Even better idea:
Amend the DMCA to permanently add an exemption for bypassing DRM for repair purposes.
Of course it likely won't happen because those most impacted by the adjustment of the statute would buy a sufficient number of congress critters to block passage of the amendment.
> This proceeding concerns possible temporary exemptions to the DMCA’s prohibition against circumvention of technological protection measures (“TPMs”) that control access to copyrighted works, including functional software that facilitates the repair and monitoring of consumer and industrial product
McDonalds soft serve are mentioned only as an example of what would benefit
> As described by Public Knowledge and iFixit, four “index” examples of commercial and industrial device categories would benefit from the proposed expansion: commercial soft serve machines, proprietary diagnostic kits, programmable logic controllers, and enterprise IT
> The proposed expansion would benefit competition in areas beyond those outlined by Public Knowledge and iFixit. For example, increasingly sophisticated agricultural equipment often employs onboard computers that control error identification and repair, limiting options for farmers in need of quick repairs.
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/ATR-FTC-JointCo...
But anything smarter than a tape-following AGV also has a computer on it running a bunch of high level perception and control software, so there's a natural friction point there, particularly if the PLC can only be flashed from proprietary Windows-based software.
This is the reason I think we've been "allowed" to get some right to repair laws passed. The legislators are a decade behind and, now that tech is good enough to make bypassing impossible, the lobbyists are letting the government pass legislation that gives you the right to do something that's technically impossible. The legislators are like a younger sibling playing with an unplugged Nintendo controller.
And, even if someone can figure out a bypass, the barrier to getting there is so high that they'll most likely charge a huge premium too.
I don't think either of those things should be illegal, but they currently are. Having an exception may result in designs changing to make such repairs easier, however.
FWIW, in most cases this is done intentionally not as a cost-saving measure but to improve repairability. It's cheaper and easier to have a 5¢ nylon gear fail when subjected to out-of-spec loads than to have catastrophic failure of multiple structural parts that happen to be the weakest link in the kinetic chain from the motor.
This does also cause them to fail through regular use, but having to do minor maintenance is a fundamental aspect of operating machines that are designed to be repaired and not simply thrown away.
Typically what I have seen is one gear is plastic and the rest are metal
Or is even the sacrificial component only able to be swapped out by a special technician who must be specially summoned with some amount of cost and lead-time?
A clutch similar to a drill could be used to protect a drive chain.
No. They have a monopoly.
If they’re forced to buy them back, they’ll incorporate that cost into the next round that the franchises are required to purchase.
Yes, this is what having a captive market means.
The problem is the franchise agreement. Shoehorning this into a lemon-law framework doesn’t work.
Their ice cream machines are broken so often that it’s already become a meme. They might as well not have them at this point.
They require extensive cleaning cycles and some operations require manufacturer servicing. It's just they way they work, it's documented, and there are service contracts in place to do the servicing.
When the kid at the drive through says the ice cream machine is "broken", what is actually meant is that it is currently not producing ice cream, and they don't want to argue with the person who wants ice cream. But the reason isn't that it is malfunctioning.
Taylor isn't losing money "fixing" these machines, the maintenance they do on them is on contract, and is quite lucrative.
Taylor makes perfectly good machines for other restaurants iirc.
The complaint is you can't de-idiot proof it, even if you know what you're doing (and some McDs franchises are owned by people who run other restaurants with the other machines).
It's quite possible that McDs requires these idiot-proof ones because the risk of "someone got sick from the ice cream gonorreah machine" is too high.
Nominally, this is far more idiot proof than other machines which are dependent upon underpaid fast food staff cleaning the machine correctly every single night.
The problem is that Taylor didn't allocate enough development funding because the sales volumes are low and consequently they produced an unreliable machine. Even worse, Taylor gets to double dip by being the only people allowed to repair the unreliable machine.
McDonald's only cares in that the machine doesn't give customers food poisoning--for them, mission accomplished. Taylor only sees positive cashflow from repair and consequently has zero incentive to improve the machine--mission accomplished.
The fact that the franchisees get shafted isn't on the radar.
This is the weird part. Why doesn’t McDonald’s step in and certify an additional equipment supplier so that franchisees have a choice?
This would put competitive pressure on Taylor to improve their machines, since franchisees are likely to avoid equipment that is unreliable or has high maintenance costs.
McDonald’s customers would be happier too. It reflects poorly on the McDonald’s brand that there is this constant guessing game (or having to check in the app) of whether shakes and flurries etc are available at any given time/location.
