[HN Gopher] We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
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We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
Author : LorenDB
Score : 262 points
Date : 2024-10-25 20:02 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ifixit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ifixit.com)
| mmmlinux wrote:
| Great, They made its so defeating the lock isn't illegal. Too bad
| selling the tool to do it is.
| dylan604 wrote:
| So don't sell. Open an account on GitHub and post the procedure
| there
| greensh wrote:
| from the article:
|
| > The ruling doesn't change the underlying statute making it
| illegal to share or sell tools that bypass software locks.
|
| I think this also includes sharing code.
| bebrbrhrj wrote:
| Is it trite to ask if this is blocking free speech?
| everyone wrote:
| Groups being motivated to ensure ice-cream machines are
| inoperable is a perfect example of a perverse incentive.
| kulahan wrote:
| They aren't; they're motivated to ensure ice-cream machines are
| only fixable by them. Still a perverse incentive. It makes zero
| sense for a company to be motivated to have their own
| product... not... work.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Your last sentence goes a bit too far. There are products
| that are "loss leaders" that the company does not want to
| actually sell
| kulahan wrote:
| A loss leader is working if it's increasing customer
| traffic. Nobody is going to McD's because they have
| amazing/cheap/highly-available ice cream.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| the loss leader is the ice cream machine
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| The coffee is pretty good, though.
| Aloisius wrote:
| I have definitely gone to McD specifically to get a shake
| on a hot day and driven away when told the ice cream
| machine was down.
| tedunangst wrote:
| What's the over/under on how many franchises will now resume
| selling ice cream?
| BoorishBears wrote:
| I think they're going to stop selling ice cream period as a
| company. If it was important to their bottom line McDonalds
| would have done something as a collective rather than having
| individuals enter this fight for back-channel repair options.
|
| At some point they'll probably have their main contracts expire
| and stop dealing with the mess altogether.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| All of this was unnecessary on the old ice cream machines. The
| downside was they had to be cleaned and sanitized every night and
| that meant you needed one more person on the closing team. It was
| all about saving labor costs.
| recursive wrote:
| It's also all about Taylor's exclusivity on repairing the
| machines.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Eh. Taylor doesn't fix the machines. You actually get a
| contract with an independent certified technician - quite
| often provided through the reseller who sold the machine.
| recursive wrote:
| Certified by a Taylor-accredited organization. The money
| all goes the same way. A distinction without a difference.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Taylor doesn't get paid for the vast majority of repairs.
| The money goes to the independent technician.
|
| They make some money for replacement parts, but that's
| rarely more than the occasional o-ring.
| janalsncm wrote:
| > It's also all about Taylor's exclusivity on repairing
| the machines.
|
| In context, it doesn't matter whether Taylor is getting
| paid or Santa Claus is. The problem is that McDonald's
| franchises were not able to fix them due to software
| locks.
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _McDonald 's ice cream machines are always broken and now the
| feds are involved_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40832988 - June 2024 (2
| comments)
|
| _FTC and DOJ want to free McDonald 's ice cream machines from
| DMCA repair rules_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39717558 - March 2024 (177
| comments)
|
| _McDonald 's ice cream machine hackers say they found 'smoking
| gun'_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38657192 - Dec 2023
| (230 comments)
|
| _The Real Reason McDonald 's Ice Cream Machines Are Always
| Broken [video]_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38232983 -
| Nov 2023 (2 comments)
|
| _iFixit tears down a McDonald's ice cream machine, demands DMCA
| exemption for it_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37325200
| - Aug 2023 (6 comments)
|
| _Why McDonald 's Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken and How to
| Fix Them_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37319841 - Aug
| 2023 (3 comments)
|
| _iFixit Petitions Government for Right to Hack McDonald 's Ice
| Cream Machine_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37311239 -
| Aug 2023 (301 comments)
|
| _Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald 's_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30527939 - March 2022 (154
| comments)
|
| _New emails released in the McDonald's ice cream machine
| lawsuit_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29325507 - Nov
| 2021 (138 comments)
|
| _Ask HN: Are McFlurries suddenly back now that lawsuit is
| pending?_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28581906 - Sept
| 2021 (14 comments)
|
| _McDonald's unreliable ice cream machines reportedly under FTC
| investigation_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28407525 -
| Sept 2021 (41 comments)
|
| _Investigating why McDonald 's ice cream machines are often
| broken [video]_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26936774 -
| April 2021 (234 comments)
|
| _The Reason McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26932344 - April 2021 (3
| comments)
|
| _They Hacked McDonald's Ice Cream Machines-and Started a Cold
| War_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26874436 - April 2021
| (4 comments)
|
| _I reverse engineered McDonalds' internal API_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24861623 - Oct 2020 (420
| comments)
| mcdow wrote:
| Here's a great YT video on why McDonald's ice cream machines are
| always broken: https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4
|
| TL;DW: there are some perverse incentives to keep them broken.
