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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

#81

Post by edm0nd »

coconut08 wrote: post #76
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

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?

Perhaps because the environment the ice cream machines create are the most friendly to bacteria and other things that cause the most issues?

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

#82

Post by Buttons840 »

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.

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

#83

Post by valbaca »

coconut08 wrote: post #76
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

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?

soda is syrup and carbonated water, neither becomes a breeding pool at room temperature

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

#84

Post by valbaca »

jessriedel wrote: post #17
mcdow wrote: post #9

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 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.

> 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.

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

#85

Post by Teever »

kiba wrote: post #72
staplers wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everyone believe they need copyright, therefore it is the status quo.

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?

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

#86

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

twothreeone wrote: post #64
coder543 wrote: post #10

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.

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…

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.

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

#87

Post by t-writescode »

kiba wrote: post #72
staplers wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everyone believe they need copyright, therefore it is the status quo.

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.

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

#88

Post by BadHumans »

kiba wrote: post #72
staplers wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everyone believe they need copyright, therefore it is the status quo.

No one has put forth a good argument about why I don't need copyright.

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

#89

Post by Toorkit »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #61
yreg wrote: post #23

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 M…

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.

How can they be low? Here it's nearly 3 euros for a thimble of ice cream lol

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

#90

Post by tedunangst »

jessriedel wrote: post #17
mcdow wrote: post #9

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 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.

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.
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