From WSJ [original, paywalled], Vice [quoted below], and others:
McFlurry machines are complicated pieces of equipment designed so that only certified technicians employed by the Taylor, the manufacturer, can service them. When one breaks, even if it's a simple fix, the McDonald's franchise has to call in a special repair person to fix it. A company called Kytch invented a device that lets franchise owners do basic repairs and diagnostics without calling in the expensive repair person. According to Motherboard's reporting, some techs and McDonald's franchises know how to bypass safety features to get the machine operational.
Kytch busted Taylor's monopoly on repairing the ice cream machines and, according to Kytch, Taylor retaliated by stealing its devices and reverse engineering them. Kytch won a legal victory in early August when a judge awarded it a temporary restraining order against Taylor and ordered the ice cream machine manufacturer to return ill-gotten Kytch devices.
The McDonald's ice cream machine problem is a right to repair issue. Franchises pay for a McFlurry machine and then have to keep paying Taylor to keep it running. It's an issue that mirrors Apple charging exorbitant amounts [for] basic iPhone repairs or John Deere forcing farmers to use their authorized dealers to get a repair.
In July, Joe Biden signed an executive order that detailed his administration's plans to make it easier for everyone to repair their own stuff. Later that month, the FTC formally adopted a right-to-repair platform and promised to investigate companies for possible violations of antitrust and anti-competition laws. According to the FTC letter viewed by The Wall Street [Journal], it appears that looking into what's going on with the ice cream machines is part of that push.
Related:
This app tells you if your local McDonald's ice cream machine is down
Is Your Local McDonald's Ice Cream Machine Broken? Check the McBroken App
McBroken
Previously:
Bot Orders $18,752 of McSundaes Every 30 Minutes to Find If Machines are Working
Related Stories
Bot orders $18,752 of McSundaes every 30 min. to find if machines are working:
Burgers, fries, and McNuggets are the staples of McDonald's fare. But the chain also offers soft-serve ice cream in most of its 38,000+ locations. Or at least, theoretically it does. In reality, the ice cream machines are infamously prone to breaking down, routinely disappointing anyone trying to satisfy their midnight McFlurry craving.
One enterprising software engineer, Rashiq Zahid, decided it's better to know if the ice cream machine is broken before you go. The solution? A bot to check ahead. Thus was born McBroken, which maps out all the McDonald's near you with a simple color-coded dot system: green if the ice cream machine is working and red if it's broken.
The bot basically works through McDonald's mobile app, which you can use to place an order at any McDonald's location. If you can add an ice cream order to your cart, the theory goes, the machine at that location is working. If you can't, it's not. So Zahid took that idea and scaled up.
[...] "I reverse-engineered McDonald's internal ordering API," he explained when he launched the tool, "and I'm currently placing an order worth $18,752 every minute at every McDonald's in the US to figure out which locations have a broken ice cream machine."
[...] The Verge interviewed Zahid about his project once his tweet announcing it took off.
NB: The bot does not actually place the order. It attempts to set up an order, and if it is allowed to add the item, it is assumed to be available. Taking note of that, it then exits out of the attempt. At no time is money exchanged. Also, he discovered that he had to back off to once every 30 minutes or it got blocked.
A while back, retired journalist and octogenarian, Chris Biddle, had an excellent interview with author and digital rights activist Cory Doctorow about digital restrictions. They speak in particular about digital restrictions technologies which have been spread within agricultural equipment through the equipment's firmware. Their conversation starts out with mention of the use of network-connected firmware to brick the tractors which were looted from dealership sales lots in Ukraine by the invading Russian army. Cory gives a detailed overview of the issues hidden away by the mainstream press under the feel-good stories about the incident.
But was the bigger picture more worrying? I speak with Cory Doctorow, author, Guardian journalist with a special interest in protecting human rights in this digital age.
He says that whilst 'kill-switches' used to disable the machinery provide a security benefit, it is possible that widely available 'hacking' technology could also be used to disrupt the world's agricultural infrastructure by those with more sinister motives.