| Basically the owner operators are forced to use a particular
| brand by corporate. Corporate McDonalds has a deal with a
| particular ice cream machine company. That particular company is
| the only company owner operators are allowed to buy from, and the
| only company allowed to service the machines. And it's no skin
| off of McDonald's back for these machines to always be broken,
| the cost falls on the owner-operators.
| hansvm wrote:
| Implicit here is the assumption that (a) when evaluating many
| franchises McD is still attractive for new owner operators
| despite the obvious flaw, or (b) switching costs are high for
| existing McD owner operator victims, and the issue wasn't known
| or believed to be this bad when they started.
| Aloisius wrote:
| US franchises have been able to buy machines from Carpigiani
| instead of Taylor for ~7 years.
| jessriedel wrote:
| I don't understand the last sentence. If the machines are
| frequently broken, that damages the Macdonald's brand in the
| consumer's eyes. And if the franchisee's are paying unnecessary
| costs, making a Macdonald's franchise less lucrative for the
| owner-operator, that will lead to fewer franchises renewals and
| new franchises in the future.
| lbourdages wrote:
| I'm sure corporate has done the math and concluded that
| whatever money the machine provider pays them is higher than
| any expected losses in franchise revenue due to franchise
| owners quitting due to poor ice cream sales.
| aeturnum wrote:
| There's an uncertain future cost (basically an externality
| that impacts McDonald corporate) but in return they get a
| nice premium now and immediate uncertainty for franchisees.
| It's possible it's overall a net negative for MD corporate,
| but it's also possible it's an overall economically
| profitable trade (even though it's clearly immoral).
| mcdow wrote:
| Been a while since I first watched the video. I would imagine
| the ice cream machines are a relatively small part of the
| McDonald's business. As evidenced by the fact that McDonalds
| ice cream has been an issue for quite a while. I would
| imagine franchises of a similar caliber to McD's also exploit
| their owner-operators on a similar scale because they can, we
| just don't necessarily hear about it because McDonalds is the
| largest.
|
| McDonald's isn't known for its quality anyway. I've had my
| fair share of sketchy McDonalds experiences. McDs is as large
| as it is because it is cheap, convenient, and ubiquitous.
| McDonalds has no qualms with cutting corners on quality, as
| evidenced by its entire menu.
| 14 wrote:
| The days of cheap McDonald's is long gone. I can get a meal
| served at a sit down cafe for about the same price now
| days.
| WD-42 wrote:
| But it's still just as poor quality, if not worse than
| before. Last time I ate there I bit down on something in
| my burger so hard I thought I broke a tooth. I'll never
| eat it again.
| yakz wrote:
| McDonald's pricing is complicated. You can still get
| cheap McDonald's, but it requires giving them something
| in return (e.g. information about you).
| wvenable wrote:
| Modern capitalism isn't particularly rational. Money in the
| pocket is more tangible than minor brand damage.
|
| If you want to be really cynical, you can assume that
| somebody at McDonald's and Taylor have crunched the numbers
| they know exactly how much they can squeeze their franchisees
| and the customer to effectively make money out of nothing. So
| many businesses operate this way now.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I don't understand the last sentence. If the machines are
| frequently broken, that damages the Macdonald's brand in the
| consumer's eyes.
|
| Try to quantify that to the MBA bean counters, good luck.
|
| No one cares about ice cream from Mc f..ing Donald's, given
| that most employees in fast food stores are high school kids
| and I got the runs more than once from that shit, I don't
| trust them anyway to follow up with the stringent hygiene
| requirements that serving ice cream demands. Burger patties
| at least are grilled/fried.
