this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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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.

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[–] Bernie_Sandals 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

TLDR: Mcdonalds and an ice cream machine company are up to some scummy shit to fuck over franchises and customers for more profits.

TLDW: Mcdonalds and the company that makes almost all fast food ice cream machines, Taylor, have had a long time partnership.

Through this partnership, Mcdonalds franchises are only allowed to buy a singular type of Taylor machine. All of Taylor's machines that other chains use work just fine, but the ones Mcdonalds is forced to use through the partnership are basically designed to be shitty. They break all the time, and when it breaks down, the error code doesn't even tell the employees what's wrong, even if it's something simple the employee could fix themselves. It forces the Mcdonalds franchises to get a repair technician from Taylor making them pay assloads of money on repair costs, and these repairs of Mcdonalds' machines account for a massive amount of Taylor's revenue.

Mcdonalds corporate is hurt none in this process, only the franchises, so Mcdonalds Corporate and Taylor stay buddy buddy. Some other company made a third party addition for the Taylor machines that puts out proper error codes that allow employees to fix minor issues on the fly, Mcdonalds has banned their franchises from using these for "safety issues".

I would still suggest watching the video in your spare time though, it's a really fascinating case study of how companies collude to fuck over customers and even their own lesser partners.

Edit: Grammar, Formatting

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I used to work for Taylors competition Electrofreeze as a refrigeration repair tech. if Taylor is anything like Electrofreeze it was (going back 7 years) $265 just for me to walk into the door. If you forgot to flip a switch and that's all I had to do, $265 please.

I imagine they make a lot of money off of that. Plus marking up parts... $600 compressor we would sell for $2000.

I really enjoyed fixing things for people, I just hated having to hit them over the head with the service charge when they didn't really need service :/