fubo@lemmy.world
on 29 Aug 2023 20:41
nextcollapse
What baffles me about this whole situation is McDonald’s (corporate) role in perpetuating it. It doesn’t make sense as a way to squeeze money from the franchises, because the extracted rents¹ don’t go to corporate; it goes to Taylor. It’s a loss to the franchisee, and no benefit to McDonald’s central.
This smells of graft. Someone at McDonald’s corporate is getting paid off illicitly.
¹ In the political-economy sense of “rent”, not the one that means “lease payment”.
AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
on 29 Aug 2023 21:24
nextcollapse
Someone at McDonald’s corporate is getting paid off illicitly.
By the values of Corpmurica, that executive is just acting out of rational self-interest.
Isn’t our society in favor of fucking over anyone we can for individual profit? Isn’t that what we’re taught by example to do, lest we be considered an un-American commie?
You can bribe our politicians legally with infinite sums of money to PACs since Citizens United, you think anyone gives a shit about bribing a McDonald’s executive?
Huh? By the rules and values of Corporate America, breaching your employer’s trust by taking kickbacks from a contractor would be solidly against the rules.
My suspicion is that McDonald’s corporate is not making as much money as it could be, because franchisees are paying Taylor for fake repairs instead of buying more shitty ice cream mix from corporate.
This is not a matter of Good vs Evil. It’s one Lawful Evil group getting ripped off by another.
AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
on 29 Aug 2023 21:40
nextcollapse
breaching your employer’s trust
Oh yes, harumph I say! Multinational corporations are as honorable as they are trustworthy, and demand that very same honor and integrity from their executive team in their scrupulous business practices, I say!
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
on 29 Aug 2023 22:48
collapse
I don’t claim to have a solution but one thing that has always bugged me about this. When I award contracts or buy pretty much anything I can’t take a bribe of money, but I can take a bribe of effort. It is acceptable for me (I did have this conversation more than once) to straight off tell a salesperson I can go higher on price if they agree to keep prices constant so I don’t have to constantly look at them. Or if they agree to do some other time saving measure.
Aloha_Alaska@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 02:32
collapse
I upvoted you because I don’t award contracts, so I have no idea if that’s common practice but I hope your comment gets some visibility and discussion. It’s quite interesting to think about the value of our time or effort and how maximizing those isn’t a bribe, it’s just common sense.
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 12:00
collapse
Your boss asks you to go to the store to buy something, I don’t know a flashlight. You can go to the store that is further away and get a lower price of the store very close and pay more.
For some reason this is different than if a flashlight sales person offereded you money to buy their flashlight.
nous@programming.dev
on 29 Aug 2023 22:13
nextcollapse
There is also no loss for McDonald’s central, but they have a old and close business relationship with Taylor that they seem to care about more than their own franchise owners.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Aug 2023 18:36
collapse
It hurts the brand immeasurably, how is that not a loss? Not only does it annoy customers, it causes them to go to other franchises instead. That decreases the value of their franchise, which directly hurts the company.
Long trip, daughter wants an ice cream, I am hungry, pull off the highway and go towards McDonald’s, then remember their ice cream machine is probably broken so I go to Wendy’s instead. Realize they are running their biggie bag promotion and get like 2 meals worth of food and an Ice cream for like 7 bucks… Why would I go to McDonald’s again for fast food if I have the option?
I honestly don't understand how they're still around when places like Wendy's exist. Their prices have skyrocketed and the food is mediocre of im being incredibly generous.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
on 29 Aug 2023 23:43
nextcollapse
I think it smells more of grift.
Buelldozer@lemmy.today
on 30 Aug 2023 00:00
nextcollapse
This smells of graft.
It IS graft. I’ve forgotten where I ran into the information but someone tracked it down. Taylors (the machine company) has an exclusive contract with McDonald’s Corporate for the machines and McDonald’s Corporate receives a portion of the service revenue whenever a Taylor machine is “fixed”.
