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The McDonald's hot coffee incident.
It's a trivial example, but it reflects all sorts of issues in modern society.
I had bought into the McDonald's PR, believing it to be a symptom of an overly litigious society, people blaming all of their issues on others, etc.
But then I actually looked into it, instead of taking it at face value. The face that was created by a very interested party (most notably the defendants in that same lawsuit, but also right-wing pundits pushing a narrative)
When I did, I saw for the first time the claims made by the plaintiff. These were never included in any media coverage. I hadn't considered that the coffee was abnormally hot, and to a significant level (industry average is about 130F, this was around 180F). I had no idea about the 3rd degree burns in 7 seconds. The words "Fused Labia" had never been seen together. The multiple other similar lawsuits. The offers to settle for medical expenses. And so on....
And the worst part (in my mind), that forced me to take a 180 on the issue?
The entire reason for the coffee being that hot was to save money. This had nothing to do with personal responsibility, or a free payday. This was a megacorp selling a known dangerous product, selling pain and suffering, just to put a few extra pennies in their coffers. This had more in common with the lead/cadmium mugs (also McDonald's) and tobacco than anything to do with freedom.
I'm not going to say it radicalized me, but it was definitely an Emperor's New Clothes moment.
This is interesting. What do you mean industry average is 130F? When coffee is filtered the water needs to be just a few degrees below boiling or the infusion doesn't happen properly. In order to serve coffee at 130F they would either make a bigger batch and store it in a thermos, keep it on a hot plate, or alternatively the customer would need to be kept waiting untill the coffee has cooled enough before serving it to them.
I agree that near boiling hot coffee is too hot to drink and even after it has cooled down a bit it's still too hot for anyone to properly get to taste all the aromas of the coffee but personally as I like to take my time with it I want it served hot because if they give me 130F coffee and I cool it down further with some milk I'd basically need to chug it right away or else it'll get cold before I finish it.
There's a safety regulation, but the mcd manual almost said outright to ignore it. And there had been numerous incidents before, and even court cases. They were finally fined something like half a days' profit from the sale of coffee. Only the scale of of mcd makes it seem like more than what the paperwork costs anyway. Personally, I think someone in the C-suite should get jail time for 'gross bodily harm', or whatever.
I'm reading the wikipedia article on this but can't find any mention of safety regulations relating to the temperatures at which hot beverages must be served. It says that "... McDonald's required franchisees to hold coffee at 180–190 °F (82–88 °C) ... coffee they had tested all over the city was served at a temperature at least 20 °F (11 °C) lower than McDonald's coffee."
Only mention of 130F was made by McDonald's quality control manager Christopher Appleton who "... argued that all foods hotter than 130 °F (54 °C) constituted a burn hazard, and that restaurants had more pressing dangers to worry about."
I struggle to understand what the optimal resolution to this would be. You need boiling water to brew coffee. That's a fact which any coffee snob can confirm. While it's not a technical impossibility to serve coffee at lower temperatures, a regulation like this would make it near impossible for coffee shops to serve fresh coffee and this applies to tea aswell.
Yeah, but they didn't serve 'fresh' coffee, the whole point was to make a giant urn of coffee and sell coffee from that all day. I don't know what the boundaries of those rules were, it's entirely possible it's different if you serve it in an open steaming cup, but this was Styrofoam take away cups.
Their customers had had problems before, but they didn't care. I think that's what got them in the end.