The Daily Show: Ears Edition - If You Don't Know, Now You Know - Right to Repair

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

Federal investigators probe a chronic breakdown of McDonald's ice cream machines, and Trevor examines why companies make it so difficult for consumers to repair their products. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. When 60 Minutes premiered in September 1968, there was nothing like it. This is 60 Minutes. It's a kind of a magazine for television. Very few have been given access to the treasures in our archives. But that's all about to change. Like none of this stuff gets looked at. That's what's incredible. I'm Seth Done of CBS News. Listen to 60 Minutes a second look on Apple podcasts starting September 17. If you ever eat at McDonald's, first of all congratulations on being basic, but secondly,

you've probably noticed that there's one menu item that's even harder to get than the MacRibb Federal investigators are reportedly looking into why McDonald's ice cream machines are frequently broken. There are accusations the manufacturer of the ice cream machines deliberately built in flaws in order to profit on repairs when their own technicians have to fix the machines. Frustrated customers on social media have been complaining about the busted machines. No matter what time of the day, I go to McDonald's, the damn ice cream machine is broke. You just got a big ass machine sitting in your store that's broke all the time, 24-7. Either fix the shit or throw it out the fucking window. Hell yeah! The people have had enough of not having enough ice cream. And now the feds are going after McDonald's,

which by the way is the most American headline of all time. Federal investigators are looking into McDonald's. All the shit going wrong in America, and they're like, the feds need to investigate what's happening at McDonald's. And surprisingly, this is not happening because of the hamburger. Although I wish someone had told him that before he offed himself in the bathroom. He always said he'd never go back to prison. In fact, the broken ice cream machine is such a big part of McDonald's identity at this point. Like I feel like they should just make the machine one of their mascots.

You know, just be like, hi kids, I'm McFlurry. The ice cream machine that's th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th is is th-is is th-is is thi, thi, thi, thi, th-is is not th-is is not th-is is not th-is is not thr-is is not thr-is is thr-is, thr-s, th. th. th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi's thi. thi. thiiiii. thiiiiiiiiii. thiiii. thiii. thi. thi's thi's th ice cream machine that's too sick to work. I should have got the vaccine. But the truth is, McDonald's ice cream machines are far from the only product that people are having trouble repairing these days. In fact, this issue is so widespread that it has spurred an entire movement called Right to Repair. But the question is, why has fixing things become so hard and expensive?

Well let's find out why. In another installment of, if you don't know, now you know. Fixing things. It's what human beings have done since the beginning of time. We fixed London Bridge, we fixed telescopes, we fixed boxing matches to make it look like YouTubers can actually go the distance against Floyd Mayweather. And it used to be that when anything broke in your life, whether it was a car, a lawnmower, you would try and fix it yourself. Remember that? And then after you broke it even worse, you would bring it down to a to a to a to a to a to a to a to a to a to a to a to a to a to a to a to a to a, to a, to a, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, the.. Soe.a, the.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e. So, the. So, their, try and fix it yourself. Remember that? And then after you broke it even worse, you would bring it down to a local repair shop and watch them fix it while you pretended to know what was happening. Ah yeah, the sprocket, you got

a sprocket the thing in the, yeah, that I was gonna do that. But these days there are fewer and fewer options for how to fix the things that you own. We live in a free free free free free free free free free repairing electronics like smartphones, you are not free to choose where to go. If you were the hopeless person with a broken gadget, you'd immediately go to the Apple store, and that's exactly what Apple wants you to do. The company and many others restricts how and where you can repair your stuff. Anything that has a chip in it right now is probably impossible to repair without using the manufacturer. That means tractors and cars. It means your smartphone.

It means increasingly the refrigerators and washing machines that people have in their homes. When something breaks and the only solution is to take it back to the manufacturer, they can charge you whatever they want. So this is a Macbook Pro that Appleto the manufacturer, they can charge you whatever they want. So this is a MacBook Pro that Apple, the Apple store said it would cost $1,200 to fix and wasn't worth doing. So if I walked in off the street with this problem, what would you charge for the repair you just did? Depending on the model anywhere from 75 to 150.

Okay, people, that's o'cranging ten times as much as they need to. I mean, that's movie theater concession stand prices, which is ridiculous. How can electronics cost that much to take apart? Most of them were put together by children. And this kind of price gouging is why people basically turn to witchcraft when something goes wrong with the electronics. Let's just put the phone in a bag of rice and say a spell. I can't afford the genius bar. Sumba, walak tasanawha.

And just by the way, this isn't a side. I always thought that calling Apple technicians geniuses was very balsy. Because I bet real geniuses get really offended by that. You're a genius? Yeah, I did groundbreaking medical research that has saved millions of lives. You're also a genius? Yeah, I can get pissed out of a headphone jack. But of course the manufacturer wants to be the only place that you can go to fix their product. That's always been the case. What's different is that more and more they're designing their products to make sure that that happens.