That’s why McDonald’s is fighting Kytch / helping Taylor.
the acquisition of money, gain, or advantage by dishonest, unfair, or illegal means, especially through the abuse of one’s position or influence in politics, business, etc.
a particular instance, method, or means of thus acquiring gain or advantage.
No, graft is used as a term for things like police demanding weekly payments in exchange for protection, acting like a local gang or mafia, or politicians soliciting bribes. It’s when anyone in an official position abuses their authority in such a way.
atticus88th@lemmy.world
on 29 Aug 2023 20:46
nextcollapse
The Superior Court of Alameda County is charging roughly $1 per page to get legal filings. To download the entirety of the court proceedings to date, the court wants $2,999.
Alright, fuck it! Lets build our own soft serve ice cream machines… with blackjack and hookers.
dmmeyournudes@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 00:40
collapse
Okay, and then you get fined for violating your franchise contract that requires you use these machines.
over_clox@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 03:48
collapse
Then we’ll create our own franchise. We’ll call it FuttBuckers, or something like that…
originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
on 29 Aug 2023 20:49
nextcollapse
mcdonalds is somehow profiting from this, or it just wouldnt be happening.
ericisshort@lemmy.world
on 29 Aug 2023 21:28
nextcollapse
More likely someone at McDonalds than the company itself.
Wait, copyright can be used to prevent repairs? What is the justification? Is it a “ice cream machine company owns the copyright to mcdonalds ice cream and if you tamper with the machine you can’t call it McDonald’s ice cream anymore” kind of deal or is tampering straight up illegal?
hedgehog@ttrpg.network
on 29 Aug 2023 22:13
nextcollapse
The DMCA criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.
This only applies to digital access controls right? Otherwise those ‘warranty void if removed’ stickers would be legal
hedgehog@ttrpg.network
on 29 Aug 2023 22:30
collapse
I think there needs to be a digital component but it can still apply to physical goods. Either way, “warranty void if removed” stickers aren’t a control. It only applies to “effective” controls:
For the DMCA, circumvention means that there is a user attempting to “descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner” – assuming that there is a technological measure in place that “effectively controls access to a work.”
If you need to reverse engineer the product to bypass the access control, then that generally qualifies as an effective control. But if you can just press F12 or Escape or remove a sticker, that wouldn’t qualify as effective.
(For what it’s worth I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.)
But isn’t it ineffective once it’s been bypassed, therefore making it legal again?
hedgehog@ttrpg.network
on 30 Aug 2023 02:32
collapse
Unfortunately that’s not what they mean by “effective.” They define it like this:
a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
The key verbiage there is “in the ordinary course of its operation.”
baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Aug 2023 21:40
nextcollapse
Taylor must pay McDonald’s a tidy sum for the exclusivity contract. Both parties make out like bandits in the deal. I’m kind of surprised McDonald’s never in-housed it out of greed, but that day may be coming due to all the negative publicity.
gammasfor@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Aug 2023 07:38
nextcollapse
I suspect it’s a case of they thought they were getting a good deal out of this when they signed the contract but didn’t realise how much Taylor was going to take the piss until it was too late. Likely when the contract expires it probably won’t be renewed.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Aug 2023 18:49
collapse
It’s not an exclusive contract, franchise owners can also buy Carpigiani machines.
meco03211@lemmy.world
on 29 Aug 2023 21:44
nextcollapse
Not necessarily. If the losses they are sustaining aren’t understood or obfuscated through corporate and bureaucratic bullshit, it could go unnoticed for quite a while.