All of which feeds into the Right to Repair cases currently going through the US courts. It is also all about who owns the tractor, who owns data, and who owns the rights to the embedded software?
Deere contends that a customer can never fully own connected machinery because it holds exclusive rights to the software coding.
Some US farmers have attempted to unlock the embedded by purchasing illegal firmware –mostly developed by sophisticated hackers based in Ukraine!
The interview is just under 45 minutes.
Previously:
(2022) New York State Passes First Electronics Right-to-Repair Bill
(2022) John Deere Remotely Disables Farm Equipment Stolen by Russians from Ukraine Dealership
(2022) A Fight Over the Right to Repair Cars Turns Ugly
(2021) Apple and John Deere Shareholder Resolutions Demand They Explain Their Bad Repair Policies
(2021) The FTC is Investigating Why McDonald's McFlurry Machines are "Always Broken"
(2020) Europe Wants a 'Right to Repair' Smartphones and Gadgets
(2019)
New Elizabeth Warren Policy Supports "Right to Repair"
(2016) Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 03 2021, @10:10AM (15 children)
We were able to get milkshakes and ice cream sundaes from McDonalds when I was a kid. No electronics involved. The concept is simple, and there are few moving parts involved. Dump a bag of powder into the top of the machine, add some water, turn it on, and in ~10 minutes, you have ice cream. Higher class places used real ice cream, fast food restaurants have always been cheap, using imitation stuff.
So, just take all those Taylor machines, put them on the delivery dock, and call Taylor to come pick their trash up.
TFA makes a valid point about cleaning. It doesn't take a lot of smarts to understand that the machine has to be cleaned regularly, and thoroughly. But 15 & 16 year old high school kids did it routinely when I was in school.
https://www.equipmentandconcepts.com/ice-cream-machines/ [equipmentandconcepts.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @12:59PM (7 children)
"15 & 16 year old high school kids did it routinely when I was in school."
Sadly, that might be optimistic these days.
Seems like there may be some advantage to the extra complexity in these self cleaning machines.
A more interesting question is what should a right to repair rule look like?
How about this?
When you sell a product, you have to advertize if it is repairable or not.
(No avoiding this this by calling it a lease, etc. If it looks like a sale...)
(No avoiding this by forcing customer to waive these rights.)
If it isn't repairable, then you can't have your folks offer to fix it.
If it is, the buyer, and subsequent owners, are entitled to any special keys and information require by your folks to fix it.
It there are special tools, then how they interface with the device has to be documented, and can be provided by you, but others can provide them as well.
If your folks get to call the factory for help, then the current owner should as well at no cost and with the same response quality as you repair folks.
Same for access to parts at comparable prices.
If your folks require special training, then this must be available and third parties should be able to get and provide it in addition to you.
In exchange for this, you are not responsible of a poor repair done not according to the information you provided.
John Deer and Taylor could not sell their gadgets if there were not repairable, so repair info would be available.
Iphones might become non-repairable if folks would buy them that way.
Might need some incentives other than advertising and market to force manufacturers to support repair.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Friday September 03 2021, @03:07PM (3 children)
None of these would even be questions if companies would sell some of these basic parts to folks, or even just allow a secondary part market to exist.
I remember a long time ago when people used to talk about "the common good." That seems to have been completely replaced in America over my lifetime. Now its all about, "How can I get mine, and yours?!"
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @04:46PM (1 child)
Because terrorists, radical leftists, Sharia Law and death panels coming to your door taking away your Bibles.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 04 2021, @09:47AM
Modded troll but those are exactly the scare tactics that kept a bunch of people voting for the sociopaths who only wanted more money and power. Those that are supposed to work for the common good became greedy power hungry assholes and their behavior has affected entire generations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 08 2021, @03:56PM
They're endemic of the same symptoms: People can't remember key cultural details of 30-40 years past.
