[HN Gopher] We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
___________________________________________________________________
We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
Author : LorenDB
Score : 1027 points
Date : 2024-10-25 20:02 UTC (1 days 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?
| delroth wrote:
| This has recently been challenged in courts and rejected:
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/federal-appeals-
| court-...
|
| > Integral to the Court's decision was the conclusion
| that Section 1201's ban on circumvention of access
| restrictions is a regulation of "conduct" rather than
| "speech."
| roastedpeacock wrote:
| Anyone know if EFF is going to attempt further appeals?
| 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.
| davidczech wrote:
| Isn't the same machine used for milkshakes? That's kind of
| staple of burger joints.
| wokwokwok wrote:
| Yeah, but the point is that MacDonalds obviously doesn't
| _want_ to sell icecream.
|
| Maybe it's low margin.
|
| Maybe cleaning is expensive.
|
| Maybe it helps having the promise of cheap ice cream but
| "sorry not right now" leading customers to buy other (more
| expensive) items.
|
| It's not an incompetent organisation.
|
| If they wanted the machines to work, they would work.
|
| They don't.
|
| So... if anything changes out of this, it will be to keep
| the status quo; people coming in and not buying cheap ice
| creams.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| McDonald's also has no problem phasing out items from its
| menu. It does so with regularity. Why keep something on
| the menu that it doesn't want to sell? It either wants to
| sell it or it doesn't want to sell it.
| dangus wrote:
| Ice Cream products would be one of the last things they
| phase out.
|
| First, the ice cream machine produces multiple products:
| milkshakes, McFlurries, hot fudge sundaes, and ice cream
| cones.
|
| Second, dessert is an upsell and driver of APV. If you
| lack dessert options you basically leave money on the
| table from customers who are willing to buy dessert.
|
| Third, the ice cream machine, despite its problems, is a
| pretty small and manageable piece of equipment. It
| doesn't need an employee to babysit it like a fryer or
| flat top. The only thing simpler at a McDonald's is the
| Apple Pie heater.
|
| If you don't believe me, find a burger chain that _doesn
| 't_ have ice cream on the menu. Wendy's, Burger King,
| Shake Shack, Steak 'N Shake, In-N-Out, Whataburger,
| Culver's, Carl's Jr/Hardee's, seriously, which restaurant
| that serves burgers _doesn 't_ have ice cream/milkshakes?
| samatman wrote:
| The original McDonald's menu had nine items. One was a
| milkshake.
|
| This is never going to happen.
| dangus wrote:
| While I agree that the ice cream/milkshakes has been
| problematic for McDonald's from an operational
| standpoint, I think your business analysis is pretty
| terrible.
|
| If anything, ice cream products represent a very
| profitable item that often serves as an upsell helping
| drive the APV (average purchase value) higher.
|
| Milkshakes in particular have a unique "job to be done"
| in the drive-thru fast food industry:
| https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/clay-christensens-milkshake-
| marke...
|
| They can be eaten easily in the car, can be savored
| slowly over time on a long commute, and are relatively
| filling and inexpensive. There are a lot of people who
| actually consume them earlier in the day before work
| because of those characteristics.
|
| You'll notice that basically every burger chain offers
| milkshakes, and some even emphasize the shakes more than
| the food, like Shake Shack, Dairy Queen (which has quite
| good fast food burgers and food if you aren't aware), and
| Steak 'n Shake. They all do this because it's an
| extremely profitable product and a driver of high APV.
|
| The ice cream machines at McDonald's also deliver
| multiple products: McFlurry, hot fudge sundae,
| milkshakes, and ice cream cones. One small machine that
| dispenses vanilla soft serve can make a whole bunch of
| products.
| wokwokwok wrote:
| While some of that might be true, explain to me why an
| organisation like macdonalds would allow up to 30% of
| such machinery to be out of working order for years and
| years in high value areas.
|
| Your analysis posits what, that they're just blatantly
| incompetent?
|
| I don't believe that.
|
| If the economics of a working ice cream machine were that
| good, it would be a solved problem.
|
| You don't run an organisation like MacDonalds with a
| basic inability to maintain infrastructure. Imagine if
| that was true of fryers? Or microwaves? That almost never
| happens. It's clearly not a technical problem.
|
| The only way that you could justify the continued
| maintenance failure you see is if the benefits of a
| working machine were negligible at best.
|
| Perhaps what you say might be true _in general_ but in
| this _specific circumstance_ I think you're applying an
| "in general..." kind of logic (like "in general more unit
| tests are better...") which doesn't ring true here, to
| me.
| dangus wrote:
| I think it's actually telling that so many of them are
| broken but the product hasn't been discontinued. It tells
| you that it's not really a burdensome product to have on
| the menu.
|
| Dump the liquid in the machine, turn it on, empty and
| clean the machine at close. There's almost nothing else
| in the store that is so low-effort.
|
| I'm not saying that the high rate of failure isn't a
| problem or lost revenue.
|
| I also have a hunch that the problem disproportionately
| affects specific franchise owners who benefit from the
| product less than others.
| raverbashing wrote:
| You're assuming McD cares about anything but how much money
| they can get from their franchisees next quarter
|
| "You're fixing our crappy machine yourself (translation:
| figure out code XYZ means it was overfilled or that AYZ means
| it froze and needs to be flushed) instead of hiring a service
| technician where we make some more money on top? We can't
| allow that!"
|
| McDs are one of the worse franchises to own. Very tightly
| controlled with minuscule profit margins
|
| I'm sure a lot of older franchisees want nothing but sell
| their businesses, especially in areas with lowering traffic
| talldayo wrote:
| God damn. Antitrust comes up and HN insists that businesses
| are just going to pull out of the EU any day now. McDonalds
| is forced to start fixing their ice cream machines and now
| you want to tell us that they'll refuse to serve ice cream
| out of petty anger.
|
| Do we just assume every business is run by the zombie of
| Steve Jobs? I genuinely have no idea where this libertarian
| extremist sentiment is coming from.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| You're reading way too deep into this, good luck with all
| that.
| 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.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Which means sometimes you buy replacement machines from
| Taylor
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| What is a franchising fee or other franchising
| requirements? The shop is paying them money for the
| ability to get money for the repairs. Don't be
| intellectually dishonest.
| talldayo wrote:
| If Taylor accredits the technician, supplies the
| technician with proprietary tools for servicing Taylor
| devices, and furnishes them with replacement parts that
| can otherwise not be bought by consumers off the shelf -
| they are a Taylor employee. That is not independent
| repair, it is a racket.
| fhub wrote:
| 25% of Taylor's revenue (at least 3 years ago) were parts
| and repair services. source -
| https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4?si=n_L87Fx3VWeEz9Xz&t=1261
| bobsmooth wrote:
| And that you trust this person to clean the machine properly
| lest many people get food poisoning.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| True, though it was not complicated. Just took a person about
| 45 minutes. That was to do the milkshake and the soft serve
| machine. Did it many, many times when I worked there.
