We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
1–10 of 326 posts
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#2Great, They made its so defeating the lock isn't illegal. Too bad selling the tool to do it is.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#3Groups being motivated to ensure ice-cream machines are inoperable is a perfect example of a perverse incentive.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#4What's the over/under on how many franchises will now resume selling ice cream?
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#5All 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.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#6Groups being motivated to ensure ice-cream machines are inoperable is a perfect example of a perverse incentive.
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.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#7Related. 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)
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#8All 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.
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Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#9Here'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.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#10I 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.