My parents have even gone in whole hog on the digital economy, formerly social networking (they and my sibling have weaned themselves off it, except for my father and linkedin). My gradeschool teachers used to propagandize us about STASI East Germany, the Gestapo, and Communist Russia. Things like having to show your papers to travel between cities, as opposed to being able to cross the US and only being required to show your ID if you committed a traffic violation and were pulled over. Being spied on by your neighbors and government officials to see who you were associating with, where you were travelling, etc. Being forced to sign unfavorable confessions or contracts in order to survive government scrutiny, etc. Being denied jobs or forcibly relocated based on your race, religion, politics, creed, or sexuality.
How many of these resemble modern America? Does any of our former ideology even exist in modern America? The hypocrisy I've seen growing here in the past 30 years, from groups on both side of the divide appalls and offends me to no end. Moderation in America is dead. Nuanced discussion is dead. The world of the playground behavior from childhood has been shown to be just as apparent in adults from my parent's generation as from those in mine and the Gen-Z crowd.
Is there a solution to this? A way to push back against the sickness rotting at this country in particular, and the world in general? Short of a revolution by the youngest generations, I cannot see a light at the end of this tunnel.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @03:27PM (1 child)
Things used to come with technical manuals. One of the things that happened is that patent trolls got a hold of the technical manuals and would find stupid things to sue for. So companies stopped releasing technical manuals.
The overwhelming majority of tech patents are ridiculously stupid. While they may eventually get overturned in court most companies would rather settle and that's how patent trolls get their money. In the meantime they prevent companies from releasing technical documents.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday September 04 2021, @05:26PM
But you could just do what many other countries do - the loser pays the winner's costs in full. Not optional. You wouldn't have so many patent trolls then.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 03 2021, @08:54PM
Anything in the end user's possession belongs to him, to do with as he wishes. Manufacturer MUST make repair manuals available (simple, easy and cheap in the age of the internet) and the manufacturer MUST make repair/replacement parts available. The only way to get out of that second part, is there is an active, healthy, aftermarket that produces competing parts of equal quality and reliability.
Seriously, 5 decades ago, no consumer or end user would have signed any agreement that limited that user's usage of any item he/she was paying for. Major corporations might have signed such contracts, but I find it hard to believe that very many would have. Seems to me this all started with mainframe computers, where, if you wanted a feature that was built into your machine, you had to pay to have that feature turned on.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Friday September 03 2021, @02:13PM (4 children)
From what I understand, the problem is that McDonalds forces their franchisees to use these particular machines from this vendor. They are also forced to call this vendor for repairing the machine instead of attempting to fix it. Apparently the machine's settings are such that any little issue will have the machine throw an error code and stop functioning until the vendor comes out to "fix" it at the franchisee's expense. It's a goddamn racket!
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @05:27PM
That's smart. How is it any different from doing all you legally can to avoid taxes, including offshore banks, lobbying and taking election donations?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 03 2021, @06:29PM (2 children)
You're probably 100% right. But, that makes me wonder: When the machine stops working, can people clean the decaying sludge out of the machine, or do they have to wait for the tech? Three days after calling the tech, the swarm of flies hovering over the ice cream machine forces the manager to drag it out to the dumpster area?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 04 2021, @12:24AM
Makes me wonder if you follow the money, who has both financial interests in Taylor and McDonalds. On the other hand, Mickey-D's has been known to be excessively militant in consistency that I could see them require everyone to use the same machine. (A friend of mine worked for them in the 80s in New Zealand and he told me that the employees would get regularly spot-checked on their hamburger assembly to make sure that each burger had a minimum of 12 pieces of chopped onion, but no more than 16 (I don't remember the exact onion numbers)).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Saturday September 04 2021, @09:35AM
Just a guess, but they probably have to wait for somebody to come out, because that's the kind of idiotic thing that usually comes of these kind of contracts.