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| Can I ask why it takes / took 45 minutes? That feels like a
| lot to clean one machine.
|
| Was that all 'active' time or was there a 'put things in
| the dishwasher / autoclave and let it sterilize for X
| minutes?'
|
| Were there a lot of separate parts to wash?
|
| Now I'm curious :)
| loongloong wrote:
| Maybe a good idea to work for a short stint in a
| commercial kitchen?
|
| Not a snark.. it's quite eye opening to see (and actually
| use) how much food a piece of commercial kitchen
| equipment processeses in a day and then how much effort
| it takes to clean them.
|
| An example of cleaning a commercial deep fryer:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFR5CN_kuI0
|
| One can also try googling for other more detailed
| versions showing all the efforts in digging out all the
| burnt sediments/sludge :)
| bombcar wrote:
| Properly cleaning those types of machines is complicated.
| If you ever watch someone wash the soda machine it's an
| hour+ process.
|
| (And it's often skipped, if you ever get soda that tastes
| off you've found someplace that doesn't deep clean.)
| joezydeco wrote:
| I did this for a year and a half in high school.
|
| The McD procedure involves draining the barrel, flushing
| it with water, then disassembling each barrel assembly
| and removing every o-ring and gasket.
|
| https://youtu.be/SaYTx7qNJU4?si=Y2ZjWHQJHiKQfAFh
|
| Each part is washed in detergent, rinsed, and sanitized.
| Rings and gaskets are relubricated with food safe
| petroleum jelly, then everything is reassembled.
|
| Forget one ring or misalign one gasket and the machine
| will shoot dairy everywhere when repressurized. Cleanup
| and rework after that is messy, and probably wasted a lot
| of other nearby product and disposables. So don't do
| that.
|
| After reassembly the machine is flushed with sanitizer
| then clear water then primed with the mix you saved from
| the beginning. Let's hope you stored it properly in the
| cooler before it started to spoil. It's expensive. If
| nothing has exploded it's ready for use after an hour of
| cooling down.
|
| To do this in 45 minutes with no catastrophic errors is
| pro-level. And this is why McD went to a self-sanitizing
| machine.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Basically right, where I worked the parts were set in
| trays to air-dry overnight. There was a spot on the tray
| for each part, o-ring, and gasket so you could easily see
| if any were missing.
|
| The machines were reassembled the next morning. So the
| closers only had to break them down, wash, and sanitize.
|
| Once a week any dairy mix left in the machine was
| discarded, this "breaks the cycle" of any bacteria in the
| mix. So on that night, you tried to let the machines run
| very low to minimize waste.
|
| It's sort of complicated the first few times but it
| becomes very routine. Like everything at McDonalds, there
| is a detailed step-by-step written procedure on how to do
| it.
| joezydeco wrote:
| Yeah, I was thinking more about the grandparent above
| that said it took 45 minutes and that had to mean
| breakdown/cleaning/reassembly in one step. I was there in
| 1985-86 and we did like you said, one crew member did the
| cleaning at close and let it air dry for the morning
| crew. But that was also because shakes/ice cream wasn't
| served during the breakfast shift. Someone had time in
| the morning to assemble and prime the machine before
| 10:30am (me).
|
| I'm guessing 24/7 operation changed when and how the
| cleaning was done, leading to more contamination instead
| of less.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| If they can't be trusted with cleaning they should not be
| allowed in the kitchen.
|
| This is like asking if a developer can be trusted with a
| laptop
| hypeatei wrote:
| > asking if a developer can be trusted with a laptop
|
| This analogy doesn't seem to track with my experience:
| newer devs don't understand computers and filesystems at
| all :D
| delusional wrote:
| And a lot of workplaces in fact don't trust the devs with
| a laptop. Instead they get a text editor and compiler
| machine controlled by some sweaty guy in a cellar
| somewhere with a sign on the door that says "IT".
| 63stack wrote:
| I think this is getting more and more common. I had a job
| where I had to work remotely through citrix, because the
| company didn't trust developers to have their own
| computers. I have also heard stories from others having to
| do the same. It's the most brain wrecking way to work due
| to the latency when typing.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Agreed, and with these new machines, they should have two of
| them (for several reasons). I worked there for a couple years
| in high school and summertime was just order after order of ice
| cream. The lost profit from the only machine being broken, or
| during it's downtime to chill the soft serve liquid after a
| refill, would pay back the investment in one summer, not to
| mention the customer service improvement.
|
| The ad campaign for resolving this problem writes itself too.
| It's easily worth it. Worst case scenario, put the second
| machine where the pizza oven used to be.
| minitoar wrote:
| Is there anything stopping a franchise from putting 2? I
| think it can't be required because they have to meet some
| sort of smallest viable footprint.
| borski wrote:
| Cost, most likely.
| newsclues wrote:
| Space is a premium because much of their real estate is
| high traffic and cost, so every square foot is used
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Most of the sales at a McDonalds are via the drive-thru.
| Inside sales have dropped so low that many stores don't
| even staff the front counter, you have to enter your own
| order at a kiosk in the lobby or use their mobile app.
|
| I think your conjecture was correct 20 years ago but not
| at store with the latest remodels. Counter sales and
| inside dining are an afterthought.
|
| The ice cream machines (all restaurant equipment, really)
| is very expensive and you generally don't buy more than
| you will actually use.
| newsclues wrote:
| Space costs money per square foot, doesn't matter if it's
| in the kitchen or dining area.
|
| Lots of locations are in the smallest sized location
| possible that can fit everything they need to serve the
| menu.
| legacynl wrote:
| I think that the opportunity costs are just too high.
|
| Since the reliability of these machines seem very low, even
| having 2 machines doesn't guarantee that you're always able
| to serve ice cream.
|
| And if you're able to serve all your customers with one
| machine, in times when both are functioning, the second
| machine doesn't really enable more sales. But you do have
| to power it, have a dedicated space for it, have someone
| clean it daily, and pay for the maintenance contract.
|
| It's probably more beneficial to dedicate the space for an
| extra ice-cream machine to storage, frying station or
| something else that is more useful.
|
| Another point is that I don't think not being able to sell
| ice cream reduces sales that much. Because by the time you
| find out the machine is broken, you're already in the store
| or drive through anyway
| megablast wrote:
| Do they even make a profit on ice creams? I doubt it.
| RussianCow wrote:
| Of course they do. The cost of the ingredients is on the
| order of cents, the marginal cost of labor negligible, and
| the cost of the machines can be amortized over many
| thousands of servings.
|
| But even if they didn't, it's a cheap way to get people to
| show up and potentially order other, higher margin items.
| If your machine is broken, you lose that funnel and your
| customers go elsewhere.
| bombcar wrote:
| You don't lose many customers - because they're not
| required to light a huge "ice cream machine broke" before
| you get in the drive thru. And once you're in line and
| ordering you're unlikely to cancel just because the
| machine broke.
|
| I've even had the app be wrong and let you order an ice
| cream when it doesn't exist - then they lose money giving
| you a more expensive substitute.