Eh not necessarily. It's a common joke, and ifixit gets publicity both for their own brand and for right to repair out of it
Edit: unless you meant they're getting something out of it being so locked down, in which case yeah. Corporate basically gets to pass the costs down to individual franchisees even more
As a result of these shenanigans by Taylor and on their behalf McDonald’s itself I haven’t considered McDonald’s a viable place to go for any kind of ice cream or ice cream-adjacent thing for many years, whereas this was once not the case. I know I’m not the only one either.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world
on 29 Aug 2023 21:17
nextcollapse
We are lucky enough to have a drive-through Baskin Robbins in this town. So my convenient ice cream choices are quite nice. But it must suck if your only option for ice cream is broken.
ericisshort@lemmy.world
on 29 Aug 2023 21:27
collapse
Wow, I really don’t envy your options. I’d prefer pretty much any ice cream chain over BR.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world
on 29 Aug 2023 21:31
collapse
It’s not the best ice cream, but between that and McDonalds when you don’t want to get out of your car, I’ll pick the one with more flavor options.
We do have one other ice cream place. It’s inside the lobby of a gun range. I’m not kidding.
They also had a bullshit private ‘mask-free school’ going on during the height of COVID, so fuck them.
ericisshort@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 00:13
collapse
That sounds like the kind of place I grew up in and eventually escaped.
emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de
on 30 Aug 2023 14:04
collapse
You grew up in a gun range? I’m glad you got out
ericisshort@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 14:31
collapse
Lol no. I grew up in a place where you’d have an ice cream parlor in a gun range.
I haven’t even thought about getting McDonald’s ice cream in years just because it seems like they are never able to serve it so I’m not even going to try. When I want ice cream I’ll go to the place that make ice cream on a cold slab.
I just stopped considering McDonalds a place that serves ice cream. The menu item just doesn’t exist there in my mind.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Aug 2023 18:43
collapse
I wonder how much this actually hurts their business? Probably more than they realize. My daughter loves ice cream, and I am not going to play McDonald’s roulette, unless I have to. We just go to Wendy’s if we are going to eat fast food, the foods better and cheaper anyway and I have yet to run into a broken machine.
CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Aug 2023 21:59
nextcollapse
Id blow them up and buy one from a reliable source…
Buelldozer@lemmy.today
on 30 Aug 2023 00:08
collapse
McDonald’s Franchisee’s can’t buy anything other than these specific machines from Taylor. They can’t even buy the machines that Taylor sells to other chains like Wendy’s!
Kind of seems a bit pointless what they’re campaigning for in this regard. A DMCA exemption wouldn’t allow franchise owners to use an alternative repair company, as no doubt their franchise contract specifies who they can use.
Buelldozer@lemmy.today
on 30 Aug 2023 00:11
collapse
A DMCA exemption wouldn’t allow franchise owners to use an alternative repair company
That’s not the point. Often there’s nothing actually wrong with the machine, you simply need to be able to reset a system flag which you can easily do using the box that Kytch makes. So the Franchisee buys a Kytch box and then doesn’t need to call ANYBODY.
Doomsider@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 00:13
nextcollapse
Unrelated to the topic but has anyone else noticed the quality of the soft serve has gone down dramatically in the last several years. I got a ice cream cone and it didn’t even taste good. I was looking at their advert for a Mcflurry and it looked all ice crystally and not good at all. If they can’t even make the picture look good that is saying something.
piecat@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 00:31
nextcollapse
Healthy, Fast&Cheap, or Delicious. Pick 2.
lemick24@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 00:37
nextcollapse
I think it’s more like
Healthy, Fast, Cheap, Delicious
Pick 2
Wilzax@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 00:42
nextcollapse
Healthy, Fast, Cheap, Delicious exists it’s called fruit from Trader Joe’s
abbotsbury@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 01:04
nextcollapse
My neighborhood isn’t bougie enough for a Trader Joe’s
cubedsteaks@lemmy.today
on 30 Aug 2023 02:49
collapse
gotta go local.
I never get ice cream from fast food chains.
TwinTusks@outpost.zeuslink.net
on 30 Aug 2023 07:45
nextcollapse
Depends where you are, I’m not in the US and local ice cream sucks much more than fast food chains.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Aug 2023 18:39
collapse
Hard ice cream is where it’s at.
krayj@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Aug 2023 00:21
nextcollapse
There’s already a link to the vid talking about the utter bullshit and corruption surrounding the McD’s ice cream machines posted in this thread, but here’s a resource I haven’t seen posted yet: an online tracker to find out if your local McD’s ice cream machine is working or broken right now.