| vidarh wrote:
| > No one cares about ice cream from Mc f..ing Donald's
|
| People care enough that there's a website mapping working
| McDonalds icecream machines across several countries, that
| has been up for years, and was referenced in the linked
| article:
|
| https://mcbroken.com/
|
| Quite a few places where softserve ice cream is not that
| widespread, McDonalds is one of the most reliable places to
| be able to find it.
| valbaca wrote:
| > If the machines are frequently broken, that damages the
| Macdonald's brand in the consumer's eyes.
|
| They are and it doesn't matter. You don't go to McD for the
| ice cream. It's been a running joke for decades how they're
| always broken.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Here 's a great YT video on why McDonald's ice cream
| machines are always broken:
| https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4?si=IK1S-Yx9Zq4nEVrr_
|
| As habit or policy, can we all agree to get rid of the tracking
| information in Youtube links?
|
| * https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4
| mcdow wrote:
| My bad! Fixed. Didn't even realize the YT links had tracking
| info on them!
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| FYI, it's the "si" query parameter; It identifies the
| account that clicked the share button
| sofixa wrote:
| Similarly Instagram started adding tracking querystrings
| (igshid or something like that), and for a good few weeks any
| Instagram link with it was completely broken for me (few
| loops, errors, and throwing me to the home page), I had to
| manually remove that part of the url.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Very weird, here in Canada I don't think I've ever been to a
| McDonald's without working ice cream machines.
| 486sx33 wrote:
| Well that or they have the option to buy the real Italian
| machine not the Taylor piece of crap. It's just super expensive
| and comes from Italy
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Most importantly, McDonalds has a strong incentive to avoid
| headlines like "37 people hospitalized after shit-bacteria in
| improperly maintained ice cream machine", which is why the
| machines self-monitor and shut down at the slightest excursion
| from some specified norm.
|
| And McD wants the machines maintained by the official
| technician, because they'd rather screw their franchisees a bit
| than risk someone ripping out the offending sensor.
|
| IMO, the perverse incentives come on top of this (Taylor has no
| motivation to make the machines more transparent since they
| profit from the call-outs, McD either doesn't care or may even
| prefer this since it could reduce the risk of "creative"
| solutions like an employee holding an ice cube next to a
| sensor), but the "McD would rather have 50% of the ice cream
| machines 'broken' than have a single one serve E.Coli to its
| customers" is what kicked this whole thing off.
| risho wrote:
| then why is it that its only the ice cream machines that have
| problems not not things like the soda fountain any other food
| production tool?
| edm0nd wrote:
| Perhaps because the environment the ice cream machines
| create are the most friendly to bacteria and other things
| that cause the most issues?
| valbaca wrote:
| soda is syrup and carbonated water, neither becomes a
| breeding pool at room temperature
| coder543 wrote:
| I wish we would just repeal the DMCA.
|
| Under no circumstances should we need an exemption from the
| copyright office just to be able to repair an ice cream machine.
| It's not even a permanent exemption! The DMCA causes many weird
| problems.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Disney was willing to go to the ends of the Earth to protect
| Mickey mouse...
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| And Paraguay won
| lolinder wrote:
| Reference for those who didn't see it:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41550417
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I really have to wonder if the BoJack Horseman writers
| knew about this when they wrote the Disney trademark
| episode.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Well they didn't literally go to every last square km on
| planet Earth... so it's not that surprising.
| eli wrote:
| Sure, but the anti-circumvention provisions in particular
| just inconvenience everyone. It's not like DVDs being
| "protected" prevented them from being ripped.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Do you think people should face consequences for piracy? If
| not, should DRM be legal then?
| coder543 wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer, but I think it's pretty clear that piracy
| is not illegal _because_ of the DMCA; it's illegal because it
| violates normal copyright laws. Repealing the DMCA would not
| change the legal status of piracy.
|
| Repealing the DMCA also wouldn't make DRM illegal, but DRM
| would still be exactly as (in)effective as it has already
| proven to be countless times. DRM has done nothing to
| restrict piracy, as far as I can tell.
|
| Repealing the DMCA would simply allow people to more freely
| break DRM in pursuit of lawful purposes, which are currently
| restricted unfairly, including activities that would fall
| strictly under Fair Use. I would argue the DMCA is infringing
| my legal rights for no benefit to society.
|
| Distributing copies of copyrighted content without
| authorization was unlawful long before the DMCA.
| StrangeDoctor wrote:
| (not op) I think DMCA specifically should be repealed. We can
| still have DRM/Copyright/etc if enough people want it, we
| could look at other systems, but DMCA itself is awful.
| Repealing it doesn't make any statement about piracy.
| xbar wrote:
| Piracy was just as Federally illegal prior to the DMCA. Think
| back to Streetfighter....