| lukan wrote:
| But next time you might go somewhere else.
|
| Some people go there every day and they tell their
| friends - that sums up.
| bombcar wrote:
| True - it every time I've considered ice cream as an
| important part of the meal I've already disqualified
| McDonald's (Dairy Queen or Culver's is a step above).
| cj wrote:
| This summarizes my relationship with Chipotle.
|
| We have 1 location in my area. I go maybe once a month
| hoping for a decent experience, but every single time
| they are out of key ingredients (no chicken, no beans, no
| chips, etc).
|
| I really don't understand how that can even happen at
| Chipotle where the entire menu consists of a grand total
| of (maybe) 10-15 core ingredients?
|
| I would go way more often if they simply weren't out or
| ingredients 90% of the time I go.
|
| But he's right about not canceling the order. I think
| last chipotle visit I subbed black beans for pinto, and
| tofu instead of chicken. The "sorry no chips today" was
| icing on the cake at checkout.
| Psyonic wrote:
| That's interesting. I've gone to chipotle around once or
| twice a month for two decades now, and with the exception
| of their lemonades I've only had something unavailable
| maybe 3-4 times. Regional variation I guess.
| cj wrote:
| Check out r/chipotle - maybe it's an echo chamber there
| but it's a major problem with mobile orders where you
| don't have an opportunity to sub an ingredient that's out
| of stock. Depending on the store, chipotle mobile orders
| are a "fun" gamble - chipotle needs to fix quality
| standards across stores at least in my region!
|
| Chipotle is one of the very few businesses I have ever
| left a google review for because the complaint seems
| extremely simple to fix. Just stock your store and hire
| enough people to prep the food!
| 05 wrote:
| > But next time you might go somewhere else.
|
| But variable reinforcement works better than fixed one,
| so ice cream machines working being a gamble might
| actually increase customer addiction.
| 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)
| yuanchenxi95 wrote:
| An irrelevant question. How did you index the related
| hackernews threads?
| dang wrote:
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40564558 and the
| links back from there and let me know if you still have a
| question :)
| jb1991 wrote:
| Something tells me this comes up a lot.
| jeanlucas wrote:
| He is dang, his patience knows no boundaries
| 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.
| imtringued wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that ice cream is a high margin product
| like drinks and McDonald's has found an indirect way to
| extract most of the margins. The problem is that the
| technician service fees are a fixed cost designed to be
| revenue maximizing for the average restaurant. Franchises
| selling enough ice cream to pay the fixed costs stay in the
| game, the ones who don't simply keep them out of order.
| This is effectively a price discrimination strategy. By
| making the machine mandatory, they can offer the menu item
| in every restaurant, but they only have to collect money in
| proportion of ice cream revenue.
| 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).
| qingcharles wrote:
| Indeed, you can practically eat for free regularly at
| McD's if you use the app.
| nick3443 wrote:
| Ehh I've used the app for a while, that's a bit of an
| exaggeration. But you get some"good' prices.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > Indeed, you can practically eat for free _regularly_ at
| McD 's if you use the app.
|
| Bwahahah!
|
| Not only you give data about you but now you are actively
| prefer to eat at McD instead of any other option and _you
| are not even thinking about it._
| listenallyall wrote:
| I'd suggest the quality of McDonald's ingredients is
| superior than the vast majority of restaurants that rely on
| Sysco or US Foods. Just my opinion, I know it's not going
| to convince anyone whose mind is already made up about
| McDonald's.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| aww man dont tell people about sysco. Once you learn to
| spot unmodified sysco foods it's impossible to stop and
| the illusion of sitdown restaurants is tarnished forever.
| Jailbird wrote:
| What are good places to start down this rabbit hole? (for
| those willing to have their illusions tarnished? )
| alwa wrote:
| One option might be to visit your local Jetro or
| Restaurant Depot, if you live in the US. If Sysco has
| showrooms/open warehouses I'm not aware of them, but
| Jetro and RD are of a very similar ilk.
| imtringued wrote:
| Sure you can have french fries made from the best fat and
| potatoes but it doesn't change the fact that you're
| eating a burger with french fries instead of a steak with
| baked potatoes.
| 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.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _You don 't go to McD for the ice cream._
|
| Yeah. 'cause they don't have any 'cause the machine's
| broken.
| tedunangst wrote:
| I like how the answers include both "they've done the math
| and it's worth it" and "they're idiots who don't know what
| they're doing". I don't think anybody cares what's really
| going on, as long as they can say McDonald's is bad.
| dangus wrote:
| I think the machines are broken way less often than people
| give McDonald's negativity over. In my estimation that's
| probably why corporate hasn't cared to fix the problem until
| recently.
|
| Sure, a lot of people notice when they're broken, but a lot
| of people notice when AWS is down for an hour ~one time a
| year, too.
|
| On top of that, depending where you are if your local
| McDonald's has a broken ice cream machine you probably aren't
| all that far away from another one. Perhaps corporate gets
| their sale either way?
| 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?
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Then why does the Frosty machine always work at Wendy's?
| That's made by Taylor too.
| chongli wrote:
| The Wendy's frosty machine doesn't have the same
| automatic cleaning cycle and pasteurization feature that
| the McDonald's ice cream machine has. Thus Wendy's
| employees need to tear the machine down and clean it by
| hand, a long and tedious process.
|
| The whole reason McDonald's wanted this machine was to
| reduce training costs and labour. However, the machine
| does need to be operated correctly or it simply shuts
| down.
| Aloha wrote:
| As someone who has cleaned a soft serve machine, its not
| really long or tedious.
| saturn8601 wrote:
| Maybe for you but when closing a Wendys down for the
| night you need to begin the teardown process quite a bit
| before official closing time. You need to wait for the
| machine to allow the remaining frosty mix to melt, dump
| the remainder into a metal bucket (to use for tomorrow).
| Then you have to flush water through the machine to be
| able to disassemble it, then the machine needs to be
| loaded with a sanitizing solution (along with all the
| parts which are placed in the hopper).
|
| Finally you gotta re-do all of this the following
| morning! Sure its not like taking apart an iPhone but its
| not a 5 second job either.
|
| The worst part? This damn machine can only produce one
| flavor of frosty at a time! The mcdonalds machine avoids
| all of this, produces 3-4 flavors of milkshakes from one
| unit and handles soft serve ice cream!
| valbaca wrote:
| soda is syrup and carbonated water, neither becomes a
| breeding pool at room temperature
| slipperybeluga wrote:
| It's not a self-contained TPN compounder in a hospital
| cleanroom. It's a machine that has many parts that get
| wet with sugary water. It has parts that need to be
| cleaned that seldom are, and judging by the average fast
| food employee, would probably be better off left alone
| than further contaminated by them attempting to clean it.
| Google "soda fountain mold" and you will be stunned to
| see how nasty these can get. I don't eat fast food often,
| but I skip the drink unless it's from a meticulously
| clean place.
