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We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

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Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#121

Post by twothreeone »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #95
twothreeone wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, o…

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.

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.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#122

Post by davidczech »

BoorishBears wrote: post #18
tedunangst wrote: post #4

What'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.

Isn't the same machine used for milkshakes? That's kind of staple of burger joints.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#123

Post by wwweston »

amscanne wrote: post #107
kelnos wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Prepare to have your mind blown: https://www.techdirt.com/2018/07/11/shocker-dojs-computer-cr...

Certainly blew the mind of the people writing the techdirt article if the opening paragraph is any indication: "Well here’s a surprise for you / This is… flabbergasting." It's almost like they thought they had good reasons to expect something else from TFG's adminstration.

Why were the results different?

DOJ composition running up through 2018 was pretty strongly influenced by a decade of liberal-leaning but cross-partisan staffing, and this was a legal theory that obviously emerged from within staff rather than coming down from the top.

And psychology of liberal or conservative but principled lawyers is likely to be conscientious enough when it comes to their legal theorizing that except where it serves particular organized power plays, you'll see some principled arguments come out, like this one, because obviously the DMCA exists to protect copyright rather than stymie repair.

Also, right-to-repair has an appeal that crosses partisan boundaries very well, especially among voters themselves. Sure, businesses and social influencers who'd sacrifice right-to-repair for pro-capital / power-play positions are probably highly represented and influential in the right-wing party, what with the investment in social philosophies oriented around hierarchies of status. But going against right-to-repair is still unpopular enough and likely to piss off conservative-identifying libertarians that there was bound to be some discomfort, even with the usual Republican enthusiasm for being a pro-capital / pro-business capture party.

And finally, while it's obvious that the 2018 POTUS is only capable seeing the issue in terms of friends/opportunities and enemies/liabilites rather than principled legal or social theories, it's also obvious that right-to-repair is one of the things that benefited from his shall we say limited range/depth of interest when it comes to policy. Inattention can allow any number of things to thrive. At least until someone offers to buy right-to-repair off of him. Elections matter.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#124

Post by paradox460 »

lostlogin wrote: post #116
userbinator wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess how the majority of farmers and rural folk wanting to fix their own equipment are leaning politically. Also the automotive aftermarket.

Assuming the people vote for the party that would help them the most would be unwise.

Remind me which party signed the DMCA into law after it passed the house unanimously

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#125

Post by twothreeone »

BadHumans wrote: post #108
kelnos wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#126

Post by rjbwork »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #117
PedroBatista wrote: post #93

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 so…

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.

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?

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#127

Post by bobsmooth »

SoftTalker wrote: post #5

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.

And that you trust this person to clean the machine properly lest many people get food poisoning.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#128

Post by wokwokwok »

davidczech wrote: post #122
BoorishBears wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't the same machine used for milkshakes? That's kind of staple of burger joints.

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.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#129

Post by yuanchenxi95 »

dang wrote: post #7

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/i…

An irrelevant question. How did you index the related hackernews threads?

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#130

Post by gruez »

rjbwork wrote: post #126
TheRealPomax wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

>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?

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