Aatube@kbin.social
on 30 Aug 2023 01:54
nextcollapse
I swear that site makes green dots smaller until they disappear when you zoom out. Still pretty cool though, our nearest McDonalds has a broken ice cream machine
achance4cheese@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Aug 2023 04:01
collapse
Funny, the one nearest to me and where I grew up are broken. This is such a neat tool!
user224@lemmy.sdf.org
on 30 Aug 2023 06:52
nextcollapse
Holy hell! Look at UK.
krayj@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Aug 2023 18:15
collapse
What I don’t know is whether the UK has to comply with the same BS exclusive service contracts for their ice cream machines as the US does, or if it’s a similar arrangement only with different companies and manufacturers.
The McD closest to my house is almost always unable to sell ice cream products - it’s down more often that it’s working.
XTornado@lemmy.ml
on 30 Aug 2023 08:18
nextcollapse
How do they get the data?
nathanielcwm@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 11:11
nextcollapse
iirc it used to get it through a reverse engineering of the McDonald’s app api. Not sure about now tho
If its the one I know, it sends an online ice cream request through the API, and then cancels the successful ones before they reach the stores. The unsuccessful ones are broken machines, essentially.
krayj@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Aug 2023 18:12
collapse
They reverse engineered the ordering API (that the app uses) and try to add a McSundae to an online order. If the ice cream machine is broken, it won’t let you add that item to an order for the specific location. If the McSundae machine is working, it will let you add that item to the order for the designated location.
It updates each location every 30 minutes, so is very up to date.
Pretty sure they explicitly do not want legislators to think they will “hack” them. Is this article shillin’ for Taylor?
NotYourSocialWorker@feddit.nu
on 30 Aug 2023 08:13
collapse
You probably already know but hacking originally meant to modify a machine for instance (or furniture as in ikea hacks) but it really is a word one should avoid when speaking with people who aren’t part of the communities that use it in its original meaning.
Maalus@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 10:21
nextcollapse
To hack means to chop something to pieces violently. It doesn’t matter what it used to be in the past - people now are using it differently. Language evolves over time and the most used interpretations survive.
hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org
on 30 Aug 2023 15:54
nextcollapse
The positive connotation of “hack” is still seen today - for example in “lifehack”.
klyde@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 16:09
nextcollapse
Wrong
NotYourSocialWorker@feddit.nu
on 30 Aug 2023 17:49
collapse
To “hack it” also means to be able to handle something. That there were multiple meanings for the word was never in question and I really do agree with you that language evolve over time and you simply need to learn to live with that.
But also, if you go back and look at my response to op I also wrote that I found it unsuitable to use it in this case exactly due to the risk of being misunderstood.
GentlemanLoser@ttrpg.network
on 30 Aug 2023 10:25
nextcollapse
I don’t see anything about hacking in this sense that predates the 1970s. Pretty sure systems hacking predates “IKEA hack” as well.
NotYourSocialWorker@feddit.nu
on 30 Aug 2023 17:41
collapse
Earliest I’ve heard was from MIT and the pranks they do. I think that was from the fifties.
Yes, Ikea hacks are much later. Me and my wife were doing it/calling it that around 2005 when we modded a desk. It was intended to be an example of the dual usage of the word hack.
chinpokomon@lemmy.ml
on 30 Aug 2023 21:58
collapse
Hacker vs. cracker. Hack isn’t a nefarious term, or at least it shouldn’t be. Hacking is just using something in an unintended way. The problem is with how DMCA made that am illegal thing to do if there was a digital lock. While intended to mean you can’t bypass CSS to rip movies from DVDs, it’s been used to block the right to repair and other things completely anti-consumer. But you probably know this.
tesfabpel@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 11:25
nextcollapse
BTW, fixing broken machines’ software (printers) was how Richard Stallman got so frustrated to invent the GPL license…
Asymptote@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 30 Aug 2023 17:21
collapse
Imagine being the guy who wrote so buggy software that you inadvertently saddled the entire world with rms
Spliffman1@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 12:17
collapse
I had forgotten that McDonald’s even has ice cream… If I ever knew at all… I go there for the fries 🍟
GunValkyrie@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 18:33
collapse
You didn’t know they sold milkshakes?