| cyberax wrote:
| In general, acidic or basic foods are very safe from
| bacterial contamination standpoint. Soda is very acidic
| (due to all that dissolved carbon dioxide).
|
| It's not that it doesn't get bacteria (they live
| everywhere), but it's unlikely to get pathogenic bacteria.
| This makes sense, a highly acidic environment is very
| different from a human body.
|
| That's why foods such as milk, ice cream, potato or egg
| salad, are the most dangerous from the bacterial
| contamination standpoint.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| In fact strong acids and bases are so safe they also kill
| the bacteria in the human body, along with the host.
| IWeldMelons wrote:
| Soda is not "very acidic", for the exception of coke,
| which has strong acid added to it. Carbonic acid is very
| weak, and won't prevent bacteria from growing.
| cyberax wrote:
| Carbonic acid has a pH of around 4 in sodas. Stomach acid
| is 3. Both are enough to discourage bacterial growth.
|
| It doesn't prevent _all_ bacteria, as I said. But it
| prevents most of pathogenic bacteria.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Yet Wendy's and Dairy Queen don't have the exact same
| incentives?
| dang wrote:
| Stories and comments about that video:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
|
| List of related threads:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41949811
| 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, outside of
| Fair Use scenarios.
| 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?
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| What is the difference between doing something illegal
| and having consequences and doing something illegal that
| has no consequences?
| 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.
|
| Whatever you feel about the merits of intellectual
| property laws the idea that they're wrapped up as 'free
| trade' when they in fact make things that would otherwise
| be free cost money is downright Orwellian.
|
| Maybe countries that don't really have a film or tv
| industry don't want to see copyright on those products
| and why would they? Why would they want to see their
| citizens paying American countries for something that
| would otherwise be free?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I'm fine going back to the old 14+14 rules copyright
| originally. having your creation for an entire generation
| seems appropriate. But opinions are all across the
| spectrum on this issue.
|
| I think the primary reason the "spirit" of current
| copyright broke down is because it's been reduced to
| hoarding over protecting. the idea is that I can license
| out an idea if I really want to make use of it. So
| creations flow and the company makes their own cut out of
| it.
|
| But I can't just walk up to Disney and pay 100 dollars
| ,1000, maybe even 1 million to grab Mickey Mouse and work
| with something. Depending on their products, they may not
| want anyone using Mickey period, even if there is no
| mickey product cycle. You basically need to be EA or
| Mattel or Warner Bros. to even begin being considered for
| such a thing.
|
| That's their right but it spoils the social contract.
| When everything by default is locked down, there is no
| creation flowing. Just broken dreams for abandoned
| franchises everyone else would love to make use of.
| t-writescode wrote:
| It's a reasonable stance to want copyright.
|
| It's an anti-consumer stance to force copyright to nearly
| 100 years and allow no format swapping under a
| hilariously broad set of normal transmission and format-
| swapping techniques.
| BadHumans wrote:
| No one has put forth a good argument about why I don't
| need copyright.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| There's definitely tiers of copyright to consider, which
| is part of the divisiveness on the issue. You wanting to
| protect your creation and get compensated for its IP for
| 10-20 years (so, a good portion of your life career) is
| very different from Disney wanting to delay Mickey mouse
| going into public domain. an IP its creator and studio
| already reaped trillions from over the century.
| kelnos wrote:
| No one should have to. If we're talking about
| putting/maintaining restrictions on people, the onus
| should be on the proponents to put forth a good argument
| why we need it.
| BadHumans wrote:
| Not when you are the one trying to change the status quo.
| Regardless of what you believe, if you want to change the
| default you need to explain to people why it should
| change. A self-righteous stance like yours will change
| nothing.
| twothreeone wrote:
| Well the argument is that the status quo is bad for all
| but a select few, so moving past it would be beneficial
| for basically nearly everybody.
|
| Rent seeking limits innovation, needlessly drives up
| costs, creates barriers where there shouldn't be any,
| encourages predatory economic behaviors, suppresses
| competition, and ultimately leads to monopolistic and or
| oligopolic wealth and power structures.
|
| It's universally bad practice that results in bad
| outcomes for society and we should move away from
| enabling and indeed incentivizing that kind of economic
| behavior.
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| Uhh, it's _because_ information can be easily copied that the
| laws were put in place. If anyone can "steal" your work then
| it would be a deterrent to invention.
|
| If I'm a business that can make money on the service contract
| I can sell the unit at a lower price. Now I'm forced to make
| the unit cost higher.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| This seems like a very one-sided take. Just look at all the
| artists (actors, painters, musicians, etc.) that are fighting
| tooth and nail against AI, and for good reason. While there
| are _plenty_ of issues with copyright, I don 't agree at all
| that just because the marginal cost of copying is 0 that if
| someone puts a ton of time and effort in creating a piece of
| work that I should just get to copy it for free.
| twothreeone wrote:
| That's not the argument though. The argument is that rent
| seeking as a business strategy is a deeply flawed and
| counter productive economic practice that ultimately limits
| our species' technological advancements and societal
| progress. The sooner we move past it, the better off we
| will all be. I agree that you should be able to create
| whatever you want and keep it 100%. So, clearly if someone
| were to steal your creation from your home and publish it
| online that would be theft. However, if you decided to take
| advantage of your creation by creating an infinite number
| of copies at no cost to you at all (which is what
| publishing through digital media means) that's your
| decision as a creator to make, nobody forced that on you.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I don't like your redefinition of "rent seeking" at all.
| If I create an original piece of art, and publish it
| digitally, preventing other people from freely copying
| that art is not rent seeking - the thing I created didn't
| exist in any form before I created it, and I'm not trying
| to "extract rent" from you by preventing you from
| creating any of your own works.
|
| Now, like I said previously, there are currently issues
| with copyright, and this can cross into rent seeking if I
| try to extract money from your own original works of art
| (see the family of Marvin Gaye), and there are issues
| with the length of copyright (i.e. I believe there is a
| fundamental difference in protecting the right of a
| creator while they're alive, vs. the rights of inheritors
| in perpetuity). But the whole concept of rent seeking is
| around using the power of government to extract money
| from others simply because you were there first, not
| around allowing unlimited copying of truly original
| works.
| visarga wrote:
| Before we invented copying machines there was no concept
| of copyright. It is a recent invention, and not how human
| culture evolved. And it was ok up until the internet was
| invented, but people want to return from passive
| consumption to interactive. We now prefer games, social
| networks and search to books, radio and TV. AI is just
| the latest stage in this move away from passivity.
|
| Why should society not have the right for its traditional
| interactive way of exchanging culture? Extending the
| duration of copyright was a perverse move, and now
| blocking the right to repair is another perverse move.
| DMCA put all publishers at the whim of agencies spamming
| takedowns with impunity even for no reason at all.
| Artists more recently would like to copyright
| abstractions to block generative AI from reusing their
| ideas.
|
| People need their traditional ways back. We started open
| source, made Wikipedia, we now have open scientific
| publication, teachers share prep materials. Clearly there
| is a sign that copyright is not essential for society.
