[HN Gopher] FTC and DOJ want to free McDonald's ice cream machin...
___________________________________________________________________
FTC and DOJ want to free McDonald's ice cream machines from DMCA
repair rules
Author : rbanffy
Score : 228 points
Date : 2024-03-15 16:30 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Revoke patents for machines that aren't demonstrably reparable.
| For that matter, suspend copyright for works that aren't
| purchasable.
| mattashii wrote:
| > For that matter, suspend copyright for works that aren't
| purchasable.
|
| When do you start (or stop) counting something as
| "purchasable"? Does it mean I can copy the tapes of movies the
| day before their first screenings, but not the day after? Or if
| my local shop doesn't have a show on disk?
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| You do realize that the proposal would work much the same as
| any other law? First a little more rigor would go into it
| than an off the cuff HN comment. Second, if you find
| something ambiguous then go to court and find out.
| mattashii wrote:
| That is exactly why I asked: I can't think of a definition
| that would be both intuitive and that would not rule out
| reasonable and valid sales strategies for some forms of
| art.
| glenstein wrote:
| I understand individual actors following incentives wherever they
| lead. I wouldn't say condone, but understand. What I don't
| understand is how it came to pass that McDonalds, whom I would
| assume are canny and cutthroat in their own right, would find
| themselves maneuvered into a position like this.
|
| Is there no equivalent phenomenon when it comes to their grills,
| deep fryers, drive-thru comms systems, self-order kiosks, etc?
| jerf wrote:
| This isn't an answer, so much as a sketch of my guess at
| answer, but check out "path dependence":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence
|
| If they go down the right path right at the beginning, a bit of
| payoff in the right places in McDonalds (which, remember, can
| be just taking the right people out to a _really_ nice dinner
| every so often), and it could be that one equipment supplier
| managed to go down a path that no other current supplier could
| ever hope to replicate because it really depends on some early
| decisions, and those suppliers no longer have any opportunity
| to make "early" decisions.
| mherkender wrote:
| Given the poor technical choices made regularly in old
| corporations, I'm guessing they had no idea what they got
| themselves into.
|
| That or it's their franchisee's problem and they don't have any
| incentive to fix it.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > That or it's their franchisee's problem and they don't have
| any incentive to fix it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29326999
| karaterobot wrote:
| I think of McDonald's as being pretty savvy, having dominated
| for decades in a competitive domain with large volume and low
| margins. In violation of Hanlon's Razor, I'd bet the reason
| is more malice rather than stupidity. Or rather, the specific
| form of malice more precisely called short-sighted greed.
| bombcar wrote:
| McDonald's probably has paperwork that shows "ice cream
| machine broke" doesn't really cost them anything in sales
| or return visits, so why work on fixing it?
|
| If it was a critical product, they'd have multiple machines
| per store, just like the friers (often way more than is
| needed).
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Here [1] is a video on this topic by Johnny Harris from a
| couple years ago. It's been a while since I watched it but IIRC
| there is a conflicting relationship between specifically
| McDonalds _the corporation_ and Taylor which benefits both of
| them but screws over the individual franchise owners. Here is
| an interactive map [2] that shows where all the broken machines
| are.
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4 [video][30
| mins]
|
| _There is a sponsor ad from 06:49 to 08:47_
|
| [2] - https://mcbroken.com/
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| All franchise brands do this once they have sufficient power
| relative to the franchisees.
|
| Hotel brands force hotel owners to use only certain vendors,
| taking a kickback from the vendor. Same with restaurants/etc.
|
| I can give a specific example. Roughly 8 years ago, IHG
| hotels required all of their branded hotels to only sell Coca
| Cola products. The only reason this would happen is if Coke
| paid IHG.
|
| It has nothing to do with a person's hotel stay. It just
| restricts hotel owners and hotel guests from being able to
| sell and buy their preferred products, such as Red Bull or
| Starbucks or Pepsi/Tropicana, for the benefit of Coke and
| IHG.
| nradov wrote:
| Beyond vendor kickbacks, hotel brands do have legitimate
| reasons to ensure a consistent guest experience regardless
| of which franchisee owns a particular property. Frequent
| travelers can be surprisingly picky about little things
| like soft drinks and they don't like surprises.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Then they would have required offering specific products.
| It would not require prohibiting other products.
|
| Edit: to respond to tomnipotent:
|
| I don't see why a distributor is relevant. There are
| myriad to choose from. Hotel owners/operators can buy
| from the local Coke/Pepsi/whatever distributor, or
| Sam's/Costco/grocery store, or Restaurant Depot/US Foods,
| etc.
|
| Edit 2: note that IHG is not buying the beverages to sell
| in the franchised hotel, the IHG franchisees are. IHG
| does not suffer any costs from making an exclusive deal
| with Coke, or not making an exclusive deal with Coke.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > It would not require prohibiting other products.
|
| You're forgetting about distribution and margin. Your
| distributor is unlikely to offer both choices, and
| keeping the original product means selling less of the
| new so you're getting less favorable volume deals with
| both. For the hotel, it makes sense to concentrate that
| sales volume into a single contract for better discounts.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's definitely possible, and I've seen it done, but
| obviously for most businesses that have to answer the
| "coke or Pepsi" question pick one. Nothing is really
| preventing having both in the same soda machine, but it's
| rare enough that there must be a reason, likely
| exclusivity deals and discounts.
|
| Gas stations will usually have both, for example. Fast
| food places won't.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Just imagine for a second if your hotel had Pepsi instead
| of Coca Cola. *shudder*. Not a world I want to live in /s
| kennethrc wrote:
| Possibly apocryphal, but I'd heard the reason most Marriott
| (and their associated brands) have Pepsi vs. Coke is 'cause
| Marriott Sr. asked Coca-Cola for a loan some years ago and
| they refused him.