Spliffman1@lemmy.world
on 30 Aug 2023 20:26
collapse
I live in a country that doesn’t even have a McDonald’s, never has…so my McDonald’s experience is very tunneled when I go to USA, I don’t drink milk or eat beef… So I go there, drive through, or walk in, and get my fries 🍟
Spliffman1@lemmy.world
on 31 Aug 2023 01:24
collapse
That’s fine I’m not fanatical with the milk, I said I dont “drink” milk, and I don’t eat ice cream… So noticing milk shakes or ice-cream wouldn’t be on my radar
threaded - newest
What baffles me about this whole situation is McDonald’s (corporate) role in perpetuating it. It doesn’t make sense as a way to squeeze money from the franchises, because the extracted rents¹ don’t go to corporate; it goes to Taylor. It’s a loss to the franchisee, and no benefit to McDonald’s central.
This smells of graft. Someone at McDonald’s corporate is getting paid off illicitly.
¹ In the political-economy sense of “rent”, not the one that means “lease payment”.
By the values of Corpmurica, that executive is just acting out of rational self-interest.
Isn’t our society in favor of fucking over anyone we can for individual profit? Isn’t that what we’re taught by example to do, lest we be considered an un-American commie?
You can bribe our politicians legally with infinite sums of money to PACs since Citizens United, you think anyone gives a shit about bribing a McDonald’s executive?
Huh? By the rules and values of Corporate America, breaching your employer’s trust by taking kickbacks from a contractor would be solidly against the rules.
My suspicion is that McDonald’s corporate is not making as much money as it could be, because franchisees are paying Taylor for fake repairs instead of buying more shitty ice cream mix from corporate.
This is not a matter of Good vs Evil. It’s one Lawful Evil group getting ripped off by another.
Oh yes, harumph I say! Multinational corporations are as honorable as they are trustworthy, and demand that very same honor and integrity from their executive team in their scrupulous business practices, I say!
I don’t claim to have a solution but one thing that has always bugged me about this. When I award contracts or buy pretty much anything I can’t take a bribe of money, but I can take a bribe of effort. It is acceptable for me (I did have this conversation more than once) to straight off tell a salesperson I can go higher on price if they agree to keep prices constant so I don’t have to constantly look at them. Or if they agree to do some other time saving measure.
I upvoted you because I don’t award contracts, so I have no idea if that’s common practice but I hope your comment gets some visibility and discussion. It’s quite interesting to think about the value of our time or effort and how maximizing those isn’t a bribe, it’s just common sense.
Your boss asks you to go to the store to buy something, I don’t know a flashlight. You can go to the store that is further away and get a lower price of the store very close and pay more.
For some reason this is different than if a flashlight sales person offereded you money to buy their flashlight.
Bribes of time are fine bribes of money aren’t.
Executives who run McDonalds likely also own shares in Taylor. Just like they have a financial interest in paper straws.
Well, the company was taken over by a milkshake machine seller.
What a Kroc.
There is also no loss for McDonald’s central, but they have a old and close business relationship with Taylor that they seem to care about more than their own franchise owners.
It hurts the brand immeasurably, how is that not a loss? Not only does it annoy customers, it causes them to go to other franchises instead. That decreases the value of their franchise, which directly hurts the company.
Long trip, daughter wants an ice cream, I am hungry, pull off the highway and go towards McDonald’s, then remember their ice cream machine is probably broken so I go to Wendy’s instead. Realize they are running their biggie bag promotion and get like 2 meals worth of food and an Ice cream for like 7 bucks… Why would I go to McDonald’s again for fast food if I have the option?