| Copyleft or sharing is more important.
| twothreeone wrote:
| See, even the name is misleading because it's not a right
| - it's really a prohibition. We can agree or disagree
| about definitions, but I think it is self-evident that
| defending and enforcing a prohibition on creating zero-
| cost copies of digital media requires bending over
| backwards to undo the very properties of the technology
| that make it desirable to those who want to profit off of
| it. To me that sure sounds like rent seeking.
| dkarras wrote:
| I don't understand this. Copyright law does not prevent
| people from sharing their information freely. It gives the
| option for "rent seekers" to do their thing. Enforcing your
| rights for return is optional for people that don't want to
| do it. I'm not talking about right-to-repair here, but the
| idea of copyright in general.
|
| A lot of information is generated by taking some financial
| risk with the hopes of creating something of value and
| recouping that investment + some profit. Copyright makes that
| kind of venture possible. It doesn't prevent altruistic souls
| from putting in the same effort without any expectation of
| return. We always had this, by default. Copyright framework
| allows pursuit, generation and dissemination of huge swaths
| of valuable information that would otherwise not exist.
| 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.
| Toorkit wrote:
| How can they be low? Here it's nearly 3 euros for a thimble
| of ice cream lol
| 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.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| i can confirm that the mcbroken website does indeed show
| machines as broken which are have simply been disassembled for
| cleaning.
| 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.
| 8note wrote:
| The government of Canada is really missing out by not selling
| this bill as a reason to keep them in power
| anonylizard wrote:
| The odds are like 95%-5% against them, nothing will save them
| at this point.
| postepowanieadm wrote:
| I saw some tweets claiming people would vote He Who Cannot Be
| Named if McDonalds ice cream machines get fixed.
| kevincox wrote:
| For some reason it another the broken ice cream problem
| doesn't seem to be nearly as prevalent in Canada. I don't
| have ice cream at McDonald's often, but at least a handful
| of times a year and don't think I have ever encountered a
| broken machine. This is mostly around Toronto.
| diogocp wrote:
| It's not a government bill.
| SECProto wrote:
| > It's not a government bill.
|
| It's a private member's bill (from a member of the
| governing party, supported unanimously by votes from every
| party)
| Zak wrote:
| What the hacker community should be lobbying for, everywhere is
| the complete repeal of these anticircumvention laws. DRM does
| not meaningfully protect against piracy, and most of the things
| it does protect against are otherwise-legal
| jMyles wrote:
| > It's nice when you hear about our government doing something
| good for once.
|
| Critically, what the government is doing here is reducing its
| own authority with regard to information, the internet, and
| ultimately at some level, thought. Sharing methods for basic
| home and business improvements, including repairs of machinery,
| is one of the most fundamental functions of society.
|
| It's rare (but of course not unheard of by any stretch) that
| the governments of the largest nation states do anything
| _proactive_ that is helpful to society, but in many cases when
| they choose to reduce their own capabilities (even for the
| wrong reasons), it seems more forward-looking.
| fsckboy wrote:
| just as an aside, in political science/international
| relations, a "state" is what you are calling a nation state.
| A "nation" is like canadian first nations or the cherokee
| nation or the german nation before there was a german state
| (not very long ago), i.e. it's an ethnicity/language.
|
| A nation state is when a nation and a state are combined,
| like Italy (a country, a polity, where the italian people
| live) and Japan. The USA is not a nation-state, it is just a
| state, nor is Canada.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| >The USA is not a nation-state, it is just a state, nor is
| Canada.
|
| That throws up the question in my mind: What makes a people
| into a nation? How uniform do they have to be?
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Quebec has entered the chat.
| borski wrote:
| I _swear_ I'm not trying to pull an RTFM, but the
| Wikipedia page is genuinely an interesting one and goes
| into the history and the fact that nation-states, in
| particular, are a relatively modern phenomenon.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation
| jMyles wrote:
| You know it's funny; I actually went back and forth several
| times on that part. I really just wanted to distinguish
| between city-states (and for that matter, cities), which,
| it seems obvious, have an easier time staying in their lane
| with regard to this conflict with IP.
|
| But you're absolutely right; the point was better made with
| simply the phrase "large states".
|
| (FWIW - and I think it's not worth much - I have a degree
| in political science).
| 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...
| chongli wrote:
| It correlates with demand. These things go down quickly during
| peak demand because they can't maintain cold temps. You'll
| often see this during summer heatwaves as people flock to
| drive-thrus to grab some ice cream!
| jph00 wrote:
| I've never come across a broken McDonald's ice cream machine
| in Australia either.
| chongli wrote:
| I think McDonald's is under different ownership in
| different countries. They may even be using a different
| supplier for ice cream machines in Australia!
| lysace wrote:
| Bad headline. No, they can't. They are now _allowed_ to, but they
| don 't have the actual ability to do so.
|
| Clickbait of the weirdest kind - the totally unnecessary one.
| They could have gone with more truthful "We're now allowed to"
| with the same amount of impact... right?
| singron wrote:
| Yeah this was weird. You usually expect this from a newspaper
| where the editor chooses an inaccurate headline, but this is
| iFixit? The actual text of the article points out that just
| about every McDonalds franchise will be unaffected and have
| equally broken ice cream machines, which is why it's so weird
| that they contradict that in the headline.
| lysace wrote:
| Yeah, it lowered my confidence in them, to be honest.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| If you can raed tihs, you hvae voilated the DCMA and cmomitted a
| fleony.
|
| The oirginal palin txet of tihs msesage was put trhough a
| porprietary ecnryption aglorithm I cerated, and waht you see hree
| is the rseulting cpyher txet. It is illegal for you to rveerse my
| porprietary ecnryption aglorithm.
|
| I wnat tihs on a TS-hirt.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| Does anyone else thinks this is actually a great incidental
| marketing campaign for McDonald's? Not only the free reach but
| also tons of people discussing the "problems" with a big co and
| how to "fix" them as they are an essential part of society, and
| this case ice-creams.
|
| Sure we focus on the big brain things like copyright, business
| malpractice and MBA lore but with it comes McDonald's embedded.
|
| I know this might sound a bit snobby, but just don't play the
| game, ignore them. If there is criminal activity let who gets
| paid deal with it, otherwise just move on and stop "fixing"
| problems that are not of your concern, let alone "fixing" them
| for free.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Not if they don't now fix their machines, no. Then it's just
| "despite now being legal, McDonalds still refuses to fix their
| machine". Because remember: McDonalds is make of so much money
| that they could have _trivially_ forced this though literal
| decades ago if they 'd actually cared. Which they didn't. They
| could have even flat out bought the company that makes their
| machines. They didn't.
| rjbwork wrote:
| I thought it was intentional because the people that control
| McDonalds corporate also have shares in the ice cream machine
| vendor and use it as an additional vector to squeeze
| franchisees for their own enrichment?
| gruez wrote:
| >because the people that control McDonalds corporate also
| have shares in the ice cream machine vendor and use it as
| an additional vector to squeeze franchisees for their own
| enrichment?