|
| As the joke goes, "... is Pepsi okay?"
| bombcar wrote:
| Most "Pepsi places" do have Coke on hand if they have a
| bar - a rum and Pepsi just isn't right.
| handsclean wrote:
| I think they'd just make it with Pepsi and call it a "rum
| and coke" anyway. "Coke" is the generic word for all
| soda/pop, including Pepsi, in much of the US and world,
| and I think "rum and coke" also qualifies as a name in
| its own right.
| rfrey wrote:
| >"Coke" is the generic word for all soda/pop, including
| Pepsi, in much of the US and world
|
| I don't think this is even true for most of the USA, much
| less the world. I've never heard anyone refer to anything
| except a cola as "coke" although I heard that was the
| vernacular in some subset of the US... some southern US
| states?
| actionfromafar wrote:
| A Fanta is a Coke.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Do they? Pepsi has been making a big push into "rich
| people places" (air ports, ski resorts, conference
| venues, that sort of thing) and the usual result is not
| that I ask for a Diet Coke and one appears, it's that I
| ask and one fails to appear, and continues to fail to
| appear at every place I visit on the entire trip/vacation
| and I simply must go without. Which is fine, it's just a
| flavor, but this is noticeable and repeatable and
| annoying and almost exactly the opposite of the situation
| where a bar has a strategic reserve of the good stuff.
| bombcar wrote:
| The ones I've seen do - and pretty expensive hotels, too.
|
| If you're running a conference and ask them to get some
| coke from the bar, they usually have been able to get it
| (it's also possible they have a secret "guest happiness"
| stash) - and I've seen them pour it at the bar - Pepsi is
| from the spigot machine, Coke from a can.
| tacticalturtle wrote:
| Is there such a thing as a franchisee Union?
|
| A quick search suggests no for McDonalds.
|
| It seems like there should be some trade group responsible
| for collectively bargaining with the main corporation, as a
| check against kickbacks.
| TheGRS wrote:
| If I'm following OP's question, it was basically that all
| of this makes sense from a "people are doing what benefits
| them the most" POV.
|
| But some time went by and it morphed into being overall bad
| for the McDonald's brand, and that's the puzzling part of
| it. You would think Micky D's would have power to step in
| and say "enough is a enough, this is hurting our image,
| quit fucking around and fix the machines or we find another
| vendor."
|
| I would agree Micky D's corporate probably does have sway
| here, so this problem probably just isn't interesting or
| important enough for them to do anything about it. Maybe
| ice cream is such a small part of their sales they don't
| see the point in raising a stink about it. Or maybe the
| vendor just happened to Game of Thrones their way into a
| little niche of power that Ronald can't do anything about.
|
| And for the size that they are, I find that pretty
| interesting and puzzling as well!
| ehutch79 wrote:
| Short answer; the franchisee pays for the repairs, and
| allegedly McD's corporate gets a kickback.
|
| Supposedly, wendy's, burgerking, etc, have a model that is
| identical except for the opaque error system.
|
| Info from the internet at large, so big grain of salt.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| McDonald's are the bad actor here.
|
| There is two "McDonald's" the corporation, that requires a
| specific machine and by extension a specific company to repair
| it exclusively, and then there is a ton of "McDonald's"
| franchises who are the victims (paying the literal price).
|
| So McDonald's corporate didn't get out-maneuvered, they just
| found a new way to extract money from their franchises, who
| tried to fight back (and kind of lost the first battle).
|
| Sounds like the FTC/DOJ are stepping in to give the franchises
| more ammo to fight back with.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > grills, deep fryers, drive-thru comms systems, self-order
| kiosks, etc?
|
| The key difference between all those things is there's almost
| no moving parts involved.
|
| Grills are simply resistive heaters and a thermostat that will
| outlast everyone.
|
| Deep fryers are exactly the same, but with a tub to put in oil.
|
| Drive through comms systems are simply speakers/telephone
| systems with the only moving part being the speaker itself.
| (The rest is software).
|
| And The kiosks are basically just giant touch screens with a
| small computer running everything.
|
| Ice cream is different. It's a thick highly spoil-able product
| being pushed through tubes which need to be clean. It involves
| a refrigerant and often a mixing device to keep the ice cream
| from freezing solid. Mcdonalds isn't the only one with icecream
| machines that constantly break down. If you notice, everyone
| has this problem. It's simply a hard product to serve in a
| sanitary way using machinery.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Negative. Yes, others break down, but at a MUCH lower rate.
| It's a scam.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Oh sorry, I wasn't trying to say it wasn't a scam. Just
| explaining why ice cream machines would be harder to
| maintain/install than something like a grill and why there
| might be limited options on who to go with.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Ah gotcha and totally agree.
| jdietrich wrote:
| _> Deep fryers are exactly the same, but with a tub to put in
| oil._
|
| Not really true. The fryers used by McDonalds and the vast
| majority of QSRs are digitally controlled have a fairly
| sophisticated recirculating filter system to keep the
| shortening in good condition. The state of this system is
| much less critical from a food safety standpoint, but it can
| be extremely hazardous to employees for obvious reasons. The
| pressure fryers used by fried chicken restaurants are
| potentially even more hazardous. To my knowledge, none of
| these systems have weird DMCA-protected firmware to prevent
| unauthorised maintenance.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Fair point.
|
| I do think there's a little bit more difficulty in the ice
| cream machine that doesn't exist with oil.
|
| I went and watched some videos on fry machine maintenance
| (lol) and one thing that doesn't translate to the ice cream
| machine is how easy it is to empty the oil, throw in
| polish, refill, empty, refill. You can't really have an
| automated process which drains out the ice-cream and then
| sterilizes it.
|
| > To my knowledge, none of these systems have weird DMCA-
| protected firmware to prevent unauthorised maintenance.
|
| Absolutely agree. The point of my post was more why a fry
| machine might have easier (and hence cheaper) maintenance
| than an ice cream machine.
