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mrhether
McDonald's ice cream machines are the Schrödinger's cat of fast food. They're both broken and not broken until you try to order a McFlurry.
foxyv
We need a blanket exemption from DMCA for repair. Unauthorized bread and in this case ice cream should NOT be illegal.
manuel_w
From what I read on the internet, ice cream machines in American McDonalds restaurants are broken a lot. Why doesn't McDonalds switch out the vendor for another one that produces working machines for purely economic reasons? Did the ice cream machine vendor bribe someone high up in the McDonalds chain of command?
hyperhello
My theory is the McD corporate strategy is based on real estate values. They buy the very choicest corner lots in decent neighborhoods and hold them while the burger business simply pays the bills and the estate taxes per location, and they do very intensive deep dives into how to keep their property values high. Based on this, cheap ice cream would put enough actual ice cream and sweets stores out of business that it would affect the area, so they make sure consumers can’t rely on it.
asfarley
The actual story is that there’s a minimum level of complexity involved in a tear-down of a machine used to process dairy.

Employees don’t get a bonus for doing the cleaning, so it’s in their interest to declare that the machine is broken.

Former McDonalds employees have explained this to me when I brought up this story.