Tangential rant over something similar: it's not quite the same, but I did some bartending before at a couple places and they had weird contracts that prohibited anybody from doing even the most basic maintenance, sort of like that. One had these dumb electronic pouring systems for both beer and liquor that were both prone to breaking, getting gunked up, etc. so half the time I had to just take off the stupid locked pourers to be able to serve drinks at all, which was technically a huge do-not-do-this-ever thing. Luckily there was some understanding because it was usually certain liquors that were stickier and more prone to gunking up (like honey whiskey), so the maintenance guy that came by kept quiet about it instead of being a hard-ass.
The other place just had standard beer taps, but still had some weird fucking contract with whoever provided it. Any cleaning or maintenance had to be done through them, so they came by weekly to do cleaning, and whenever something unexpected happened (which happened a lot, they were garbage and prone to breaking) you'd have to just shut off the relevant line and stop serving that beer for days, even up to a week. Sometimes its was such a simple thing, just needed to take a brush to the tap, but nope, gotta wait 3+ days to serve that beer again. And even more annoying, the people that came by to do the routine cleaning would often fail to flush the lines properly after, resulting in pouring nothing but foam for hours. So we'd discover during a busy period that oh, beer's only pouring foam again, great. No accountability for the dipshits that caused it, either, because we had to either keep using them or change out the whole system. Fucking stupid.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 03 2021, @07:15PM (1 child)
+1 Insightful
However,
Do you expect anyone to have patience to wait ten minutes for ANYTHING in the 21st century? The age of instant gratification and lack of patients.
If you can't get ice cream as fast as swiping on your phone or clicking a button on a web page, then it's way Way WEIGH too slow!
How could anyone in history have ever waited ten minutes for something?
Yesterday, getting annual physical, I didn't even have to wait ten minutes in the Dr.'s office from the moment of asking my Dr. if I could have a third covid shot until I actually had one.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 03 2021, @08:46PM
I thought Covid took care of the lack of patients?
But, I think you came to some kind of conclusion that is not warranted. Memory is hazy after all these years, but I think it was something like a 5 pound sack of powder that went into the machine, and at least a gallon of water, more likely two or three gallons. Typically, that one batch would carry the restaurant through the day, on a weekday. Fridays, weekends and holidays usually required adding more powder and water. The customer at the counter was generally gratified instantly, because all the work was done ahead of time.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Friday September 03 2021, @11:07AM (9 children)
Taylor is in some way owned by McD or at least they have a stake in it?
Because, well, if a company creates such a crappy product that a minimum-wage worker can break by "holding it wrong", the first thing any reputable company would do is to sever that contract and buy from someone more reliable.
In other words, it's about time the FTC takes a closer look at these shenanigans.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @01:04PM (2 children)
I'd guess the CEOs of Taylor and McD met on the golf course and came to an understanding.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @01:31PM (1 child)
It's probably in the franchise agreement where they get the equipment and who can fix it ($$$).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @05:40PM
The franchise agreement requires a McDonald's specific model from one specific manufacturer.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday September 03 2021, @02:37PM (5 children)
What I'm wondering is, if there isn't some kind of underhanded understanding or dysfunctional relationship between corporate and their franchisees, why is McDonald's putting up with this? McDonald's is a 900 pound gorilla, they don't have to take any crap from a small supplier.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @05:30PM
Maybe Taylor is in Ronald Jr, Eric and Ivanka McDonald's investment portfolio?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @05:44PM
Taylor isn't a small supplier and McDonald's corporate office isn't "putting up with" them, rather they are the ones enforcing it. Supposedly they are getting kickbacks from Taylor, which something the FTC should be cracking down on.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday September 03 2021, @09:07PM (2 children)
I doubt that McD is "putting up" with anything here. What happens is that any franchise taker has to get their machines from Taylor, and they also have to foot the bill for the repairs, McD isn't paying a single penny towards it.
Whether they get some pretty penny for forcing their franchise partners to use those machines is something I'd really love to know, though...
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday September 03 2021, @11:41PM (1 child)
So the relationship between McDonald's corporate and the franchisees is dysfunctional!
