I suspect the latter. Otherwise, the streaming providers could just discount to the amount the consumer would pay and keep the part Comcast would profit on.

I get why they might like to offer that, the question is, why would the consumer? Adding another middle man seems like an unlikely way to get a better price.

In the new Capitalism, the corporations are the state. Everything is owned by the state.

Cable is dying and they did it to themselves. Get a few streaming subscriptions and enjoy MORE content when you want it for a third of the price.

What's the point of bundling streaming with cable? That's like finally getting the puppy house trained and then hiring someone to randomly pour piss on the carpet.

We are also talking about sole proprietor farms who do not get the same level of cooperation (that's why they get to wait days for the dealer while the crops need to be harvested NOW).

From the standpoint of society, we definitely do NOT need or want further consolidation into a small number of corporations.

You have a very dated and stereotypical view of farmers. Some of them have managed to obtain hacked dealer software from Eastern Europe over the dark web to maintain their tractors. Does that REALLY sound like someone bringing a wrench to a job that needs a laptop?

The problem is the DRM ladel lock-outs on the equipment that is primarily there to keep anyone but an authorized dealer from replacing paired parts or getting useful diagnostics.

It sounds like a desperately contrived scenario written by a ten year old trying to justify not allowing repair. Or just trying to avoid an F on the short story assignment due in the morning that he slagged off for the last two weeks.

How does that relate to anything a farmer might actually WANT to do like replacing a faulty module without having to wait for the dealer to come bless the pairing?

This. The new Capitalism is Communism except you don't even get a fake vote and the people who own everything don't even pretend to be "the people".

If you hated Communism, you should REALLY hate the new Capitalism.

Because farmers all have a few million burning a hole in their pocket so they can throw the Deere away and buy something else?

It is worth noting that there is a reason I've started seeing more Kubota around, but when equipment is often maintained for several decades because it's so expensive, the changeover happens slowly. In some ways, the various legislators are saving an American company from itself.

None of that stuff is culture, it's just crap managers trying (and mostly failing) to create culture on the cheap. The real culture is deeper in the company. Does the management facilitate productivity through smooth operation and avoiding BS meetings or does it fall for every flavor of the month management fad? Does the company have cooperation between teams or is it siloed to death? Does it support career advancement or is it just rank 'em and yank 'em? Does it promote from within or does it bring in green MBAs who don't even WANT to understand the product? Is it regimented and heavily hierarchical or is it flat?

As a visitor, some companies seem very formal, some more relaxed. Some seem to be just concerned with getting things done and some have such a creepy cult vibe that you swear you can hear "Hotel California" in the back of your mind.

This. Also when fertilizer washes into rivers and streams causing rampant algae growth.

That area doesn't really generate a whole lot of pollution. A better place to run this would be China, India, or any major US population center. They have plenty of locations for underground storage, some areas of geothermal energy alongside those areas for storage, and they have far more land area than Iceland for storage.

I have actually punched a deck of cards and submitted them as a batch process on an old mainframe. I still have a deck or two somewhere. No, I'm not quite that old. I was a teen when I did that and the equipment was retired but never actually decommissioned.

The cards are normally die cut because that is faster and cheaper in bulk, but it can be done otherwise for a small run if you really needed to. That would be slower and more labor intensive, so more expensive. That's why I said :absolutely positively need".

Longer term, it would make more sense to emulate the card reader, of course. But the card readers have comparatively well defined behavior compared to floppy disks. No weak sectors, halfg tracks, non-concentric tracks, or any of the other many ways people tried to block copying that floppy back in the day.

It is when there is too much of it in the wrong place.

Plastic bottle on store shelf full of product = not pollution. Same bottle, empty, floating on an otherwise scenic lake = pollution.

OTOH, re-fitting one train so you have a known solution in your back pocket when the day comes wouldn't be a bad idea.