| shuntress wrote:
| Is there some reason I'm not understanding why McDonald's can't
| or won't just change vendors? Why is there no competition in the
| commercial-grade ice cream machine market?
| bogwog wrote:
| > Why is there no competition in the commercial-grade ice cream
| machine market?
|
| Maybe patents? That's what they're for, after all.
| AaronM wrote:
| Mcdonalds the corporation benefits from the argeement while the
| Mcdonalds franchises suffer from the same agreement.
| shuntress wrote:
| Ah, so this is just a backdoor fee in the franchise
| agreement?
|
| You (the franchisee) _must_ use this specific machine that
| breaks all the time and for repairs to that machine you
| _must_ use this specific vendor with whom we (the franchisor)
| have a "special" deal.
| 20after4 wrote:
| Yes this exactly.
| CSSer wrote:
| Almost. There's also an alternative machine available, but
| it's not a serious competitor.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| which is part of why I'm so confused by the scheme. Sure,
| as other commenters have pointed out, it's the franchisees
| that are bearing this cost and not the "corporation" (which
| is allegedly getting a kickback), but I have to imagine
| that, at the margin and in the long term, the reputation
| that McDonalds has of never having working ice cream
| machines causes some harm (if caused zero harm, then the
| flip side is that there is zero value to them having the
| machines/product), so in the long term there are fewer
| franchises and therefore less money to the corporation.
|
| Rather than this complicated kick back scheme....why not
| just charge the franchisees more money? It's Mcdonald's
| gets the same amount of money, the franchisees _pay_ the
| same amount of money, but you have ice cream machines with
| a greater uptime and therefore a better brand image which
| leads to greater long term growth. It just seems stupid and
| short sighted.
|
| I realize that humans do stupid and short sighted things
| all the time, but this one just seems really obvious. This
| almost feels like it has to be a cause of corruption where
| the _the corporation_ isn 't actually getting something but
| rather some executive got a direct kickback in order to
| slip this in, even though it's in the best interests of
| neither the franchisees nor the corporation.
| TheGRS wrote:
| I'm with you on this part of it. I don't see what the
| real benefit is to McD if it hurts their brand long-term,
| which seems to be happening in regard to their ice cream
| products. We are not talking about highly sophisticated
| machines or repairs, its more like an organic situation
| that's made visible because there are so many McDonald's
| franchises and they all have the same temperamental
| machines.
|
| I would guess that the real reason is that within the
| bureaucracy of Mickey D's there is little incentive to
| get this problem fixed. Leadership either isn't aware or
| doesn't see the value to fix it. I'm sure some people are
| definitely benefitting a lot from this, but not enough
| people higher up are affected by it to care.
| avs733 wrote:
| > Why is there no competition in the commercial-grade ice cream
| machine market?
|
| There is plenty of competition in the commercial-grade ice
| cream machine market. There is no competition in the
| commercial-grade ice cream machine for mcdonalds franchisee
| market
| ncr100 wrote:
| Is the DMCA worth keeping? There have been many anti-consumer
| news stories citing the DMCA as the linch pin.
| Voultapher wrote:
| Copyright was never about consumers. It's always been a tool to
| consolidate power.
| LordKeren wrote:
| It could definitely use a strong revision / overhaul. But it is
| also the reason many sites can exist without being sued in to
| the ground over hosting copyright infringing material.
|
| DRM itself seems like the most pointed issue with the DMCA, but
| any change that reduces the efficacy or DRM is going to be
| fought by every large company in America
| kube-system wrote:
| Most websites with user submitted content would not be able to
| exist without DMCA safe harbor provisions. The status quo
| before the whole "DMCA takedown request" process became a thing
| was that websites were liable for any user submitted content
| that was in violation. If the DMCA was repealed today, and
| tomorrow someone posted copyright content here on HN, then HN
| would be liable for copyright infringement. A repeal of the
| DMCA would essentially be a death sentence for social media.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| >> A repeal of the DMCA would essentially be a death sentence
| for social media.
|
| How is this a bad thing? If we leave an exemption for search
| I would consider this a positive.
| kube-system wrote:
| Did you like posting that comment? Would you like to
| continue posting comments on the internet? You probably
| wouldn't be doing so without Safe Harbor.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| Do you like that you dont own your content any more? Do
| you like that it gets sold to open AI to make the next ML
| power draw?
|
| We have the compute power and the networking to
| decentralize all of it. That means ownership and with
| that comes personal responsibility. It's not a trivial
| problem but it's a solvable one today.
| kube-system wrote:
| > Do you like that you dont own your content any more?
|
| I don't know what you're talking about, I hold a
| copyright to all of my content, (except the content I
| produce at work) even if I decide to license a bunch of
| it.
|
| > Do you like that it gets sold to open AI to make the
| next ML power draw?
|
| What about the DMCA enabled that?
|
| > We have the compute power and the networking to
| decentralize all of it. That means ownership and with
| that comes personal responsibility. It's not a trivial
| problem but it's a solvable one today.
|
| I think people still want to have conversations using
| services on the internet. Even email isn't decentralized
| enough that it would alleviate concerns about third party
| content. To decentralize enough so that third-party
| content isn't a legal concern without DMCA, you'd
| essentially be asking everyone in the world to run
| federated services with a maximum server size of one
| user. I _don 't_ think we have the technology to make
| that actually work for the average user.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| >> What about the DMCA enabled that?
|
| NO safe harbor means... no reddit, no Facebook, no
| YouTube... content aggregation in gated monoliths goes
| away. Data aggregation, data brokering gets a lot harder.
| And where are you going to mass license content at that
| point?
|
| > run federated services with a maximum server size of
| one user.
|
| Family exist, friends exist. Killing the DMCA, then the
| sea of copyright law suits is a path to copyright reform.