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday September 04 2021, @10:50AM
"Abusive" is more the term I'd have used. And considering how the average franchise taker treats his workers, it's being passed on downstream.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @12:18PM (4 children)
A "right to repair" is idiotic. Modern technology is far beyond the ability of most to comprehend, let alone succesfully repair. Designing devices to be disassembled means abandoning waterproofing and space efficiency for the dubious ability to extend a product's life. What we /actually/ need is not right to repair, but antitrust enforcement and a huge shakeup and overhall of the SEC. Too bad, all the rich types in D.C. have the system set up just how they like it, but like Ritchie Rich says, these the type of niggaz you fuck with [youtube.com].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Friday September 03 2021, @09:11PM (3 children)
If you don't comprehend how modern machines work, that's ok, nobody has to know everything, but don't extrapolate from your inability to everyone else. Step aside and let those that can do something do it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @09:51PM (2 children)
Yeah, let's make hardware worse for everyone to benefit the miniscule number of geeks and DIYers that want to hack on their shit.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday September 04 2021, @12:41AM
Worse? How so?
You think it's not possible to make hardware waterproof if you can't weld it shut? C'mon, that argument is not even good enough to warrant a reply.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 04 2021, @02:13AM
You're confusing "right to repair" with "design to repair".
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @01:06PM (21 children)
This is a self-correcting problem Ultimately, if McDonald's won't/can't provide the products the customers want, the customers will go to McDonald's competitors (i.e. voting with their dollars).
If this happens, the franchisees (most restaurants are independently owned), will demand that McDonald's corporate fix the problem. If corporate doesn't, it will damage the value of the franchise (hurting McDonald's).
It's a shame that the government is wasting its time on such a trivial issue.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by progo on Friday September 03 2021, @01:43PM (6 children)
This has ALREADY happened. Everyone knows you can't get a milkshake/frappe at McDonalds even though they allegedly offer it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @04:54PM (5 children)
We know no such thing. I don’t often buy milkshakes at McDonald’s, but every time I’ve ordered one, I got one.
Perhaps part of the problem is that some McDonald’s workers don’t want to do the extra work to make such drinks/desserts, and they are using “the machine is broke” as an excuse?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @05:47PM (1 child)
Are you in the US? Because this seems to be a US specific problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @06:11PM
(GP poster). Yes, I'm in the U.S. (Chicago area).
It's a shame that we don't have any data on all the times McDonald's did have working ice cream machines. Often, the 0,1% of customers who are disgruntled will make much more noise than the 99.9% who are content.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @06:18PM (1 child)
The /only/ thing I ever go to McD's for is ice cream/shakes/mcflurrys. They are always out, every time. I don't even bother now, and go to burger king or wnedy's if I get a craving.
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Friday September 03 2021, @07:40PM
(Almost) every McDonalds franchise is owned by a franchisee, not the McDonald's Corporation. Every individual franchisee has differing opinions on maintenance; perhaps the franchisee whose McDonald's you visit is unhappy with getting bent over the counter every time the soft-serve machine needs service, so they simply don't call for service. The machine may only get fixed when the McDonald's inspection police come out and note the broken machine as a deficiency. That works as long as the Franchisee is OK with the lost revenue from soft-serve.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday September 03 2021, @09:14PM
Let's put it that way: It's a big enough issue that there is a webpage [mcbroken.com] dedicated to exactly this issue.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday September 03 2021, @04:29PM (7 children)
It's not about whether the problem will eventually be solved. It's about who pays the cost of solving it. Who should be paying the costs is the manufacturer of the bad equipment and/or the McDonald's executive(s) that took kickbacks from them or otherwise benefited. Whereas by your plan, the penalty is paid by the disgruntled customers, the employees they yell at because they're disgruntled, the franchisees (due to lost sales), and at worst McDonald's shareholders, i.e. lots of people who weren't in any way responsible for the problem.
