this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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645
iFixit tears down a McDonald’s ice cream machine, demands DMCA exemption for it (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
48 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

McDonald’s soft-serve ice cream machines are regularly broken, and it’s not just your perception. When repair vendor and advocate iFixit was filming a video about the topic, it checked tracking map McBroken and found that 34 percent of the machines in the state of New York were reported inoperable. As I write this, the nationwide number of broken machines is just above 14 percent.

To improve the nation’s semi-frozen milk fat infrastructure, iFixit has done two things. One, as first reported by 404 Media, is to join with interest group Public Knowledge to petition the Copyright Office for an exemption allowing people to fix commercial equipment, such as McDonald’s ice cream machines and other industrial kitchen equipment, without fear of reprisal under Section 1201 of the DMCA.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (4 children)

This ice cream machine saga is so bizarre...

[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It really isn't once you understand the basics.

  1. Some company got a contract with McDonald's to do all their ice cream machines, probably through a personal connection. This contract included expensive maintenance.
  2. The company made a shit product, probably to save costs. It both doesn't work well and is a pain to service.
  3. McDonald's has decided that the lost revenue is not as big of a deal as getting out of that shitty contract with a shitty company that made a shitty product.

That is all there is to it.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago (1 children)
  1. McDonalds and Taylor are fighting tooth and nail to prevent people from circumventing their weird agreement and maintaining their machines successfully, in a Kafkaesque indictment of the whole concept that competition in a free market will lead to a sensible world
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

They are using the government to enforce an exclusivity agreement that is explicitly restricting the market.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've watched the fascinating YouTube documentary on it but it still seems crazy that the company is fighting so hard to stay shitty and terrible. They've attacked people trying to help too, like wtf?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s how you can make money. There’s a financial incentive to be a piece of shit many times, unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Crapitalism: When you take capitalism and remove meaningful regulation.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You mean Neoliberalism, our current dark shade of Capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Whatever you call it, the end goal is always to make rich people richer while everyone else stagnates or loses.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

It's because McDonalds makes money by selling the machines to their franchisees.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s not much different than coke/Pepsi fountains….

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Given how filthy those things get, I'm surprised people don't get sick from them too.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I hope it ends less dramatically than the mc Donald too hot coffee saga.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm surprised nobody has gotten sick yet.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I’m sure plenty have tbh

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yah, everyone just needs to cool down.