I
Speaking of milk products I
Fix it wants you to get your freaking ice cream when you go to McDonald's it's your Democratic right God given in the Constitution
What else is America all about if not getting ice cream when you?
Freedom liberty for all ice cream when I go to McDonald's I
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 rose 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
restaurants all over North America consistently have
broken or out-of-order ice cream machines. Yeah, and
This the reason for this has been You know explored thoroughly by many people who have done kind of expose a is little documentaries on it
However, I fix it 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 Taylor 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 300 and $15 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 in yeah in their exploration of this I fix actually bought the Taylor ice cream machine
They bought one. Oh, 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 at 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 the error codes generated by the machine quote are nonsensical
counter-intuitive and seemingly random even if you spent hours reading the manual and so please the codes are random
Seemingly random. Oh, okay. They couldn't put it together like they look through the manual like I don't understand anything
What's going on like to the point where 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 goodness
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 mm 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 KYT CH. Okay, and they create this lovely little machine wait Taylor
Kitsch
Sorry rally I'm trying to do a serious news program
Where I talk about milk products and free wait, that's an actor right yes Taylor kitsch
I think he was in savages kitsch kitsch. Okay, kitsch the company
Throwing themselves in the in the mess which is not spelled like the actor now to be clear
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 a Taylor
Repair person so this is basically like an OBD to port
Machine like a like a code reader so kitsch made this device kitsch made this device and the franchisees love it because it saves the
Money it saves them time it allows it stops them from having downtime 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 it 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 the machine's broken. That's why right?
It's a it's a four-hour cleaning cycle and during that cleaning cycle. It would also like glitch out
Yeah, and then I 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 helpful, 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 kitsch. 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
Mmm, and that cuts both ways Do we do we know anything about but maybe also contract like runs for and whether it's been renewed like they've been together for a long time
very long time I Definitely years. I don't know if it's been since ice cream was introduced
McDonald's but a very long time. So I have a big 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 fee. That's true. And who's the victim? It's the customer who does you don't 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 franchised with McDonald's. So how does that work?
Why is why is McDonald's possibly getting a kickback from this as well?
I don't know how it works on the inside 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 get paid in two ways. Okay, so there's a 4% 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 8 to 12 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 feel like McDonald's 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 3 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 leaving most of them might you know, if it was me. I might just be like, you know, 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'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
That's the thing that's up in a loveless marriage 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 where they did not get something out of this relationship
Okay, let's get to the like the news development of 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 I fix it doing 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
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 kitsch device and then be able to fix their ice my 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 a 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. Yes, obviously I fix it 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 Cannot happen as much. My question is I mean what what's I fix it?
Is I fix it just to being like a you know ideological champion for the right to repair here?
Or 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 my fix its 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 or it would be included with the exemption of medical devices
So then all of a sudden companies like I fix it 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 I fix it
Yes, so they would be able to theoretically get a piece of the pie that Taylor's
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 situations where there are people
hard-working people who have you know professional equipment that they need to do their job
It is integral to their to serve the bills soft serve ice cream to people starving for it. Mm-hmm. 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 I 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 it's insane company has decided that only they can repair it
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 issue specifically have tried to do which is to
You know basically change the law so that it's legal to bypass the 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
Obviously, 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 the 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
Overseas 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
Yeah, you have the exclusive right to copy it. That's what that's where copyright comes from. You're kidding
But like I thought I 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 obviously cheat like cheat mods. Although. I don't think those are necessarily illegal
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 and moderation you milk products are they they they tease you with the dragons
But they suck you in with the cheese wheels milk products can bring great joy, but also great pain
As soon as you get a lack taste this is the greatest tackling we've ever made so at the end of the day
What are we? What are the next steps here? What what's what are we expecting?
Well, I Fixed it's teamed up with nonprofit 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
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 congressman 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 barrier that we breathe. Okay
Godspeed I fix it who is one of the few companies out there. It seems like trying to
Turn our reality into slightly less of a corporate dystopia instead of the other way around
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. No, okay cut that and
We love you Viewer of this video. Thanks for watching this talk linked
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