| kube-system wrote:
| I guess? I personally still like the idea of a public
| internet.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| As do I, but the corporate internet is sort of gross...
| ta1243 wrote:
| We had usenet for 2 decades before the dmca
| kube-system wrote:
| ...because the internet was still tiny and wasn't getting
| any legal attention. The passage of the DMCA was a
| _response_ to the situation that was going on once it
| started to get industry attention.
| anonymousab wrote:
| There have been initiatives and proposals from various
| legislators and interested parties to revamp the DMCA. Without
| fail, they all seem to universally make things worse for the
| rights of the consumer and small creators while vastly
| increasing corporate power. A few token concessions to normal
| people that inevitably have large loopholes or wording that
| make them actually meaningless.
|
| So it may be the case that, while it is really shitty in a lot
| of ways, there is currently no way to open up that Pandora's
| box and change the DMCA without things getting much worse. The
| incentives and influences in place for legislators today are
| simply too perverse.
| pierat wrote:
| The real answer here is REMOVING the DMCA on criminalizing
| reverse engineering and DRM.
|
| If its your property, you should legally speaking tell any OTHER
| company to rightly fuck off about restrictions on your property.
|
| Intellectual property rights (copyright, patent, trademark)
| should NOT have any ground in restricting property rights of
| things directly owned. Instead, we see shit like Iphones where
| they use the term "SELL", and then continual and ongoing
| restrictions by the FORMER OWNER.
|
| If a company wants to maintain control, they should RENT it, with
| an explicit, simple to read rental agreement.
| kstrauser wrote:
| As the owner of an iPhone, I can legally do whatever I want
| with it. The restrictions are on developers who sign agreements
| with Apple. Nothing stops me legally from jailbreaking my own
| phone.
| pierat wrote:
| Which legally speaking, hogwash.
|
| This link covers 15 years of DMCA abuse, which you say
| doesn't apply to you.
|
| https://www.eff.org/pages/unintended-consequences-fifteen-
| ye...
|
| Your ignorance of this terrible law is not immunity of this
| law. Apple could as easily destroy your device with no
| recourse, or sue YOU personally for "defeat of technical
| prevention".
| kstrauser wrote:
| I didn't see any cases there of someone getting hassled for
| modding their own gear. Which one should I be looking at
| that backs up your contention?
| prophesi wrote:
| Apple will be fighting against it every 3 years when DMCA
| exemptions have to be renewed.
|
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-
| jailbreakin...
|
| edit: after digging into this, my above statement is
| false as it no longer needs to be renewed every 3 years
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's from 2009. Did they file comments claiming
| individual-level jailbreaking is illegal in 2012, 2015,
| 2018, 2021, or this year?
|
| I'm not an Apple employee or direct stockholder. I
| imagine my 401(k) has some in it, but I don't really
| know. I'm not claiming they're angels. What I _am_
| claiming is that Apple 's never told me I'm not allowed
| to do whatever I want with the things I've bought from
| them. They might not support me in my ventures, and I'm
| sure they'd prefer I not, but I'm not aware of any case
| where Apple tried to legally limit a regular end
| customer's usage.
| prophesi wrote:
| Well, they're the ones who spearheaded the attempt to
| make it illegal. They're not able to raise complaints for
| its renewal because, well, it _wasn't_ renewed in 2012,
| but is now covered under the Unlocking Consumer Choice
| and Wireless Competition Act.
|
| Unfortunately we can't deduce the reasons why it wasn't
| renewed in 2012, but I imagine Apple was doing the best
| in their power to convince the Librarian to make that
| decision.
| pierat wrote:
| Your goalposts are moving.
|
| You might want to see to that.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Hardly. I said it was legal for me to jailbreak my own
| phone if I want to, and have yet to see evidence to the
| contrary.
| prophesi wrote:
| You asked if there were any cases of someone getting
| hassled for modding their own gear (and outside of
| phones, there are plenty of examples of that happening).
|
| If we're going back to phones, then it would have been
| illegal to jailbreak for a few months in 2014 after their
| anti-circumvention exemption expired and before the
| aforementioned Unlocking Consumer Choice act took effect.
|
| Though jailbreaking is still just one aspect of how DMCA
| is being used to restrict what you can do with the
| hardware you've purchased.
| the8472 wrote:
| https://copyright.gov/1201/2015/comments-032715/class%202
| 1/J...
| notherhacker wrote:
| No this is false. If this law wasn't in place you could pay a
| professional service to jailbreak and modify your iphone for
| you.
| jmyeet wrote:
| I see the expected comments about addressing symptoms here. Yes,
| intellectual property lock-in is bad. Confusion over why
| McDonald's put up with this (as in, in an idealized view of a
| free market, that problem would resolve itself).
|
| The problem is capitalism. And it's working as intended.
|
| IP, by definition, is just an enclosure [1]. McDonald's the
| corporation has an adversarial relationship with its franchisees
| and you see this in every franchise. The head corporation will
| simply try to extract the maximum possible wealth from their
| franchisees, even to their detriment.
|
| Profits tend to decrease over time. To keep profits growing, it
| inevitably leads to cutting quality to lower costs and predating
| on your customers, franchisees and employees.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
| LordKeren wrote:
| I'm not sure changing capitalism is a very viable solution to
| malfunctioning ice cream machines
| shuntress wrote:
| Ok so, this is good for McDonalds actually?
| jmyeet wrote:
| In the short-term financial sense, yes.
|
| McDonald's gave an exclusive contract for a particular ice
| cream machine. They then locked down those machines so only
| first-party repairers can fix them. It's a means of
| extracting wealth from the franchisees. The ice creame
| machine maker makes money on these service call outs so they
| have no incentive to make them reliable (the opposite,
| actually). And I'm sure McDonald's gets a piece of those
| service call outs.
|
| Now does this do long-term damage to the McDonald's brand?
