speaking of milk products I
I fix it once you to get your freaking
ice cream when you go to McDonald's it's your Democratic right god-given it's in
the Constitution what else is America all about if not getting ice cream when
you've Freedom Liberty for all ice cream might
go to McDonald's I fix it has traditionally cared about
companies that make Tech products yes and now all of a sudden they've decided
that they care about ice cream it kind of rubs me the wrong way to be honest
the ice cream pick a lane you should probably not put ice cream on your skin
rally it's it's not good you can't stop me
speaking of milk products but seriously
it is a real problem that McDonald's uh
restaurants all over North America consistently have broken or out of order
ice cream machines yeah and this the
reason for this has been uh you know explored thoroughly by many people have
done kind of expose little documentaries on it however iFixit is actually
deciding someone's got to do something about this that is correct and you know
a bit more about this than I do Jacob because you prepared the notes for this
episode so what is the what's happening TLD dubs on what's wrong with the ice
cream machines is so McDonald's has a
partnership with this company called Taylor and they're the ones that make
these ice cream machines you could say they're tailor-made
yes that's exactly what I just said so sorry continue they have a service
contract with McDonald's which basically means that they're the only ones that
are allowed to touch those ice cream machines when something goes wrong and
wouldn't you know it 25 of the profit of
this company Taylor is in service calls
service technician call-outs because they charge was it three hundred and
fifteen dollars per 15 minutes of a call out 25 of their of their profits yeah
according to I fix it wow so they are clearly incentivized to have these
machines constantly in a state of disrepair so that they can go repair
them for expensive so yeah in their
exploration of this iFix actually bought the Taylor ice cream machine they bought
one oh and so they have the machine they have the the manual all the stuff they
did a tear down of it to look inside and see where where issues might be they
even tested it to see what kind of issues they would have with the machine
and one of the things that they talk about is how the error codes that the
thing spits out are completely nonsensical the actual quote is uh the
error codes generated the machine quote are nonsensical counter-intuitive and
seemingly random even if you spent hours reading the manual and so wait the codes
are random seemingly random oh okay they
couldn't put it together like they looked through the manual they're like I don't understand anything that's going
on like to the point where they they like kind of suddenly implied like do
you think that the manual writer is is bad at his job or do you think it's a
systemic issue meant to allow Taylor to profit off of their own crappiness so
that franchisees are trapped I don't know it could be either of those oh my
God you know this is yeah it's really just a dystopian situation as far as I
can tell yeah it's like you would expect there to be regulation out there that
would prevent this type of you know abuse but but here's the thing right the
regulation is actually yeah here's the thing it gets worse okay okay so this
company comes out they're called Kitsch k-y-t-c-h okay and they create this
lovely little machine wait Taylor kitsch
sorry Riley I'm trying to do a serious news program
where I talk about milk products and freedom wait that's an actor right yes
Taylor Kitsch I think he was in Savages
okay catch the company throwing themselves in the in the mess which is
not spelled like the actor no just to be clear um so they have a couple of hackers they
put together this machine that plugs into the One USB interface on the Taylor
machine and it actually translates the error codes into usable information so
that franchisees would be able to tell
what the hell is actually wrong with the machine and it would also crack the
machine so that they were able to repair it themselves without having to wait for
uh Taylor repair person so this is
basically like an OBD2 port uh machine
like a like a code reader so Kitsch made this device so pitch made this device
and the franchisees love it because it saves the money it saves them time it
allows it stops them from having down time on the ice cream machine because the ice cream machine fun fact it needs
a four hour cleaning cycle and if anything goes wrong during that cycle it
would have to be restarted and that requires a an employee to do that so
like anytime you've like gone to McDonald's at like 3 A.M and you're like
I want an ice cream they're like sorry that machine's broken that's why right
it's it's a four hour cleaning cycle and during the cleaning cycle it would also
like glitch out yeah so then they'd have to restart it yep and then that's on top
of it like constantly breaking as well so this device as you can imagine
incredibly help full and that's why McDonald's corporate wrote a letter to
all their franchisees saying don't use a Kitsch you're not allowed to use a kit
wait what yeah why but Riley but wait what does McDonald's
get from having the machines broken they're partnered with Taylor I
understand that Taylor would be incentivized to have the machines be broken so that they could go and like
