RobDownSouth
No Kings
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2002
- Posts
- 77,760
The McDonalds McFlurries machine has had a long and troubled history.
USA! USA! USA!
- The machine has a faulty design and is often broken, most Americans have heard "I'm sorry, the McFlurries machine is down" more than once.
- McDonalds appeared to be clueless about fixing the machines for over three years.
- Plucky entrepreneurs discovered a way to make a permanent fix to the machine, and franchisees were happy....until the next McDonalds franchise convention.
- McDonalds announced it was placing digital locks on ALL McFlurries machines, forcing franchisees to use McDonalds as the sole provider of the permanent fix (which McDonalds charged a 300% markup on). McDonalds got the idea from John Deere tractors, who have digital locks on their tractors now.
- Their rationale? If the machine was opened by a non-McDonalds repairman, the internal motherboard could be "hacked by terrorists". This is complete bullshit, Israel has shown no interest in placing explosives inside McFlurries machines.
- So Mickey D's franchisees sued in American copyright court (an extreme longshot) and today won a rare "copyright exemption" that forced McDonalds to provide the digital access codes to owners AND permit third party repair.
USA! USA! USA!