| Maybe. But nobody actually cares about that.
| criddell wrote:
| They may have an adversarial relationship with franchisees, but
| the McDonald's corporation owns and runs 2800 restaurants
| themselves. You would think that's enough self-inflicted pain
| that they would do something.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| The problem is not capitalism, it's a very specific part of it:
| intellectual property. The notion that you can own ideas is
| fundamentally broken and nonsensical, it's logically reducible
| to attempting to claim ownership over numbers. The economies
| and laws that arose out of it are fundamentally exploitative.
| Corporations put a little software on a machine and suddenly
| they have complete control over what you can and can't do with
| it, any attempt to resist is felony contempt of business model.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Better Idea: A Lemon Law for commercial equipment. Doesn't matter
| if Taylor uses copyright, DMCA, patents, contract law, replace-
| every-10-hours proprietary filters, brittle plastic gears, or
| what - companies that inflict unreliable & high-maintenance crap
| on the economy need to suffer sustained fiscal agony.
| kube-system wrote:
| That doesn't really make any sense in the context of a
| franchise. AFAIK McDonalds franchises are required to buy those
| specific Taylor machines.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Why doesn't it make sense? Taylor makes crap, Taylor sells
| crap to "Smallville Burgers, LLC", Taylor pays agonizing
| penalties & fines. Doesn't matter if the victim bought the
| Taylor equipment because McD's contract required it, or
| because their daughter is a Swiftie.
| kube-system wrote:
| Taylor doesn't think there's anything wrong with their
| machine, the maintenance is just onerous. The result of
| applying any Lemon Law here would be that Taylor buys the
| machine back. Leaving the franchisee without an ice cream
| machine, and potentially out of a franchise. Given that an
| ice cream machine costs thousands, and MCD franchises cost
| millions, it is a no brainer to just deal with the machine.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| If Taylor just buys everything back, they no longer have
| a business, no? Wouldn't that be a good incentive
| structure for change?
| kube-system wrote:
| Taylor wouldn't be buying anything back because no
| franchisee wants to torpedo their investment over an ice
| cream machine.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Assume a loophole-free Commercial Equipment Lemon Law
| would disallow any "Oops, sorry, your contract with McD.
| requires you to suffer while we profit!" crap. Or perhaps
| McD. would also be liable for agonizing fines?
| kube-system wrote:
| Then you're not talking about a lemon law, you're talking
| about something else. I think what you actually want are
| laws that regulate franchise agreements. That's the
| actual problem here.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If Taylor just buys everything back, they no longer
| have a business, no?_
|
| No. They have a monopoly.
|
| If they're forced to buy them back, they'll incorporate
| that cost into the next round that the franchises are
| required to purchase.
| bell-cot wrote:
| If Taylor buy $X machines back for $X plus agonizing
| financial penalties, then figures they'll recover the
| losses selling $2X machines...$4X machines - then the SEC
| will be expecting "Taylor may not be a viable or
| sustainable business" disclosures in Taylor's next
| quarterly filing. If there is one - major creditors and
| investors could move first.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _then figures they 'll recover the losses selling $2X
| machines...$4X machines_
|
| Yes, this is what having a captive market means.
|
| The problem is the franchise agreement. Shoehorning this
| into a lemon-law framework doesn't work.
| bsza wrote:
| > Leaving the franchisee without an ice cream machine,
| and potentially out of a franchise
|
| Their ice cream machines are broken so often that it's
| already become a meme. They might as well not have them
| at this point.
| kube-system wrote:
| Right, we know they're broken all of the time. However,
| the franchisees must have the machines to comply with
| their franchise agreement which grants them the ability
| to sell _any_ McDonalds food.
| indymike wrote:
| Forcing a buyback of defective equipment does not
| preclude the purchase of a new, non-defective unit.
| Without the lemon law, the buyer would toss the old unit
| out without compensation and buy a new one. This way, the
| buyer will get money back from the defective unit and be
| able to get a new unit with it.
| wtallis wrote:
| The McDonald's franchise agreement is what precludes the
| purchase of a non-defective unit.
| indymike wrote:
| Sounds like Taylor will be set up to loose a lot of money
| if they don't fix the lemon. Even if it's just swapping
| out a lemon for a new lemon, Taylor will have an
| incentive to fix this.
| kube-system wrote:
| There's a lot of miscommunication on this topic. These
| "broken" machines aren't actually "broken".
|
| They require extensive cleaning cycles and some
| operations require manufacturer servicing. It's just they
| way they work, it's documented, and there are service
| contracts in place to do the servicing.
|
| When the kid at the drive through says the ice cream
| machine is "broken", what is actually meant is that it is
| currently not producing ice cream, and they don't want to
| argue with the person who wants ice cream. But the reason
| isn't that it is malfunctioning.
|
| Taylor isn't losing money "fixing" these machines, the
| maintenance they do on them is on contract, and is quite
| lucrative.
| devNoise wrote:
| The machine it sells to McDonald franchisee are crap. They
| make other ice cream machines for other franchises and they
| don't seem to have the same repair issues.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| It does because McDonald's isn't the one that suffers. It's
| the franchise owners having revenue extracted by them from
| the ice cream company and McDonald's corporate.
|
| Taylor makes perfectly good machines for other restaurants
| iirc.
| kube-system wrote:
| A Lemon Law wouldn't let franchisees use different
| machines. A Lemon Law would (might) require Taylor to buy
| them back, which wouldn't be desirable for a franchisee.
| bombcar wrote:
| From what I recall (and I may be wrong) the McDs versions
| are "idiot proofed" in ways that the other restaurant
| machines aren't.
|
| The complaint is you can't de-idiot proof it, even if you
| know what you're doing (and some McDs franchises are owned
| by people who run other restaurants with the other
| machines).
