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iFixit Tears Down McDonald's McFlurry Machine, Petitions Government for Right to Hack Them

www.404media.co iFixit Tears Down McDonald's McFlurry Machine, Petitions Government for Right to Hack Them

iFixit tears down a notoriously unreliable McDonald’s ice cream machine: “The error codes are nonsensical, counterintuitive, and seemingly random.”

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iFixit Petitions Government for Right to Hack McDonald's Ice Cream Machine

www.404media.co /activists-petition-government-for-right-to-hack-mcdonalds-mcflurry-machines-to-repair-them/

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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".
- 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.
- 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.
- Executives who run McDonalds likely also own shares in Taylor. Just like they have a financial interest in paper straws.
- 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?
- Well, the company was taken over by a milkshake machine seller.
  
  What a Kroc.
- I think it smells more of grift.
- 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.
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.

https://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?
  
  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: https://hypebeast.com/2020/10/mcbroken-site-mcdonalds-ice-cream-machines-working-tracker-info
  
  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.
  
  iirc it used to get it through a reverse engineering of the McDonald's app api. Not sure about now tho
- Why is there some countries without thoses (e.g. Spain, France, Italy...) ?
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.
- Can you explain the rules? This game kinda sounds like it sucks.
  
  Can you explain the rules?
  
  Here you go! The Rules for Rulers
  
  Well if you win ya get a free guillotine!
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
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.
- 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...
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.
  
  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.
  
  https://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.
  
  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.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
mcdonalds is somehow profiting from this, or it just wouldnt be happening.
- 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.
- 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?
- More likely someone at McDonalds than the company itself.
  
  The company itself, they profit from the repairs.
- 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
- 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.
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
  
  Don't have to compromise with b e a n s.
  
  I see you also are a project manager.
- gotta go local.
  
  I never get ice cream from fast food chains.
  
  Hard ice cream is where it's at.
  
  Depends where you are, I'm not in the US and local ice cream sucks much more than fast food chains.
I watched a youtube deep dive into this, the corruption is insane.
- This one?
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
  
  Not defending McDonald’s or Taylor. Awful companies. And I’m all about the right to repair. But there’s some glaring YouTube style documentary oversimplification here.
  
  For instance, if someone who isn’t a technician - someone who’s sole motivation is to get the machine to spit out cold goop - can alter the parameters of temperature without verifying that it should be altered, therefore tricking the machine into thinking it reached or sustained safe temperatures during cleaning or normal operation, it could be a disaster for both McDonald’s and Taylor.
  
  Also safety aside, things like viscosity (because that a parameter you can change in technicians service menu too), being off potentially jeopardizes everything McDonald’s probably hopes to achieve in its franchise: global consistency.
  
  Also the UI sucks. But it’s not really cryptic to me. I’m idiot and could immediately tell you the errors at time stamp 18:10:
  
  LHPR>45F 1HR
  
  LPROD too VISC
  
  Means
  
  Left hopper went over 45 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour. A clear safety issue.
  
  Left side product is to viscous. A quality issue.
  
  And that was the best example of cryprtic error messages the video could come up with. And 3rd party app didn’t seem any better tbh, other than sending you an email. Which is nice for the owners, no doubt.
  
  It’s just a shit product. Made by shit companies. With little incentive to fix it. With McDonald’s and Taylor benefiting. Big bank take little bank. Not really an exposé.
  
  I actually think it’s a pretty poor video.
  
  Anyhow fuck McDonald’s. I’m gonna go back to not eating Mcjail food.
  
  YES! I was meaning to find it, thank you!
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!
  
  in 2017 they allowed them to purchase Carpigiani machines
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.
- 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.

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