charge for charge McDonald's I think it's because McDonald's has a service
contract with Taylor um and that cuts both ways
do we do we know anything about but maybe also the contract like runs for
and whether it's been renewed like they've been together for a long time a
very long time uh I definitely years I
don't know if it's been since ice cream was introduced at McDonald's but a very
long time so I question here okay Taylor is clearly you know the bad guy
in the sense that they are
possibly purposefully making these machines
broken far more often than they have to be in order to reap the maintenance fees
that's true and who's the victim it's the customer who does who you'll get to
enjoy tasty tasty ice cream as as much as they want it's also the franchisee
right and so but well my question is where does McDonald's sit in all this so
McDonald's signed a service contract that had that basically means that
Taylor is the only one that's allowed to service their machines okay and also the
victim is is as you're saying the people who are like running a McDonald's
restaurant who have franchise with McDonald's so how does that work why why
is why is McDonald's possibly getting a kickback from this as well I don't know
how it works on the side of Taylor and how their service contract Works they
probably receive some sort of payment for having for allowing Taylor
to be the only one that Services their machines like that just makes Financial
sense but basically the reason that
McDonald's might not care about an ice cream machine going down at certain
restaurants is because they're franchises they still get money from franchisees regardless they they get
paid in two ways okay so this is a four percent service fee that's based on the
restaurant's performance so that might be affected slightly but the big one is
rent which is normally in a flat percentage of sales
so you're kicking around like maybe like
eight to twelve percent of whatever you're doing at McDonald's straight to
corporate well I mean that's what I'm saying though is that I I feel like
McDonald's the the McDonald's restaurant whose ice cream machine is broken
they're not getting sales from people who are coming to buy ice cream at three
in the morning because they're feeling peckish and now the person is like oh
you don't have ice cream screw it I'm I'm leaving most of them
might you know if it was me I might just be like you know what give me a Junior
Chicken but I think a lot of people
be like I want it's ice cream or bust yeah ice cream or no scream no one's
screaming for anything at that point they're all crying so uh yeah I just I
just I'm confused about what McDonald's is getting out of like allowing this to
happen or whether they are like trapped because they have this contract with
Taylor and then
personally I think a company that's as profitable as McDonald's and as big as
McDonald's is they are the number two largest private employer in the world
so like I imagine that they would have the power to get out of this were they
to not get something out of this relationship okay let's get to the like
so the news development the Crux of the story is what has changed here because
this this is all a scenario that has been the case for a while what is iFixit
doing oh I can't wait for you to tell me more about this after this message from
our sponsor now it's time for quick bits brought to you by power color and their
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down below that may have been confusing because Jacob said quick bits but uh and
there's no quick bits in this episode but I'll tell you what there is a lot of
references to milk those are the real quick bits
little little milk jokes
the reason that companies are allowed to do things like this is because of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act which allows companies to put digital locks on
things and then not allow other people to not access them but
the loophole or rather the fix that they
put in the dmca in order to make it better is that every three years
uh they will hear exemptions they will they'll hear proposals or calls for
exemptions to that bill okay and so
that's what I fix it they're proposing an exemption on a technical and
Industrial Machinery which would include
the ice cream machine and the issue with that is while that will
fix it for individual people not
everybody is a hacker not everybody has the skills to go in and make a kitchen
device and then be able to fix their ice machine like ice cream machine whenever
they need to what would be more helpful is if I fix it or someone like them or
able to make a device like Kitsch and
let franchisees use it and in order to
do that they would need new legislation they need to they need Congress to
reintroduce the freedom to repair act we
talked about a bit on techlinked oh yeah we've talked about the multiple right to
repair things yeah and obviously iFixit has been a champion of yes my question
for I fix it here I mean so so they're trying to get the dmca changed so that
you know crap like this cannot be uh
cannot happen as much my question is I
mean what what's I fix it is I fix it just being like a you know ideological
Champion for the right to repair here or are they what's their business incentive
we got to think like a capitalist for us obviously there is a financial incentive
