Great, They made its so defeating the lock isn't illegal. Too bad selling the tool to do it is.
So don't sell. Open an account on GitHub and post the procedure there
We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
11–20 of 326 posts
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#12Here'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 th…
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.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#13All 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.
It's also all about Taylor's exclusivity on repairing the machines.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#14Here'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 th…
US franchises have been able to buy machines from Carpigiani instead of Taylor for ~7 years.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#15Great, They made its so defeating the lock isn't illegal. Too bad selling the tool to do it is.
So don't sell. Open an account on GitHub and post the procedure there
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.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#16I 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.
Disney was willing to go to the ends of the Earth to protect Mickey mouse...
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#17Here'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 th…
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.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#18What's the over/under on how many franchises will now resume selling ice cream?
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.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#19I 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.
Disney was willing to go to the ends of the Earth to protect Mickey mouse...
And Paraguay won
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#20Groups 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.
Your last sentence goes a bit too far. There are products that are "loss leaders" that the company does not want to actually sell