|
| Source?
| rjbwork wrote:
| I'm mostly just being playful with a fun conspiracy
| theory. But, McDonald's and Middleby (current parent
| company of Taylor), are both publicly traded. Previous
| parent companies of Taylor were also publicly traded.
|
| It's not inconceivable - it wouldn't make sense to
| intentionally use a low quality product or intentionally
| cause service calls because of the decrease in revenue
| for McDonalds. But it would make sense to mandate a
| particular vendor you have a stake in.
| xp84 wrote:
| > decrease in revenue for McDonalds.
|
| It's not a major problem for McDonald's Inc. though! They
| don't sell McFlurries! They lease buildings and land, and
| they do collect a 4% royalty on sales. But the franchisee
| loses the other 96% of the revenue and has to pay 100% of
| the "authorized Taylor repair" bill. So it's a much
| bigger problem for them, and a moral hazard for
| McDonald's to be able to force the store owners to use
| the overpriced and supposedly unnecessary (other than due
| to digital locks) Taylor service offerings.
| gruez wrote:
| If they want to squeeze more money from franchisees why
| not jack up the rent or royalties? The Taylor conspiracy
| is far less efficient at getting revenue (at the very
| least, you need to pay the technician), and doesn't even
| seem to be working very well, as evidenced by the number
| of stores not bothering to repair their machines.
| lazide wrote:
| The top of the line cut is probably hard to move without
| causing a big ruckus. Fluffing individual line items is
| probably a lot easier.
| dan_linder wrote:
| This article from The Register in 2020 has some details,
| and not just Boeing:
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/02/boeing_787_power_c
| ycl...
| SoftTalker wrote:
| McDonald's Corporate dictates every piece of equipment in
| the kitchen, from the spatulas to the fryers to the grills
| to the soft-serve machines. The franchisees have very
| little choice in any of it. It all must be from the
| approved list of vendors and models.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| > stop "fixing" problems that are not of your concern, let
| alone "fixing" them for free.
|
| In this case iFixit's business is selling tools and materials
| to fix things. So, there is an incentive for them to invest in
| solving the problem.
| majormajor wrote:
| Either the McDonalds by me is fairly lucky or this is far less
| common than the meme makes it out to be.
|
| It doesn't seem like good marketing - I hadn't had it in years
| but wanted to try a promo mcflurry a couple years ago, and
| wasn't expecting it to work, which make me wonder if I
| shouldn't even bother going. That's the opposite of what they'd
| want.
|
| But then I went, and have gone probably a couple dozen times
| since then in two or three years, and it's never been out of
| order. Obviously I'm not going every day, but across that many
| visits I'd be likely to catch one if the rate of failure was
| THAT high.
| xp84 wrote:
| > lucky
|
| Perhaps the "good" McDonaldses (in terms of whether they have
| broken machines all the time or not) are that way because
| they faithfully and promptly throw the requested amount of
| money at the Taylor licensed service providers to fix it
| every single time it throws its error code of doom. So we
| wouldn't know how common the avoidable issues are without
| seeing, not just the downtime stats, but the authorized
| service records.
| Maxious wrote:
| https://mcbroken.com/ scrapes online ordering and confirms
| not just a meme, 1/10 locations broken atm, 1/3 in some
| markets.
| celestialcheese wrote:
| even funnier, it looks like it's owned by wendys now, so
| when you zoom in it highlights wendys locations nearby
| bombcar wrote:
| The machines go into maintenance if not cleaned in time.
| Smart franchises clean the machine in the morning or after
| closing each day so it "never runs out".
|
| Just like smart airlines always reboot the plane regularly
| instead of learning the 787 has to be rebooted every 56 day.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Is this real or a joke that's over my head? Why does a 787
| need to be rebooted every 56 days?
| caballeto wrote:
| Boeing 787s must be reset every 51 days or 'misleading
| data' is shown (2020)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41939318
| dan_linder wrote:
| This article from The Register in 2020 has some details,
| and not just Boeing:
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/02/boeing_787_power_c
| ycl...
| Bjartr wrote:
| > Smart franchises clean the machine in the morning or
| after closing each day so it "never runs out".
|
| And when they arrive in the morning to a failed cleaning
| run and an opaque error code they get to pick between first
| calling an expensive technician to spend just a few minutes
| with a tool only they have to read a more detailed error
| and change settings. Or they can cross their fingers and
| hope it's not a persistent issue. Either way it's another
| four hour checking cycle before it's ready.
| dangus wrote:
| I totally agree.
|
| Who cares if the McDonald's ice cream machine is broken? It's
| shit ice cream. Most of you probably live near a better local
| ice cream/soft serve/custard joint. Heck, most of you probably
| live near a better _corporate chain_ ice cream joint that
| probably also serves better food than McDonald 's: Dairy Queen,
| In-N-Out, Shake Shack, Culver's, etc.
|
| If McDonald's didn't have breakfast or coffee the whole chain
| might be out of business or at tiny fraction of its current
| size by now.
|
| The McDonald's ice cream machine monopoly only negatively
| affects millionaire McDonald's franchise owners who deserve to
| be abused by the franchise for being so un-innovative that they
| resort to purchasing/renting access to a successful business
| model. Talk about the most opposite-of-meritocracy business
| venture imaginable!
|
| Imagine if you had a half a million dollars in freely available
| non-borrowed assets and you couldn't think of your own business
| model to try. What does that say about you as an
| entrepreneur/trust fund kid?
|
| Of course, ice cream is damn easy to make at home, can be made
| in large batches and kept frozen forever, and it'll come out
| far better than any fast food ice cream I know of.
| jhbadger wrote:
| It's pretty good soft serve ice cream, which is a style many
| people like. It isn't really any worse than other chain soft
| serve ice cream like Dairy Queen's. It's not the same sort of
| thing as scooped hard ice cream, and it isn't something you
| can really make at home, whatever the merits of home made ice
| cream are.
| downut wrote:
| We've made homemade ice cream dozens of times over 50
| years... and the way I think about the delicious result is
| that it's like... soft serve ice cream. I think I prefer
| the texture of "scooped hard ice scream" but homemade with
| just cream, eggs, sugar, and whatever for the flavorings is
| just an outstanding tasty thing to eat.
|
| I've never tasted industrial soft serve, maybe something
| else is going on?
|
| Thinking back we always made it with a hand cranked
| machine[1], cooled by lots of salt on bagged ice cubes,
| maybe the current generation of electric home machines
| makes a different texture.
|
| [1] A strong argument for keeping kids around.
| dangus wrote:
| The home ice cream market is perhaps far more developed
| than you realize.
|
| You can make a harder scooped ice cream style with
| compressor-equipped machines from brands like Whynter.
|
| You can make soft serve, milkshakes, concretes, and
| gelato with the Ninja CREAMi. I've heard it even does a
| decent job of making a knockoff of what you get out of a
| Pacojet [1] at Michelin-starred restaurants.