|
| It's quite possible that McDs requires these idiot-proof
| ones because the risk of "someone got sick from the ice
| cream gonorreah machine" is too high.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| This. They breakdown on purpose if not cleaned. Being
| dairy and all, I think it's a good plan.
| bsder wrote:
| The McDonald's machines _ARE_ unique and supposedly
| superior. They can sterilize the feed liquid without
| removing it from the machine.
|
| Nominally, this is far more idiot proof than other machines
| which are dependent upon underpaid fast food staff cleaning
| the machine correctly every single night.
|
| The problem is that Taylor didn't allocate enough
| development funding because the sales volumes are low and
| consequently they produced an unreliable machine. Even
| worse, Taylor gets to double dip by being the only people
| allowed to repair the unreliable machine.
|
| McDonald's only cares in that the machine doesn't give
| customers food poisoning--for them, mission accomplished.
| Taylor only sees positive cashflow from repair and
| consequently has zero incentive to improve the machine--
| mission accomplished.
|
| The fact that the franchisees get shafted isn't on the
| radar.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| The problem exists outside the arena of franchisor/franchisee
| relationships. The downthread idea of a DMCA exemption for
| repair reasons is a very good one.
| kube-system wrote:
| Yeah, a DMCA exemption for repair is a great idea. It has
| absolutely nothing to do with lemon law, however.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"McDonalds franchises are required to buy those specific
| Taylor machines."_
|
| This is the weird part. Why doesn't McDonald's step in and
| certify an additional equipment supplier so that franchisees
| have a choice?
|
| This would put competitive pressure on Taylor to improve
| their machines, since franchisees are likely to avoid
| equipment that is unreliable or has high maintenance costs.
|
| McDonald's customers would be happier too. It reflects poorly
| on the McDonald's brand that there is this constant guessing
| game (or having to check in the app) of whether shakes and
| flurries etc are available at any given time/location.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| McDonald's corporate doesn't give a shit about the health
| of their franchises, they're getting kickbacks every time
| they renew their contract with Taylor. Taylor makes non-
| garbage ice cream machines that work just fine at, e.g.
| Wendy's.
|
| McDonald's just has the brand-recognition and clout to get
| away with a shitty corrupt practice for the moment, so
| that's what they're doing. For money.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Because the only thing McD cares about is getting theirs
|
| "Ice Cream machine out of operation because of technical
| issue?" Not their problem
| pwg wrote:
| > Better Idea: A Lemon Law for commercial equipment.
|
| Even better idea:
|
| Amend the DMCA to permanently add an exemption for bypassing
| DRM for repair purposes.
|
| Of course it likely won't happen because those most impacted by
| the adjustment of the statute would buy a sufficient number of
| congress critters to block passage of the amendment.
| Simulacra wrote:
| Be thankful for your government, it's the best that money can
| buy.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| That is actually what the FTC and DOJ is proposing here, when
| reading their actual ask rather than blogspam poorly
| rehashing it.
|
| > _This proceeding concerns possible temporary exemptions to
| the DMCA's prohibition against circumvention of technological
| protection measures ("TPMs") that control access to
| copyrighted works, including functional software that
| facilitates the repair and monitoring of consumer and
| industrial product_
|
| McDonalds soft serve are mentioned only as an example of what
| would benefit
|
| > _As described by Public Knowledge and iFixit, four "index"
| examples of commercial and industrial device categories would
| benefit from the proposed expansion: commercial soft serve
| machines, proprietary diagnostic kits, programmable logic
| controllers, and enterprise IT_
|
| > _The proposed expansion would benefit competition in areas
| beyond those outlined by Public Knowledge and iFixit. For
| example, increasingly sophisticated agricultural equipment
| often employs onboard computers that control error
| identification and repair, limiting options for farmers in
| need of quick repairs._
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/ATR-FTC-
| JointCo...
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Nice to see PLCs called out here-- they're ground zero for
| traditional factory automation, and are typically the easy
| route to anything that needs to be low volume and
| programmable while also being capital-s Safe.
|
| But anything smarter than a tape-following AGV also has a
| computer on it running a bunch of high level perception and
| control software, so there's a natural friction point
| there, particularly if the PLC can only be flashed from
| proprietary Windows-based software.
| bsza wrote:
| It will probably cost you a lot of money to figure out _how_
| to bypass the DRM though, assuming that's even possible at
| all. That's money you should never have to pay in the first
| place.
| teeray wrote:
| Sounds like we also need a DRM FOIA.
| donmcronald wrote:
| > It will probably cost you a lot of money to figure out
| how to bypass the DRM though
|
| This is the reason I think we've been "allowed" to get some
| right to repair laws passed. The legislators are a decade
| behind and, now that tech is good enough to make bypassing
| impossible, the lobbyists are letting the government pass
| legislation that gives you the right to do something that's
| technically impossible. The legislators are like a younger
| sibling playing with an unplugged Nintendo controller.
|
| And, even if someone _can_ figure out a bypass, the barrier
| to getting there is so high that they 'll most likely
| charge a huge premium too.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| Best Idea: companies that inflict unreliable & high-maintenance
| crap on the market naturally go out of business because people
| freely choose to no longer purchase their unreliable and high-
| maintenance crap.
| Y_Y wrote:
| So you're proposing to change the people. I can't imagine
| that's easier than changing the law, even if I agree with you
| that the free market should solve the problem.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| From what I understand (could be wrong): McDonalds forces
| their franchises to buy these Taylor ice cream machines,
| and despite the high cost and frequency oof repairs,
| McDonalds franchisees continue to own and operate McDonalds
| meaning that despite the troubles, it is still worth it. If
| the ice cream machine caused a big of an issue, McDonalds
| would see less franchisees, and discern from their research
| that the machine was an issue, and change brands.