I honestly don't understand how they're still around when places like Wendy's exist. Their prices have skyrocketed and the food is mediocre of im being incredibly generous.
I think it smells more of grift.
It IS graft. I’ve forgotten where I ran into the information but someone tracked it down. Taylors (the machine company) has an exclusive contract with McDonald’s Corporate for the machines and McDonald’s Corporate receives a portion of the service revenue whenever a Taylor machine is “fixed”.
That’s why McDonald’s is fighting Kytch / helping Taylor.
Oh, so it is just screwing the franchisees.
Well, shit.
Graft means hard, honest work. Maybe you mean grift.
graft [ graft, grahft ]
the acquisition of money, gain, or advantage by dishonest, unfair, or illegal means, especially through the abuse of one’s position or influence in politics, business, etc.
a particular instance, method, or means of thus acquiring gain or advantage.
Well I’ll be. TIL!
No, graft is used as a term for things like police demanding weekly payments in exchange for protection, acting like a local gang or mafia, or politicians soliciting bribes. It’s when anyone in an official position abuses their authority in such a way.
Alright, fuck it! Lets build our own soft serve ice cream machines… with blackjack and hookers.
Okay, and then you get fined for violating your franchise contract that requires you use these machines.
Then we’ll create our own franchise. We’ll call it FuttBuckers, or something like that…
mcdonalds is somehow profiting from this, or it just wouldnt be happening.
More likely someone at McDonalds than the company itself.
The company itself, they profit from the repairs.
How? A different company sells and services the machines, and it is not a subsidiary of the McDonalds Corporation.
There’s literally no other explanation, McDonald’s can only do whatever brings them profit, and they did the math I’m sure, this HAS to be profitable.
No. I already gave another more probable explanation that happens all the time in business.
From the article: "A DMCA exemption would allow McDonald’s franchises to legally do repair work on their own machines."
Wait, copyright can be used to prevent repairs? What is the justification? Is it a “ice cream machine company owns the copyright to mcdonalds ice cream and if you tamper with the machine you can’t call it McDonald’s ice cream anymore” kind of deal or is tampering straight up illegal?
The DMCA criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.
This only applies to digital access controls right? Otherwise those ‘warranty void if removed’ stickers would be legal
I think there needs to be a digital component but it can still apply to physical goods. Either way, “warranty void if removed” stickers aren’t a control. It only applies to “effective” controls:
If you need to reverse engineer the product to bypass the access control, then that generally qualifies as an effective control. But if you can just press F12 or Escape or remove a sticker, that wouldn’t qualify as effective.
(For what it’s worth I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.)
But isn’t it ineffective once it’s been bypassed, therefore making it legal again?
Unfortunately that’s not what they mean by “effective.” They define it like this:
The key verbiage there is “in the ordinary course of its operation.”
.
Taylor must pay McDonald’s a tidy sum for the exclusivity contract. Both parties make out like bandits in the deal. I’m kind of surprised McDonald’s never in-housed it out of greed, but that day may be coming due to all the negative publicity.
I suspect it’s a case of they thought they were getting a good deal out of this when they signed the contract but didn’t realise how much Taylor was going to take the piss until it was too late. Likely when the contract expires it probably won’t be renewed.
It’s not an exclusive contract, franchise owners can also buy Carpigiani machines.
Not necessarily. If the losses they are sustaining aren’t understood or obfuscated through corporate and bureaucratic bullshit, it could go unnoticed for quite a while.
Eh not necessarily. It's a common joke, and ifixit gets publicity both for their own brand and for right to repair out of it
Edit: unless you meant they're getting something out of it being so locked down, in which case yeah. Corporate basically gets to pass the costs down to individual franchisees even more
As a result of these shenanigans by Taylor and on their behalf McDonald’s itself I haven’t considered McDonald’s a viable place to go for any kind of ice cream or ice cream-adjacent thing for many years, whereas this was once not the case. I know I’m not the only one either.
We are lucky enough to have a drive-through Baskin Robbins in this town. So my convenient ice cream choices are quite nice. But it must suck if your only option for ice cream is broken.