Today's gadgets are designed to be unfixable by the average person or by anyone at all. Manufacturers are making repairs harder, like limiting the availability of spare parts or using adhesives that make parts difficult to replace. The biggest challenge, Yeah, I think this is glued. It's removing the old battery, which is glued into the case, making things hard or impossible to repair. Instead of being able to swap out a simple part, it is often tied to a bunch of other expensive parts or completely inaccessible.

Companies like John Deere installed digital locks which prevents anyone but an authorized technician from conducting repairs. There's a special screw on the iPhone. It's a special five-pointed screw that no one had seen before the iPhone that Apple put on there just to keep you out. It's as if they've engineered this to go, go on, I dare you to try to repair it. Just think about it. At this point, it is harder to break into a phone than the capital building. They got special screws, digital locks, glue everywhere. And apparently the next iPhone has special software that if it catches you even googling how to change my own battery, it just sends your nudes to all of your contacts. And now you might be thinking, well, I don't have a five-pointed screwdriver, but I'm sure that there's a repair guy who has one.

But that's still not a solution, because these companies aren't just making it harder to fix your own device. They're also punishing you if you try. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, and John Deere have refused to share specialized tools and replacement parts needed to make the repairs, as well as in structural manuals and diagnostic software. Apple clearly sees unauthorized third-party repair businesses as the enemy. Louis Rossman and I Fixet have received legal threats from the company when they publish schematics or repair manual information. If you post that manual online, they'll send you a legal taked-down threat saying that's our copyrighted material.

If you don't take it down, we'll sue you for up to $150,000. Tech devices, including some made by Apple. If you try to open them open and fix it so it doesn't work anymore. Now come on guys, I feel like this is a little childish, right? I didn't want to go to you to fix the broken phone that you sold me so, so you break the phone even more? Why are you taking this so personally? Like you sold me a phone restrictions we're basically in a conservatorship with these companies. We need the free Brittany people to come get all of us.

They've got the time now. And I will say this, I will say this, to be fair to manufacturers, they do have some reasons to be doing this beyond just wanting more money. You know? Many manufacturers will say that these are very complex products and that having any random dude munking around in there isn't safe and could damage the products. Which actually makes sense. You know, like one time I took my TV to get fixed by some random Nigerian guys who had a shop.

This is back in South Africa, right? And then when I got the TV back, technically, it was fixed. But now, only channel up worked so you couldn't go down. So every time I wanted to flip between the channels, I was like, all right, what's the score on this game? Okay, go back to the other game. This is gonna take a while. You know, the worst is when I went back to those Nigerians. I was like, you know, Adivo, he messed up, the brain. Why do you want to go down? In life you must only go up. Jesus wants us to ascend but there needs to be some new limits to how far they can take this thing. Because this would be bad enough if it just meant overcharging for a phone repair but in some cases your life could even be at stake.

There's a key obstacle to keeping medical equipment of all types up and running. Vital work often gets blocked by device makers. Manufacturers refuse to provide access to service manuals and design machines to require calibration software to activate new spare parts. They don't want to work with us because we're a third party company. They don't want to give us tech support over the phone. They don't want to work with us because we're a third-party company. They don't want to give us tech support over the phone. They don't want to sell us parts, and they don't want to give us any technical literature. If we don't have the material, of course, we can't do the work.

We're dealing with lives here. Okay, this seems a lot worse than the other stuff. feel like if our iPhone breaks will literally die, but without hospital equipment, you literally, literally die. And this whole thing is a wake-up call. You know, repair restrictions don't just stop you from eating ice cream at McDonald's. They can also stop you from getting emergency care because you ate so much ice-cream at McDonald's. And the good news is, the good news is, there's a movement that is building to regulate just how much manufacturers can restrict your right to repair your own products.

And in July, they even got President Biden to sign an executive order to address the problem. And I for one, I hope that something comes out of it. Because when you're flatlining on a hospital bed because the ventilator isn't working, the last thing you want to hear the doctors say is, sorry, buddy, we could fix it ourselves, but we really don't avoid the warranty. Sayonara. Watch the Daily Show, week nights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes any time on Paramount Plus.

When 60 Minutes premiered in September 1968, there was nothing like it. This is 60 Minutes. It's a kind of a magazine for television. Very few have been given access to the treasures in our archives. But that's all about to change. Like none of this stuff gets looked at. That's what's incredible. I'm Seth Done of CBS News. Listen to 60 Minutes, a second look, starting September 17th, wherever you get your podcasts.

This has been a Comedy Central Podcast.