|
| Again, it starts with the customer. If people really are
| _that_ pissed off McDonalds ice cream machines are
| seemingly always broken, then they should stop going to
| McDonalds, and then the feedback loop will start from
| there. It 's not like there isn't ample other options
| (Wendys, Burger King, etc). That tells me that this
| "problem" is really overblown, and while McDonalds
| customers really would prefer to have the option to
| reliably order ice cream, it does not deter them
| significantly enough from consuming McDonalds, and doing
| something like simply purchasing their ice cream from a
| different location. If McDonalds wants to recoup that
| income, then they will, again, prioritize that initiative,
| and work on improving the ice cream machine, but again,
| that juice does not seem worth the squeeze.
| sahila wrote:
| You're making it out to be far simpler than reality.
| McDonald's is more than just an ice cream place, they
| sell Big Macs, fries, a clean place with wifi, and cheap
| coffee. It would have to be the sum of those worse off
| than a competitor.
|
| A bad ice cream machine could just mean sub optimal
| profits / experience.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| I don't know many, if any, fast food places in America
| that don't have wifi, coffee, fries, and try to keep
| their restaurant clean (Calling McDonalds clean is
| debatable). Taco Bell? Even they have Nacho Fries and
| coffee.
| robocat wrote:
| Perfectly spherical economic thinking.
|
| How many times do you see friends buying unreliable rubbish?
| I was talking with an acquaintance the other day and they
| were predictably complaining about the high maintenance costs
| of their VW. Another friend was spending huge amounts every
| year on their very good looking Jeep.
|
| Modern goods are fractally complex: individuals can't be
| expected to become experts in all the disciplines required to
| judge the quality of a good.
|
| Even specialists can't be expected to judge correctly.
|
| Government interference in purchase decisions is a big
| hammer. It is hard to imagine policies that would actually
| help.
|
| Plenty of the "solutions" suggested here cause other harms or
| are gameable or otherwise unworkable.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| For every "free market" there is an equal and opposite "can
| remain irrational longer than you can wait" it seems
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Taylor isn't selling lemons. Their machines are among the best.
| They simply (like any soft serve machine) can't withstand
| improper use and they're being run mainly by teenagers who
| don't give a shit. The lack of serviceability is the problem
| here.
|
| McDonald's has for a few years been allowing franchisees to use
| Carpigiani (the other big brand in commercial ice cream
| machines) but they're not better machines and while they are
| much more open in regards to servicing, parts must come from
| Italy and wait times are longer. Most of the franchisees are
| still opting for Taylor even though they have a choice.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| The average age of a McDonalds employee is 23.
| https://www.zippia.com/mcdonalds-crew-member-
| jobs/demographi...
|
| I'd also like to add my own experience with jobs that tell me
| constantly to go faster and faster: that you have to do
| everything so fast requires a certain level of durability in
| your equipment and tools. If you are moving fast, you have
| less leeway to be careful with things.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Ok 23 isn't that far from teenager and I agree employers
| are at least partially (maybe largely) at fault, but that
| just backs up that Taylor is not selling lemons.
| Kerrick wrote:
| The average age of a workplace being run by one 60-year-old
| manager employing five 16-year-olds is also 23.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Then maybe they should hire fewer 16 year olds.
| margalabargala wrote:
| If the mean age is 23, then the median age is likely much
| lower.
| nightfly wrote:
| > brittle plastic gears
|
| That fail protecting the rest of the mechanisms
| grecy wrote:
| > _companies that inflict unreliable & high-maintenance crap on
| the economy need to suffer sustained fiscal agony_
|
| You're not wrong, but your proposal is going to limit the
| ability of companies to extract profit, and if there's one
| golden rule of our current Capitalist society, it's that you
| don't limit profits!
| stouset wrote:
| > brittle plastic gears
|
| FWIW, in most cases this is done intentionally not as a cost-
| saving measure but to improve repairability. It's cheaper and
| easier to have a 5C/ nylon gear fail when subjected to out-of-
| spec loads than to have catastrophic failure of multiple
| structural parts that happen to be the weakest link in the
| kinetic chain from the motor.
|
| This does also cause them to fail through regular use, but
| having to do minor maintenance is a fundamental aspect of
| operating machines that are designed to be repaired and not
| simply thrown away.
| Atotalnoob wrote:
| Do all of them need to be plastic, or can just one?
|
| Typically what I have seen is one gear is plastic and the
| rest are metal
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Also depends what the larger policy is around that one
| designed-to-fail part. Is it a toolless swap, with the
| store manager having a baggy of them in a cabinet
| somewhere?
|
| Or is even the sacrificial component only able to be
| swapped out by a special technician who must be specially
| summoned with some amount of cost and lead-time?
| simcop2387 wrote:
| That'll depend a lot on the plastics and forces involved.
| Sometimes metal against plastic like that will increase the
| wear of the plastic parts because of the differences in
| hardness of the materials.
| adolph wrote:
| > when subjected to out-of-spec loads
|
| A clutch similar to a drill could be used to protect a drive
| chain.
| aow83u45oaw8u wrote:
| Why should McDonalds be individually saved from a shitty contract
| that they signed? How about we fix the crappy DMCA anti-
| circumvention clause that has been causing problems for tons of
| people since 1999? Oh, because this will provide press coverage
| and notoriety for somebody who's probably up for reelection soon.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Sometimes a contract is a bad contract, but it's not known how
| bad at first reading. There should absolutely be a mechanism
| for nullifying in whole or in part contracts that are this way.
| Especially if the contract forces you to purchase equipment
| that does not work. After all, a contract is just a piece of
| paper than can easily be torn up. You're trying to make it some
| magical binding spell type of thing instead
| LoganDark wrote:
| > After all, a contract is just a piece of paper than can
| easily be torn up.
|
| The piece of paper just represents the contract, other forms
| of contracts exist (such as digital, verbal). I agree there
| should be an easier way to get out of shitty ones. But make
| it too easy and you make contracts too weak. It's a balancing
| act.