|
| And of course there are a number of insulated bowl-style
| ice cream makers like the KitchenAid ice cream maker,
| which is the one I use and enjoy. I don't find that I
| would describe the end product as soft serve-like.
|
| [1] https://www.seriouseats.com/the-scoop-on-paco-jets
| dangus wrote:
| The Ninja CREAMi makes soft serve at home.
| gosub100 wrote:
| > if you had a half a million dollars in freely available
| non-borrowed assets and you couldn't think of your own
| business model to try
|
| the problem isn't a lack of thinking-up something new. It's a
| matter of risk management. Any new business idea has a
| significant risk of ruin. Compared to owning a chain
| restaurant, especially mcd's.
| dangus wrote:
| And I fully realize that...but someone with a half a
| million dollars has the capital to start at least 5 small
| businesses.
| omeid2 wrote:
| McDonalds provides the largest network of public toilets in the
| world. It is no small thing.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is the biggest international travel trip I can give -
| download offline maps (Here, or google maps or Apple Maps all
| have offline maps now) and when in doubt locate a McDonald's.
| WiFi and bathrooms, and sometimes even beer. ;)
| graemep wrote:
| > MBA lore
|
| What exactly do you mean by this?
|
| > Not only the free reach but also tons of people discussing
| the "problems" with a big co and how to "fix" them as they are
| an essential part of society, and this case ice-creams.
|
| It is an example of a general problem. I very much doubt the
| number of people discussing this are a significant proportion
| of McDonald's market.
|
| The actual ruling was an exemption for "commercial food
| preparation equipment", so it applies to all machines in all
| restaurants in the US.
|
| > If there is criminal activity let who gets paid deal with it,
| otherwise just move on and stop "fixing" problems that are not
| of your concern,
|
| This is not about criminal activity, it is about not making
| criminals out of people who fix their own property.
|
| Fixing the public interest is everyone's concern. This ruling
| would not have happened if people hd not campaigned for it.
| starkparker wrote:
| Buried deep down:
|
| > Video Game Accessibility:
|
| > Unfortunately, the exemption allowing circumvention of digital
| locks on video games for accessibility purposes (introduced in
| 2021) was not renewed. No petition for renewal was submitted, and
| as a result, individuals with disabilities who need alternative
| input methods to play video games are left out.
| floam wrote:
| With games it seems like accessibility allowances would be
| dual-use, making it easier to cheat or make a bot.
| rockskon wrote:
| The alternative of making such acts a crime seems like a
| grossly disproportionate response though.
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| That's only really an issue for specific games.
| iamnotsure wrote:
| What about the cows?
| rummyMars wrote:
| Sabhjjtyi
| frenchie4111 wrote:
| If you are interested in doing this for commercial control
| systems, come talk to me.
| sans_souse wrote:
| It took this long to establish a Right to Repair for Ice Cream
| Machines... So, where shall we set the over:under for number of
| years til regain a Right to Repair our own cars?
| unit149 wrote:
| As per the US Code, title SS 1201(D) "noninfringing uses"
| including but not limited to non-profit or archival purposes
| aren't a circumvention of the technological measure. No need to
| skirt DMCA if the fair use doctrine is in place.
| Liquix wrote:
| iFixit is a strange entity. Their website, repair kits, and
| tutorials are all excellent. The amount of success they've had in
| championing right to repair initiatives in legal arenas is
| commendable. But it's not so great that the two are intertwined.
| It seems inevitable that conflicts of interests will arise
| between their exclusive deals with manufacturers, business
| selling repair kits, and increasing influence in the legal
| system.
| awestroke wrote:
| I don't see it. No single manufacturer deal they make will be
| worth enough to them to change their strategy or values. They
| also know from experience that companies withdraw from such
| agreements or deals without warning, so they can never rely on
| them
| ingen0s wrote:
| 2024 was the year that an ice cream fix post became the most
| voted article on HN
| jeanlucas wrote:
| And all the other things as well, but we will use the title as
| a filter
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| N gate died far too soon.
| chachacharge wrote:
| so glad we can hack these machines... now i can inject
| semiglutides into each cone at home
| written-beyond wrote:
| Finally someone who gets it. Are you going to make an
| instructable on that?
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| The biggest reason I have read for why machines do not work, or
| are not being used is due to lack of maintenance, and employees
| who are trained to do so. (and people quit all the time).
|
| Having worked at a fast food join (not McDonalds) much earlier in
| my life, any lacking maintenance and proper cleaning, especially
| if there has been a power outage will turn the the machine into a
| rapid incubator for bacteria that will make you ill.
|
| Since shifts change and not everyone keeps on the machine, a
| power outrage can quickly be lost to the workers.
|
| Getting angry if an employee tells you the machine is broken and
| demanding ice-cream is an exceedingly bad idea. Take that as a
| blessing. The employee may have saved you from running to the
| bathroom a lot.
|
| I personally stay away from softicecream entirely. But if you
| must, try to find a place where a lot of people are buying so the
| machine is in frequent use. That doesn't mean its safe but it
| makes it a lot more likely.
|
| Of course not being used frequently is not an automatic reason
| for the machine to be in incubator mode, it may will be well
| cared for, well cleaned, great maintenance.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Except Dairy Queen, Wendy's, and McDonald's outside of the U.S.
| don't have this problem.
|
| Somehow I doubt DQ employees are paid better or are better
| trained or more diligent about regular maintenance. The
| difference is they don't have a machine designed to require
| expensive maintenance visits with a DRM lockout to retard
| attempts to maintain it by normal restaurant/HVAC maintenance
| contractors.
| float4 wrote:
| > Except Dairy Queen, Wendy's, and McDonald's outside of the
| U.S. don't have this problem.
|
| Heck, even Ikea has successfully been selling ice cream (from
| self serve machines!) here in the Netherlands for like 20
| years now. EUR0.50 back in the day, EUR1 now. Can't remember
| the last time all machines (yes, they do have at least 2
| usually) required maintenance.
| wjnc wrote:
| My stint as a EU McD worker did give me a feel of how well
| scripted low skill labour can feel like pleasant work. I
| didn't appreciate it at the time but it was six sigma
| checklist everything. There is a magic to smooth operation.
| In all my other jobs (dishwasher, mechanic, cleaner and now
| 20 yrs in insurance) nobody came close to the McD smoothness
| of operations. I hope I bring some of this smoothness to the
| people working in my lines of operation. I'm going to ask
| them!
| oorza wrote:
| I had the same experience working at one in US from ages
| 15-19.
|
| The thing that stands out about that job that makes it
| unique in my perspective is decision-making. Every other
| job, from dishwasher in a sit down restaurant to
| engineering team lead, works best when I make good
| decisions and my coworkers all do too. Everything runs most
| smoothly when everyone is on their game and consistently
| making the right choices.
|
| At McDonald's, everything ran most smoothly when no one
| made any decisions at all.
