iFixit wants Congress to let it hack McDonald’s ice cream machines::McDonald’s ice cream machines are notorious for breaking all the time, so iFixit wants to help people repair them without the help of the manufacturer.
Its a scam between McDonalds and the manufacturer, why would they let a 3rd party come and ruin their scam.
Well hopefully it won’t be up to McDonald’s.
Let me introduce you to lobbying, and also hiring some lawyers to argue in the company’s favor.
Damn, I really wish you hadn’t
Yeah, I wish it wasn’t such a big factor weighed so heavily in McDonald’s favor.
It actually doesn’t help or harm McDonald’s Corporate at all on this issue. That’s why they’ve been fine with the status quo. It would help McDonald’s franchisees quite a bit, so I suspect McDonald’s won’t send lobbyists to deal with what they view as a non-issue.
Taylor, the manufacturer of the machines on the other hand stands to lose a significant percentage of the profits they currently make, and absolutely does have a dog in this fight. Thankfully they don’t have McDonald’s type funding, so it’s possible that we can win this one.
If I remember correctly I saw a video explaining this. Same goes with the device. Apparently the company that makes the machines and McDonalds have some sort of agreement where McDonald’s gets the machine at a huge discount but they have to use that company for repairs and only them. Win win for both. Company also added script to stop the device from working. Something like that.
Either way im at the point where I completely forget that McDonald’s has ice cream.
Here’s the video: https://piped.video/SrDEtSlqJC4?si=F9x-GPjuXEaSk7zO
Company also added script to stop the device from working. Something like that.
I don’t think it’s quite that devious. That kind of “feature” would probably be racketeering and ripe for lawsuit. I think it’s more that the machines are temperamental as fuck and the methods to fix the machines are kept under a very tight lid.
That’s the one!
This guy went on a deep dive to uncover the scam that is McDonald’s and their ice cream machines. https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4?si=F9x-GPjuXEaSk7zO
Worth the watch
Is this a US only thing? I’ve travelled all over europe and americas and I always try to go to each country’s Mcdonalds to see if they have anything different. NEVER have I encountered a broken ice cream machine.
Broken ice cream machines are a regular thing here in the UK.
Do they really break all the time or they just don’t fucking clean them when they should and they refuse to keep working
There’s a 4 hour heat cycle it has to go through as part of the cleaning. In addition, the machines are apparently very temperamental and throw errors a lot, but the error codes are (arguably intentionally) obscure so typical employees just aren’t going to know what’s wrong with it. Also machine servicing is done exclusively by the machine manufacturer, so if any work needs to be done to it they’ve gotta schedule a tech call-out.
I have no clue about the McDonald’s ice cream machine but the one I used to have to use when I worked at Burger King could have various issues, for instance the most common reason it went down was it getting low on mix and someone not refilling it, if that would happen for about 30+ min it would freeze the thing solid and at that point you have to turn it off for hours, and you still probably have to tear it apart and run hot water through it which would make a huge mess just to get it in unfroze. Worst part is I was a closer, and if the people on the shift before me weren’t keeping up with it, I could come in to it being frozen… I hated that thing
The ice cream machine at my local McDonald’s always works. I eat their ice cream somewhat regularly and never been told it’s down.
Guess we’re done here folks. This guy says it’s not a problem so it must not be!