For the kinds of sociopaths that tend to cluster in upper management of most businesses, if they personally benefit and are certain the cost can be dumped onto somebody else, then they'll do it, immediately. The only way to put a stop to that is to use government action to make sure the cost isn't dumped onto somebody else.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @04:57PM (6 children)
Sorry, I guess I forgot about the “Right to get milkshakes at McDonald’s” clause of the Constitution.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday September 03 2021, @05:00PM (5 children)
There's no right to not be robbed in the Constitution either, but I'm guessing you'd like the government to do something about it when somebody robs you.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @06:14PM (4 children)
That's a stupid argument. No one is being robbed here.
If you want a milkshake and McDonald's can't/won't sell you one, then just go to one of the hundreds of other places that will be happy to sell you a milkshake.
Personally, I'm more annoyed that they stopped selling salads. But I'm not making a federal case out of it.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday September 03 2021, @06:39PM (3 children)
The franchise owners are getting robbed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @08:36PM (2 children)
They signed the franchise contract. They agreed to this.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday September 04 2021, @12:00AM
They didn't agree to deliberately sub-standard and expensive to repair appliances.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 04 2021, @12:35AM
Yikes. I advise you to let other people handle your legal affairs. I would also like to introduce you to a new word: usury. [investopedia.com] There is not a money lending aspect here, but the relation to the topic is that a contract does not trump the law, which is what the FTC would be looking into. There are a number of other words like that, but we can introduce them slowly.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday September 03 2021, @05:51PM (5 children)
Yeah you can tell how self-correcting it is by the way it reached a boiling point.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @06:17PM (4 children)
It's only reached a "boiling point" among self-entitled idiots. No one I know cares. Of course, I associate with grown-ups who are smart enough and adult enough to just go to the Burger King or Wendys (or Dairy Queen or Culvers, etc., etc.) if they want a milkshake and McD's machine is down.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday September 03 2021, @06:31PM (3 children)
So it's an uncorrected self-correcting issue, and a vaguely-defined group of people are "entitled" and that serves to explain why your prediction was stillborn. Kay. 🤡
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @08:46PM (2 children)
Unhappy franchisees cause the price McDonald's gets for new franchises to go down, which makes Ronald McDonald unhappy, which makes McDonald's executives fix whatever is making the franchisees unhappy.
There, did I explain it in simple enough terms for you?
The next McDonald's franchise convention should be happening next spring, and I'm sure if the franchise owners consider this an important issue, they will beat up corporate about it, and a reasonable adjustment will be made.
I realize that the self-entitled idiots want it fixed this instant, because it is a slight inconvenience to them, but in the real world the occasional lack of a milkshake is not an important issue.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday September 03 2021, @09:54PM
Seeing as how this problem has been going on for years and you think it's less than a convention away... no.
Heh. Alrighty.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Saturday September 04 2021, @09:36AM
There are youtube movies about these broken McFlurry machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4 [youtube.com]
it has been going on for years.
Ronald McDonald is in on it and it ain't going away by self-correction.
Instead, government regulation needs to kick in and start throwing people in jail for market abuse. Then when Ronald McDonald himself faces jail time, then and only then will Ronald McDonald be unhappy enough to do something about it.
(Score: 2) by LabRat on Friday September 03 2021, @01:37PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @03:26PM
I think we should start a change.org petition to officially rename the machines to the Flurry McFlurry Face. The Internet shall be heard!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @04:09PM (3 children)
Next they''ll be investigating Microsoft to find out why Windows is always broken.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @06:30PM
sic semper erat, et sic semper erit
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 03 2021, @07:25PM
Simple answer: Microsoft set out to build the worst OS ever, and their design team smashed it!
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Saturday September 04 2021, @09:32AM
Here in NL and BE those digital touchscreen vending machines that you find in McDonalds are regularly broken. Perhaps it's a similar scheme here?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 04 2021, @09:18PM
I just tried to order milkshakes from Burger King and they told me their milkshake machine wasn't working!