|
| Their system was literally that good. No one else's has
| ever come close. And you're right that there's a weird
| freedom and pleasantness to that: your job requires
| literally zero brain power most of the time and your sole
| responsibility is to keep up with the person behind you and
| not overwhelm the person in front of you, which isn't
| usually something you worry about. So all that energy every
| other job has got from me, I still had (and so did everyone
| else) which made it the most social, most fun workplace
| too.
| h1fra wrote:
| Yeah no, McDonalds in Europe don't have this problem at all.
| Maybe we take better care of our machines, but I can assure you
| the turn over is huge too.
| Bjartr wrote:
| Part of the issue as I understand it, is that the machine is
| fairly opaque as to why some failures occur can appear somewhat
| "flaky" as a result. When this occurs during a cleaning cycle,
| the whole cycle is void and a new 4 hour cycle must be run.
|
| If the machine was clear about communicating the issue, it
| would be fine. It's not and can require a technician to come
| out with a tool to both read the machine status in detail and
| tweak the machine in the necessary ways to stop it being flaky.
|
| This would all be fine except for the fact that 1. Only
| technicians from the manufacturer are allowed to be used. 2.
| Those technicians are unreasonable expensive. 3. The company
| _could_ make the machines easier to diagnose and repair, but
| don 't because repair calls are lucrative 4. Third parties can,
| and have, made tools that do make the machines easier to
| diagnose and repair without the need for a technician, but cant
| legally sell these solutions because it involves circumventing
| a digital lock (DMCA violation) 5. McD corporate has an
| agreement with the manufacturer to maintain this status quo in
| return for a kickback
| oorza wrote:
| I worked at a McD's franchise 20 years ago that had hired a
| "retired" ice cream machine guy to work for the franchise
| full time. With only a half dozen stores, he would still
| almost always be too busy to make it to our store the same
| day and sometimes we'd have to wait as long as 3-4 days.
| Flaky does not even begin to describe how awful those
| machines are.
|
| I'm not sure if having that guy employed by the franchise was
| technically kosher or not with McDonald's, but you have to
| imagine the smart franchises all do this.
| LtWorf wrote:
| McDonald is big enough to change suppliers of machines and
| impose easy maintenance.
| davidron wrote:
| ... If incentives were properly aligned to make this the
| correct strategy, then this is probably what McDonald's
| would do. Unfortunately not.
| https://www.today.com/food/trends/why-is-mcdonalds-ice-
| cream...
| night862 wrote:
| In principle, but they probably contracted this out decades
| ago. Theres a lot of licensing requirements and regulations
| surrounding dairy.
|
| This is actually the real source and meaning of the classic
| track by Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, "Safe as
| milk." Dairy is a huge systemic risk, operates on extremely
| narrow windows everywhere in its production and if left
| unmanaged will cause outbreaks of horrifying diseases like
| Typhoid.
| fHr wrote:
| people who get angry at the underpaid employees are the worst,
| treat them like human beings please
| timcobb wrote:
| Some people have internalized that underpaid employees get
| what they deserve (i.e. they're not actually underpaid at
| all) and I believe that's one of the factors that leads to
| the abuse.
| xoxxala wrote:
| The world would be a better place if more people had to work
| an underpaid service job at the start of their employment.
| jt2190 wrote:
| > any lacking maintenance and proper cleaning, especially if
| there has been a power outage will turn the the machine into a
| rapid incubator for bacteria that will make you ill.
|
| Yes, the correct frame of reference here is "how can we scale
| ice cream delivery to millions a day while keeping everyone
| healthy?" At this scale a single failure can make a lot of
| people very sick in a very short amount of time. Under these
| conditions maintenance needs to be extremely rigorous and
| performed by qualified people.
|
| "Right to repair" says that equipment owners can't be stopped
| from performing repairs if they want to. They'll still be on
| the hook for demonstrating that they were _qualified_ to make
| the repairs, so I predict this will do little to improved
| McDonalds ice cream availability: They'll still need to wait
| for the qualified technician.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| Aside: Is it really ice cream?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Does McD's still use these machines today? It seems like this has
| been going on for decades, more than long enough that pretty much
| everyone seems to know about it. I would have guessed that by now
| McD's would want to move on to a new setup that did not cause
| them such consistent negative PR and leave a trail of unhappy
| customers.
| traverseda wrote:
| McDonalds owns the company that makes and fixes these machines,
| and franchise owners foot the bill. It's a way of taking more
| money from franchise owners.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| They do not, this is disinformation. The machines are
| manufactured by Taylor for McDonald's and maintained by
| Taylor's service network.
|
| Taylor's the largest manufacturer of commercial ice cream
| making equipment in the US. Franchisees also have the option
| of using Carpigiani machines, but they're Italian so parts
| and service are not as easy to come by. And all ice cream
| machines are known for being easy to break, especially if
| used by poorly trained teenagers.
|
| This also makes no sense, if McDonald's wanted to make more
| off the franchisees from ice cream, surely they'd rather do
| it by having the machines work (so they can sell product).
| They sell the mix that goes in the machine to the
| franchisees. It would be idiotic to try to gouge them by
| making the machine crappy rather than just charging them more
| for the mix and using a good machine. Then they wouldn't need
| to employ these imaginary service techs and the franchisees
| would be happier with the situation.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Then why is the situation what it is? As numerous people
| have pointed out, other fast-food chains don't have this
| problem. They are able to provide ice-cream products that
| are consistently free of either toxins or excuses.
|
| Occam's Razor suggests that the most likely explanation is
| that the McDonald's Corporation is deliberately setting
| their franchisees up to fail by continuing to sign
| contracts with Taylor. Which I agree makes no sense.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| That's not what Occam's razor would suggest at all.
| That's a silly conspiracy theory that's easily verified
| as false if you know anything about the ice cream
| industry or just bother to Google who makes the machines.
|
| Occam's razor might suggest that their competitors use a
| different machine entirely (I really don't know but
| Wikipedia's page on Taylor only mentions McDonald's).
|
| McDonald's corporate making a bad decision about a
| machine seems a whole lot simpler than some convoluted
| conspiracy theory, doesn't it?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _McDonald's corporate making a bad decision about a
| machine seems a whole lot simpler than some convoluted
| conspiracy theory, doesn't it?_
|
| That excuse wears thin after 10+ years.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| It's not an excuse, almost everyone agrees they screwed
| up. But it's an explanation. They likely signed a long
| term contract. Then a few years ago they allowed
| franchisees to use another brand.
| Reason077 wrote:
| That's not correct. Taylor Company, who supply the notorious
| C602 ice cream machine to more than 13,000 McDonalds
| franchises, is owned by Middleby Corporation of Elgin,
| Illinois since 2018. Previously it was part of United
| Technologies' climate & controls (Carrier) unit. [1]
|
| Not all McDonalds use the Taylor machines. Some use machines
| from other manufacturers such as Carpigiani [2]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Company
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpigiani
| kwiens wrote:
| Yes. https://github.com/rashiq/mcbroken-archive
| fourthark wrote:
| Apparently, no _you_ can't. But one can.
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