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| It's a simple question. I know it's illegal. Should regular
| people face consequences or not? The status quo is "no,"
| which is the first step to understanding why making
| consequences for circumventing DRM is a bitter compromise
| that is maybe the best option.
| nemomarx wrote:
| I'm not sure I follow. In the case where breaking DRM
| isn't illegal, but piracy still is illegal, what happens
| that you think is bad?
| twothreeone wrote:
| It's still weird to me that we ended up in a world in which
| every bit of information can now be copied at zero cost and
| instead of heralding and building upon that technological
| achievement we've somehow decided that instead we're going to
| make laws to protect and enforce rent seeking instead. I assume
| it's one of those things where a few corpos just outplayed 99%
| of the population; just like universal health care, or public
| education.
| staplers wrote:
| I assume it's one of those things where a few corpos just
| outplayed 99% of the population
|
| "The key element of social control is the strategy of
| distraction that is to divert public attention from important
| issues and changes decided by political and economic elites"
|
| -Chomsky
| kiba wrote:
| Everyone believe they need copyright, therefore it is the
| status quo.
| Teever wrote:
| Does everyone believe that we need copyright to be the
| exact way that it is though?
|
| I'm pretty sure that the reason that copyright laws are
| the way they are is because certain industries in the US
| lobby the government to strong arm other countries into
| adopting onerous copyright restrictions as part of free
| trade agreements.
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| The DMCA, though a mostly terrible law, actually doesn't prohibit
| any of what the ice cream machine people want to do, at least
| according to the CAFC.
|
| Chamberlain v. Skylink, final court of appeals for the federal
| circuit opinion, page 39:
|
| "Underlying Chamberlain's argument on appeal that it has not
| granted such authorization lies the necessary assumption that
| Chamberlain is entitled to prohibit legitimate purchasers of its
| embedded software from "accessing" the software by using it.
|
| Such an entitlement, however, would go far beyond the idea that
| the DMCA allows copyright owner to prohibit "fair uses . . . as
| well as foul." Reimerdes, 111 F. Supp. 2d at 304.
|
| Chamberlain's proposed construction would allow copyright owners
| to prohibit exclusively fair uses even in the absence of any
| feared foul use.
|
| It would therefore allow any copyright owner, through a
| combination of contractual terms and technological measures, to
| repeal the fair use doctrine with respect to an individual
| copyrighted work--or even selected copies of that copyrighted
| work. Again, this implication contradicts SS 1201(c)(1) directly.
| Copyright law itself authorizes the public to make certain uses
| of copyrighted materials. _Consumers who purchase a product
| containing a copy of embedded software have the inherent legal
| right to use that copy of the software. What the law authorizes,
| Chamberlain cannot revoke._ " (Emphasis mine)
| yreg wrote:
| I've heard plenty of stories about the MCD ice cream machines,
| but it doesn't add up for me. Can someone who has more insight
| shed some light into this?
|
| - Are the machines listed as "broken" on https://mcbroken.com/
| actually broken? Or is that more of a meme, with many just
| undergoing routine cleaning, etc.?
|
| - Why does this seemingly happen only in US? In European
| McDonald's it's pretty much unheard of.
|
| - Why would McDonald's Corp. be happy with the status quo? Is it
| some kind of tactic to squeeze more revenue from the franchises?
| If so, why not address it in the franchise agreement and just let
| restaurants sell more ice cream?
| crooked-v wrote:
| The short version is that the machines' sensors are extremely
| picky (because the stuff that goes into soft serve is just
| begging for massive bacterial growth if not handled correctly),
| and McDonald's corporate requires (I'm pretty sure by
| franchisee contract, not just by the copyright restrictions the
| article is about) that their specific chosen vendor handles it,
| even for minor issues.