for them because the the thing that the freedom to repair act will do is and
this is a quote from ifixit's own site it would clarify that working around
digital locks when fixing things isn't a copyright violation and that making
tools and software for those repairs would become legal so all products with
embedded electronics are would be included with the exemption of medical devices so then all of a sudden
companies like iFixit would be able to build solutions that allow you to repair
devices that were normally held back by digital locks and you could get them
from iFixit yes so they would be able to theoretically get a piece of the pie
that tailors monopolizing they're selling pie now stop I'm sorry so this
is you know fundamentally a very similar issue to the whole John Deere situation
yes where there are people uh hard-working people who have you know
professional equipment that they need to do their job it is integral to their to
facility soft serve ice cream to people
starving for it um there's
with tractors I can kind of get behind it and it's like serious but when I
think about like the poor poor people who aren't getting their McDonald's ice
cream I just you know I don't feel as empathetic it's sad
what about the franchisees yes so it sucks for them because they have to keep
like bringing these people in to repair things for sure so it's very similar to
the John Deere thing in that there are hard-working people with these
professional equipment and they want to repair it and they want to do their work but these this
insane company has decided that only they can repair it
um so the way to fix this is to try and do the same thing that all of these you
know right to repair bills addressing the John Deere issues specifically have
tried to do which is to you know basically change the law so
that it's legal to bypass these security measures that have been put into these
systems only for the purpose of preventing people from repairing yeah
like that's what's truly heinous about it obvious like you know we've talked
about this a lot but just the idea that you would create a product and then
specifically put something in that doesn't need to be there other than to
prevent the person from like the owner from from from trying to fix it it's
just it's just crazy so like and not for
like safety reasons for profit yes and
what's funny is that it's a it's a this is a part of the copyright office
like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act oversees this kind of stuff yeah
it's like can you have a copyright on a digital lock on someone modifying a
machine that they have bought how I just don't understand how that's like because
copyright actually refers to you having if you have copyright on something you
have the exclusive right to copy it that's what that's where copyright comes
from you're kidding I thought it had something to do with
milk-based products it always does I wish
but when you but when you sell somebody a machine and then they're trying to
open it up and fix it because it's broken what are you copying it's like
you're copying the the repair technicians who come to try and fix it
that's my thing it's just stupid yeah like what if like making a mod for a
game was was illegal because it was against copyright like there are some
obvious like cheat like cheat mods although I don't even think those are
necessarily legal I think they just break the terms of agreement for you
know playing online but like you create
maybe like a character mod or something in Skyrim so that you can more easily
pick up a hundred wheels of cheese and bethesda's lawyers reach out to you and
say you can't do that that's illegal here's the copyright it's immoral really
pick up that many wheels of cheese that's the whole point of the game
they just want you to enjoy cheese in moderation milk products they they they
tease you with the dragons but they suck you in with the cheese wheels those
products can bring great joy but also great pain I
mean as soon as you get a lact taste this is the greatest talk link we've
ever made so at the end of the day uh what are we uh what are the next steps
here what what's what are we expecting
well uh I fix it's teamed up with non-profit
public knowledge to file the exemption to the law for the ice cream machines
okay and this is something I fix it has already done and one for Xbox's tractors
and smartphones uh so hopefully that does something but if you we really
wanted you know things to change I think that's a matter of contacting local
congressmen telling them that the freedom to repair Act is something you
care about and you do want them to reintroduce it that you back I fix it
you back public knowledge this is something you want them to do and it's
ridiculous that they haven't it's wild out there It's a Jungle Out There people
need poison in the very air they we breathe okay
godspeed to iFixit who is one of the few companies out there it seems like uh
trying to turn our reality into slightly
less of a corporate dystopia instead of the other way around uh kudos to you I
fix it we both love you I love you too I
spoke for you I'm sorry I was oh you weren't talking to me nope okay cut that
and uh we lost you
viewer of this video thanks for watching this talk linked uh come back
on Wednesday it's Monday today by the time you're watching this come back soon
we miss you I just want to clarify that I still like you I just