McDonald's just has the brand-recognition and clout to get away with a shitty corrupt practice for the moment, so that's what they're doing. For money.
"Ice Cream machine out of operation because of technical issue?" Not their problem
Again, it starts with the customer. If people really are that pissed off McDonalds ice cream machines are seemingly always broken, then they should stop going to McDonalds, and then the feedback loop will start from there. It's not like there isn't ample other options (Wendys, Burger King, etc). That tells me that this "problem" is really overblown, and while McDonalds customers really would prefer to have the option to reliably order ice cream, it does not deter them significantly enough from consuming McDonalds, and doing something like simply purchasing their ice cream from a different location. If McDonalds wants to recoup that income, then they will, again, prioritize that initiative, and work on improving the ice cream machine, but again, that juice does not seem worth the squeeze.
A bad ice cream machine could just mean sub optimal profits / experience.
How many times do you see friends buying unreliable rubbish? I was talking with an acquaintance the other day and they were predictably complaining about the high maintenance costs of their VW. Another friend was spending huge amounts every year on their very good looking Jeep.
Modern goods are fractally complex: individuals can't be expected to become experts in all the disciplines required to judge the quality of a good.
Even specialists can't be expected to judge correctly.
Government interference in purchase decisions is a big hammer. It is hard to imagine policies that would actually help.
Plenty of the "solutions" suggested here cause other harms or are gameable or otherwise unworkable.
> Modern goods are fractally complex: individuals can't be expected to become experts in all the disciplines required to judge the quality of a good.
I think the idea that individual consumers can individually exhaustively assess the value of their goods is not really reasonable.
However, I think it's reasonable to believe you can construct a system where a large number of consumers, enthusiasts, and experts pool their knowledge together in order to much more accurately assess product quality.
For instance, if we could conduct wide-scale long-term surveys of the reliability of large appliances, e.g. by requiring that appliance technicians log service visits for an appliance into a database (that could be run by a non-profit), then that would significantly increase pressure on manufacturers to build robust products. After all, if the cheap $2k fridge is listed in the appliance database as having a lifetime one-third of that of the $5k fridge nearby, far more consumers will opt to buy the latter, because now they actually know that there's an advantage to buying that one.
Also, consumer testing labs like Consumer Reports and ConsumerLabs do some expert testing of products, which is better than nothing.
I think that the problem is information asymmetry - companies know how bad the products that they're selling are, and consumers don't. The free market system only works if buyers have "good enough" information to make a rational decision (although that's a necessary, not a sufficient, condition), and we're not in that state right now.
> Government interference in purchase decisions is a big hammer. It is hard to imagine policies that would actually help.
I agree - it's far harder for the government to legislate vague things like "appliances must be built well" then something like "appliance lifetime and service visits must be logged into a registry".
Indiviuals do not have to understand the fractals of complexity inherent in what it took to make a finished product to know if the finished product is good quality or not.
Let's just say for the sake of argument I do not understand 1/10th of what goes into HVAC systems, or what it takes to make them. I don't understand supply chain and part sourcing. I don't understand the engineering schematics that underpin the design of the control board that runs my given HVAC unit, therefore, have no expert knowledge of HVAC systems. But what I do know, as an end user / consumer is, if you sell me a Lennox, its most likely going to be a piece of shit, and therefore I do not want a Lennox HVAC system.
That fail protecting the rest of the mechanisms
McDonald’s has for a few years been allowing franchisees to use Carpigiani (the other big brand in commercial ice cream machines) but they’re not better machines and while they are much more open in regards to servicing, parts must come from Italy and wait times are longer. Most of the franchisees are still opting for Taylor even though they have a choice.
I'd also like to add my own experience with jobs that tell me constantly to go faster and faster: that you have to do everything so fast requires a certain level of durability in your equipment and tools. If you are moving fast, you have less leeway to be careful with things.
I'm not commenting on whether or not 16 year olds should have jobs: I'm saying it's pretty rich to (according to the comments I replied to anyway, the actual demographics are much more varied) hire a bunch of children to work at your restaurant, and then complain that they break things. Like, I dunno man, maybe if your business needs to hire so much labor that is JUST over the line of legally allowed to work (or as recent news shows, isn't) and pay them as little as you can legally do so in order to function, maybe your business sucks or, more likely, you suck at running your business and you should close it.