|
| A lot of people like to treat this as a conspiracy, but I think
| it's much more likely it's the corporate people being paranoid
| about local franchisees overriding the machines, and that
| leading to listeria outbreaks happening in the only non-sealed
| food item that isn't heated to safe temperatures shortly before
| it's handed off to customers.
|
| I don't know about the contrast with Europe, but it might just
| be geographical size causing time delays for individual techs
| showing up. McDonald's franchisees are everywhere, and the U.S.
| is gigantic.
| somethoughts wrote:
| I suspect its a probably a combination of abundance of
| caution based on past bad experiences/lawsuits as well as
| also being good for margins:
|
| The Surprising Reasons Soft-Serve Ice Cream Can Be Dangerous
| To Eat
|
| https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/surprising-reasons-soft-
| serv...
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7149927
|
| From 2005:
|
| More than 120 people were sickened after eating ice cream at
| their local McDonald's. The health department says the
| restaurant's dairy mixture somehow was contaminated with
| staphylococcus, and a mechanical malfunction in the soft
| serve machine allowed the bacteria to grow. So many people
| became so ill, so quickly, the director of the local
| emergency room told me he at first thought there was some
| kind of bioterrorism incident in the town.... Nancy Smith
| says she had taken her grandchildren for an outing, and
| stopped at McDonald's to buy them a treat. Her grandson
| Darien had a milkshake, and she says he was violently ill an
| hour later. He became limp and listless, Smith says, and they
| rushed him to the hospital, scared to death. Then she got
| sick. She says she had just three sips of Darien's shake, but
| it was enough to make her very ill. She told us she was
| vomiting so violently, she thought she was going to have a
| heart attack. She's now suing McDonald's, as are many of the
| other people who got sick in that incident.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| In UK McDo often have broken ice-cream machines too, at least
| where I've been. It seems to be higher incidence than other
| fastfood outlets (Burger King, KFC), but that might be observer
| bias.
|
| I just figure margins must be low on their ice-creams, so when
| it's broken they sell more fountain drinks and make more money
| than they would if the ice-cream machine was fixed.
| 0x457 wrote:
| > - Why does this seemingly happen only in US? In European
| McDonald's it's pretty much unheard of.
|
| Because only in the US, employees fill it up above max line.
| Rugu16 wrote:
| First great write up and second kudos to iFixit for fighting this
| fight.
| from-nibly wrote:
| Nice, the politicians were able to get some brownie points on a
| hot button issue without actually doing anything! Good for them,
| I bet they feel proud, they deserve some of the ice cream they so
| valiantly saved.
| gkoberger wrote:
| The US Copyright Office isn't elected, and the woman running it
| was appointed by a non-political appointee herself.
|
| I have a pretty negative view of politics, too, but it doesn't
| mean we can't be happy when something good happens - no matter
| how small. The government doesn't pay well, and while we know
| the names of a dozen or so shitty self-serving jerks in
| Congress, most people in the government are genuine people
| doing it to help others.
| subarctic wrote:
| > Meanwhile, Canada is in the final stages of considering
| legislation that would fix the Canadian version of the DMCA, a
| bill called C-244 that is in its third reading in the Senate and
| expected to move before the end of the month. If Canada legalized
| circumventing technological protection measures for the purposes
| of repair, we might just have to head north to find the tools we
| need to do repairs.
|
| That's good news, I didn't know about that bill. It looks like it
| was voted for unanimously in parliament. It's nice when you hear
| about our government doing something good for once.
| wwweston wrote:
| Note this part:
|
| > This time, the FTC and DOJ even weighed in to support our
| petition.
|
| See also:
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/News/92942/the-ftc-and-doj-call-for-i...
|
| Elections matter.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| 15%?!
|
| Is this a uniquely American thing because I can't remember _ever_
| having a "sorry our machine is down" in Ontario.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Certainly not a uniquely American thing, 15% sounds low for the
| places in Europe where I tried...
| assanineass wrote:
| What the fuuck
| lysace wrote:
| Bad headline. No, they can't. They are now _allowed_ to, but they
| don 't have the actual ability to to so.
|
| Clickbait.
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|
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