| treyd wrote:
| There is a mechanism, a judge can decide to unilaterally
| annul a contract and order the parties involve to form a new
| one that they mediate the negotiation and terms of.
| dylan604 wrote:
| including if there's an arbitration clause?
| connicpu wrote:
| McDonald's the corporation is not being hurt by this contract,
| in fact they are heavily profiting from it. Independently owned
| individual franchises are the ones suffering from this machine
| that corporate forces them to use.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I don't understand what the public problem is here.
|
| People are free not to operate a franchise. Why should I,
| John Q. Public, care if some restaurant owner enters into a
| shitty contract with McDonald corporation or a ice cream
| machine vendor.
|
| Ice cream isn't exactly a human right.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Corporate likes the status quo since they get a kickback from the
| manufacturer for each repair
|
| The more I read about franchises, the more I'm convinced that
| most people are just "buying a job" and not starting a business.
|
| https://www.mashed.com/178309/how-much-mcdonalds-franchise-o...
|
| The rate of return from starting a McDonald's franchise is less
| than the average return of just throwing your money into an index
| fund and most owners work ungodly hours
| 20after4 wrote:
| Just being a manager in the fast food industry is a really bad
| job, also. Overworked and underpaid. I wouldn't want anything
| to do with any of it.
| bombcar wrote:
| The key is they're buying a job they can buy more of later; if
| you get a McDs off the ground (you need about $500k in cash and
| assets - like land, you can borrow the rest) you will have a
| much easier time expanding.
|
| Most McDs franchises run a few of them.
| whartung wrote:
| The McDs ice cream experience is just flat out the worst.
|
| It's like ice cream lottery. "Boy, a bit of ice cream might be
| nice!"
|
| And it's a total crapshoot. Drive up with no idea whether it's
| going to happen or not. You want to just write it off, give up,
| "McDs doesn't sell ice cream".
|
| But then you go another day, and there it is on the menu, teasing
| you!
|
| Lies. Deception.
|
| So aggravating.
| anonymousab wrote:
| Since this is a case of McDonald's corporate and Taylor joining
| hands to exploit their franchisees, I'm not sure how this will
| help.
|
| If they get it have the legal right to repair the machines, it's
| kinda pointless if McDonald's corporate merely needs to send down
| an order such that all franchises must not repair their own ice
| cream machines, as they would for any other kickback-driven
| franchise requirement.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Wow, the apocryphal story I thought was just that the machines
| were a pain to clean, so they were always "broken." I had no idea
| there was a whole corporate kickback scheme behind it all.
| reilly3000 wrote:
| I was a bit shocked to learn about a $900M lawsuit over a
| Raspberry Pi device. At first I thought it was Taylor suing them
| out of existence, but it's actually Kytch suing McDonald's
|
| https://www.farm-equipment.com/blogs/6-opinions-columns/post...
| lxe wrote:
| We should add more specific exceptions to 1201 of DMCA to prevent
| rampant abuse and this unrepairability nonsense.
| dexwiz wrote:
| The whole Taylor repair scenario reeks of some sort of corporate
| kickback scheme. Taylor makes a deal with corporate that forces
| franchises to buy a subpar machine. Every time the machine goes
| down Taylor gets a repair order and corporate extracts power by
| potentially revoking the franchise if the owner seeks other means
| to repair it.
|
| Talking to McDonalds workers one main complaint was that every
| item on the menu required a special machine. McDonald's more
| closely resembles a factory than a kitchen.
| gamepsys wrote:
| > every item on the menu required a special machine
|
| * One of McDonald's well known qualities is how consistent
| their products are. This is largely because every McDonald uses
| the same ingredients, the same equipment, and the same process.
|
| * Assembly line production is a key part of how McDonald's
| maintains speed. Not surprised to see that the equipment
| resembles factory equipment.
|
| * All of this is highly visible to the customer. You see inside
| the kitchen when you place an order inside the restaurant.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| That's curious - we use the Taylor machines with almost '0
| downtime' besides maintenance (scheduled and rarely interferes
| with customers). The tech who installed our machines says it's
| all a _skill issue_ with anyone who can 't keep these machines
| up. According to him, the issues are rare / negligent maintenance
| and very old product left entirely too long in the machine. He
| will have one from our machines, but never from some other
| establishments.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Out of curiosity, who's "we"?
| jolux wrote:
| The specific one used at McDonald's, the C602?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_ice_cream_machine
|
| The C602 is supposedly _exclusive_ to McDonald 's, which if you
| watch the video posted elsewhere in this thread, explains why
| their machines are less reliable than those of other chains.
| notherhacker wrote:
| They shouldn't get an exception, the law is painful as designed
| and consumers have to deal with it so should they.
|
| The underlying laws should be removed. IP laws like this are
| unenforceable at a global level and don't help/protect the
| consumers. All they do is create artificial walled gardens. There
| is no reason that its illegal to jailbreak an iPhone, or repair a
| tractor, or hack your bmw seat warmer. This is going to continue
| to lead us to a corporate hellscape.
|
| China has a more free market in this regard until the party shows
| up with a gun to tell you to do something for political reasons,
| but meanwhile they are able to leverage a more free market.
| kevincox wrote:
| I completely agree. The DCMA Anti-Circumvention rules are just
| a hack to make it easier to enforce copyright protections. But
| why should we make that easier? Why do we have a law making it
| illegal to do something that may be used for illegal purposes?
|
| It's a dumb law, let's get rid of it.
| runlevel1 wrote:
| In the US, IP law flows from this line of the Constitution:
|
| > [Congress shall have power] to promote the Progress of
| Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to
| Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective
| Writings and Discoveries.
|
| Are laws like this really helping promote the progress of
| science and useful arts? Because it sure does seem like it's
| doing the opposite.
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