Wow, I really don’t envy your options. I’d prefer pretty much any ice cream chain over BR.
It’s not the best ice cream, but between that and McDonalds when you don’t want to get out of your car, I’ll pick the one with more flavor options.
We do have one other ice cream place. It’s inside the lobby of a gun range. I’m not kidding.
They also had a bullshit private ‘mask-free school’ going on during the height of COVID, so fuck them.
That sounds like the kind of place I grew up in and eventually escaped.
You grew up in a gun range? I’m glad you got out
Lol no. I grew up in a place where you’d have an ice cream parlor in a gun range.
I haven’t even thought about getting McDonald’s ice cream in years just because it seems like they are never able to serve it so I’m not even going to try. When I want ice cream I’ll go to the place that make ice cream on a cold slab.
I just stopped considering McDonalds a place that serves ice cream. The menu item just doesn’t exist there in my mind.
I wonder how much this actually hurts their business? Probably more than they realize. My daughter loves ice cream, and I am not going to play McDonald’s roulette, unless I have to. We just go to Wendy’s if we are going to eat fast food, the foods better and cheaper anyway and I have yet to run into a broken machine.
It probably hurts the franchisee more than it hurts McDonalds proper, and they make it back and then some from their deal with Taylor.
Hey, kids! Do you want to play a game? Its called “Everyone In Any Position of Power is Corrupt!”
I freaking hate this game, when can we play something else :(
The game only ends when there are no remaining players who can stand or when the players have nothing left, not even the clothes on their backs.
Wow, season 2 of Squid Game is brutal.
Can you win if all the people in power happen to not be alive anymore?
Thats a surprise tool that we’ll save for later
One way to find out?
No, that just starts the next round.
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Can you explain the rules? This game kinda sounds like it sucks.
Well if you win ya get a free guillotine!
Here you go! The Rules for Rulers
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): piped.video/rStL7niR7gs
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Id blow them up and buy one from a reliable source…
McDonald’s Franchisee’s can’t buy anything other than these specific machines from Taylor. They can’t even buy the machines that Taylor sells to other chains like Wendy’s!
Kind of seems a bit pointless what they’re campaigning for in this regard. A DMCA exemption wouldn’t allow franchise owners to use an alternative repair company, as no doubt their franchise contract specifies who they can use.
That’s not the point. Often there’s nothing actually wrong with the machine, you simply need to be able to reset a system flag which you can easily do using the box that Kytch makes. So the Franchisee buys a Kytch box and then doesn’t need to call ANYBODY.
.
I watched a youtube deep dive into this, the corruption is insane.
.
Unrelated to the topic but has anyone else noticed the quality of the soft serve has gone down dramatically in the last several years. I got a ice cream cone and it didn’t even taste good. I was looking at their advert for a Mcflurry and it looked all ice crystally and not good at all. If they can’t even make the picture look good that is saying something.
Healthy, Fast&Cheap, or Delicious. Pick 2.
I think it’s more like
Healthy, Fast, Cheap, Delicious
Pick 2
Healthy, Fast, Cheap, Delicious exists it’s called fruit from Trader Joe’s
My neighborhood isn’t bougie enough for a Trader Joe’s
Neither is mine but they do exist!
Trader Joe’s is cheap?
The produce is, yes
Cooking at home bumps that up to a 3.
Cooking at home ain’t really fast, not compared to a fast food joint at least.
But you get healthy*, cheap** and delicious*** food
*YMMV depending on food choices
**YMMV depending on ingredients and quality
***YMMV depending on cooking skills
I’m no expert or anything, but I don’t think you’re supposed to cook ice cream…
Let’s be honest it’s pick one and another may or may not be randomly picked for you.
I see you also are a project manager.
Don’t have to compromise with b e a n s.
What if I don’t like beans?
Skill issue.
gotta go local.
I never get ice cream from fast food chains.
Depends where you are, I’m not in the US and local ice cream sucks much more than fast food chains.
