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  • McBroken

    From JAB@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 3 19:40:59 2024
    A new copyright rule lets McDonald's fix its own broken ice cream
    machines
    ...
    ...
    ..
    Before this week, most of the McDonald's ice cream makers could only
    be fixed through the machine's manufacturer. The Digital Millennium
    Copyright Act, which protects the code embedded in the ice cream
    machines, made it illegal for third parties, like McDonald's employees
    and franchisee owners, to break the digital locks installed by
    manufacturers.

    The new rule, which went into effect on Monday, allows outside vendors
    to fix "retail-level commercial food preparation equipment." That
    includes McDonald's ice cream machines, as 404 media journalist Jason
    Koebler explained to NPR's Weekend Edition.

    https://www.npr.org/2024/11/02/g-s1-31893/mcdonalds-broken-ice-cream-machine-copyright-law

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From JAB@21:1/5 to All on Mon Nov 4 13:00:12 2024
    On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:43:17 -0500, Michael Trew <[email protected]>
    wrote:

    That was a
    poor business decision

    Franchises took a hit, but did Mac profit initially?

    Mac has a leverage when buying from any supplier, and could have made
    it so for each owner to fix their machines.

    Knowing what goes down in business circles, I'd say Mr. Mac got a
    piece of the profit pie, and did not focus upon maintenance (unless
    they got a cut here too)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Michael Trew@21:1/5 to Auric Hellman on Mon Nov 4 13:43:17 2024
    On 11/4/2024 12:25 PM, Auric Hellman wrote:
    On 11/3/2024 8:40 PM, JAB wrote:.
    ..
    Before this week, most of the McDonald's ice cream makers could only
    be fixed through the machine's manufacturer.

    The new rule, which went into effect on Monday, allows outside vendors
    to fix "retail-level commercial food preparation equipment."

    In other words, now some kid making minimum wage will have to learn how
    to fix the machine instead a skilled technician earning union wages.

    No, not quite, they've just opened up to more affordable third party
    repair options. McDonald's used to have normal soft serve machines, but attempted to modernize franchises with the fancy digital machines
    several years ago, which go out for maintenance frequently. That was a
    poor business decision, because they were then stuck with paying for proprietary repairmen $$$ ... Now, they can hire any repair service to
    work on the machines, not whatever company made them and locked them
    into some proprietary repair agreement (much like Apple computers).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Michael Trew@21:1/5 to JAB on Tue Nov 5 11:05:02 2024
    On 11/4/2024 2:00 PM, JAB wrote:
    On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:43:17 -0500, Michael Trew <[email protected]>
    wrote:

    That was a
    poor business decision

    Franchises took a hit, but did Mac profit initially?

    Mac has a leverage when buying from any supplier, and could have made
    it so for each owner to fix their machines.

    Knowing what goes down in business circles, I'd say Mr. Mac got a
    piece of the profit pie, and did not focus upon maintenance (unless
    they got a cut here too)

    Hard to say, maybe corporate did profit. I had a friend who worked at a
    local franchise, and they all hated when corporate forced them to use
    these clunky defective new ice cream machines.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From JAB@21:1/5 to All on Tue Nov 5 11:45:07 2024
    On Tue, 5 Nov 2024 11:05:02 -0500, Michael Trew <[email protected]>
    wrote:

    Hard to say, maybe corporate did profit.

    Look at automotive and agriculture industries...."Franchises" are
    buying OEM vehicles, implements, parts, tools, etc from corporate.

    Corporations are not "non-profits," they make a buck from all sales.

    Mac likely profited from the sale of these machines, but unknown about servicing them. Regardless, this shows Mac was not concerned with the maintenance requirement, but they were fully aware only the OEM could
    fix them...and that stinks.

    "As of 2023, there were approximately 41,800 McDonald's restaurants
    around the world." Mr Mac had the power to tell the OEM maker, "we
    will fix them." Local McDonalds around here have their own service
    techs, and Mr Mac would have been aware of this tidbit.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)