.
In this instance, it's not like John Deere is using their position to improve the status quo of their product for everyone involved. They are explicitly demanding money for nothing - not only is it anticompetitive, but it's not promoting healthy market development. Deliberately designing malnutritional formula is really not that different from deliberately designing a tractor it's owners can't own. The mechanism for regulating both issues is pretty similar as well.