Hard ice cream is where it’s at.
There’s already a link to the vid talking about the utter bullshit and corruption surrounding the McD’s ice cream machines posted in this thread, but here’s a resource I haven’t seen posted yet: an online tracker to find out if your local McD’s ice cream machine is working or broken right now.
mcbroken.com
(love the domain name)
I swear that site makes green dots smaller until they disappear when you zoom out. Still pretty cool though, our nearest McDonalds has a broken ice cream machine
Funny, the one nearest to me and where I grew up are broken. This is such a neat tool!
Holy hell! Look at UK.
What I don’t know is whether the UK has to comply with the same BS exclusive service contracts for their ice cream machines as the US does, or if it’s a similar arrangement only with different companies and manufacturers.
The McD closest to my house is almost always unable to sell ice cream products - it’s down more often that it’s working.
How do they get the data?
iirc it used to get it through a reverse engineering of the McDonald’s app api. Not sure about now tho
If its the one I know, it sends an online ice cream request through the API, and then cancels the successful ones before they reach the stores. The unsuccessful ones are broken machines, essentially.
They reverse engineered the ordering API (that the app uses) and try to add a McSundae to an online order. If the ice cream machine is broken, it won’t let you add that item to an order for the specific location. If the McSundae machine is working, it will let you add that item to the order for the designated location.
It updates each location every 30 minutes, so is very up to date.
More details about it here: hypebeast.com/…/mcbroken-site-mcdonalds-ice-cream…
Why is there some countries without thoses (e.g. Spain, France, Italy…) ?
Pretty sure they explicitly do not want legislators to think they will “hack” them. Is this article shillin’ for Taylor?
You probably already know but hacking originally meant to modify a machine for instance (or furniture as in ikea hacks) but it really is a word one should avoid when speaking with people who aren’t part of the communities that use it in its original meaning.
To hack means to chop something to pieces violently. It doesn’t matter what it used to be in the past - people now are using it differently. Language evolves over time and the most used interpretations survive.
The positive connotation of “hack” is still seen today - for example in “lifehack”.
Wrong
To “hack it” also means to be able to handle something. That there were multiple meanings for the word was never in question and I really do agree with you that language evolve over time and you simply need to learn to live with that.
But also, if you go back and look at my response to op I also wrote that I found it unsuitable to use it in this case exactly due to the risk of being misunderstood.
www.etymonline.com/word/hack#etymonline_v_41496
I don’t see anything about hacking in this sense that predates the 1970s. Pretty sure systems hacking predates “IKEA hack” as well.
Earliest I’ve heard was from MIT and the pranks they do. I think that was from the fifties.
Yes, Ikea hacks are much later. Me and my wife were doing it/calling it that around 2005 when we modded a desk. It was intended to be an example of the dual usage of the word hack.
Hacker vs. cracker. Hack isn’t a nefarious term, or at least it shouldn’t be. Hacking is just using something in an unintended way. The problem is with how DMCA made that am illegal thing to do if there was a digital lock. While intended to mean you can’t bypass CSS to rip movies from DVDs, it’s been used to block the right to repair and other things completely anti-consumer. But you probably know this.
BTW, fixing broken machines’ software (printers) was how Richard Stallman got so frustrated to invent the GPL license…
Imagine being the guy who wrote so buggy software that you inadvertently saddled the entire world with rms
I had forgotten that McDonald’s even has ice cream… If I ever knew at all… I go there for the fries 🍟
You didn’t know they sold milkshakes?
I live in a country that doesn’t even have a McDonald’s, never has…so my McDonald’s experience is very tunneled when I go to USA, I don’t drink milk or eat beef… So I go there, drive through, or walk in, and get my fries 🍟
In the USA, McDonalds fries contain milk, just so you know.
www.mcdonalds.com/us/…/small-french-fries.html
That’s fine I’m not fanatical with the milk, I said I dont “drink” milk, and I don’t eat ice cream… So noticing milk shakes or ice-cream wouldn’t be on my radar