Quote from the John Deere representative:
Here’s what happens. Deere sees another company doing this (offering a better/cheaper GPS than theirs) in a year from now they say screw it, we’ll rewrite the software so everyone’s gotta update their globe (control for tractors) for it to keep working.
Sounds similar to what MS did to DR DOS
Their made Windows crash on purpose if it was on top of DR DOS instead of MS DOS. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
Those were the good ol’ days when you could really hate on Microsoft. Fond memories!