[HN Gopher] Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's
___________________________________________________________________
Ice cream machine hackers sue McDonald's
Author : rishabhd
Score : 235 points
Date : 2022-03-02 14:51 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| rkagerer wrote:
| I hope this case compels evidence into public light around any
| shady business practices that were taking place.
| 0des wrote:
| Don't light your grill in someone else's lawn and expect your
| party keep on forever.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Do you understand that this logic taken to the extreme is just
| telling everyone to build a deep anti-competitive moat?
|
| This is bad for the consumer and for society.
| billbrown wrote:
| If you are a two-person startup, the last thing you should be
| doing in the face of a market disruption is protracted
| litigation. Pivot, just pivot.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Why walk away from a billion dollar payout?
|
| Sometimes you pivot out. This looks like a pivot to
| litigation.
| dahart wrote:
| Pivot to what? Their product is focused on a specific niche
| market with a specific niche problem, and the entire market
| is being closed. Why not take a moon-shot stab at fighting
| for it, when the sentiment for people stuck with these
| machines seems to be wildly in their favor? From my armchair
| it seems plausible there could be a legal outcome in Kytch's
| favor because the sale and lack of adequate maintenance of
| these machines may be bordering on illegal.
| billbrown wrote:
| The chances of winning are slim, appeals will take a very
| long time with considerable expense, and they'll have
| wasted time and energy that they could've spent on an
| _actual_ pivot. (I don't know if you've been through
| protracted litigation as a principal trying to recover
| damages but it is a long, expensive, and painful slog.)
|
| An actual pivot would be finding a different niche market
| for the device or tweaking the device to serve the same
| market differently. Find an industrial machine to attach it
| to and use your notification system to provides alerts and
| reminders about its maintenance.
| dahart wrote:
| Completely agree this could be high effort on Kytch's
| part. I mean launching a successful business is super
| high effort too, so there's already evidence they're up
| for a high effort long term play.
|
| I guess it's not up to us to define what an "actual"
| pivot can look like. Certainly switching to a legal
| strategy is in fact a pivot from product development and
| traction metrics.
|
| This new strategy doesn't seem crazy to me, having tried
| to launch a business myself. I agree it's a moon-shot,
| but again, it's plausible that they do have a leg to
| stand on here due to the history of problems these
| machines have.
|
| * edit BTW, I'd speculate wildly that there's a very good
| chance Kytch was fully aware of the legal dangers of
| their plan, and went into the product development phase
| with eyes wide open in the first place. In addition to
| their plausible chances for success here, it's also
| plausible that this legal fight was the expected outcome
| of their plan, and part of its design, long before it
| happened.
| jmull wrote:
| I think this is the pivot.
| adolph wrote:
| If patent troll doesn't work do legal concern trolling as a
| public interest research group serving suits.
| ska wrote:
| Regardless of the technical or business merits of the device,
| there is a lesson in this for anyone building a product that
| effectively depends on the co-operation of a much bigger player.
|
| Doing this with their enthusiastic co-operation has to be the
| best path. Doing it in the face of an antagonistic relationship
| is really risky.
| seanw444 wrote:
| I can't remember the last time I went to a McDonald's and they
| didn't tell me "sorry, our ice cream machine isn't working right
| now."
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| This video exploring the issue came up a few months ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26936774
|
| And of course the McBroken website: https://mcbroken.com/
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24861623
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I cant think of anything more definitionally anti-competitive
| than keeping mcflurry machines available so you can crush any DQ
| that pops up in your vicinity by fixing it ("oh whoops... it was
| unplugged!"), and then also crushing a business that aims to
| solve your problem to help serve customers better.
|
| Let's get the FTC on this, afaik it's illegal to advertise a
| product you have no intention of actually serving. eg: used car
| dealers used to do this with an "amazing deal car", which often
| never existed. People would come down and get enticed to a diff
| model at a high price.
|
| edit: The "whoops it's unplugged" was a joke about absurd root
| causes, but also intended to imply equivalently poor attempts to
| keep the machine working. That is I do not think they literally
| did not plug it in, but I do think they are not trying very hard
| to keep the machine up and running. Other threads point out that
| the real root may actually be that the original creator of the
| machines made a complex/crap machine and the cost of technicians
| makes it unprofitable to bother
| hammock wrote:
| I read the article and DQ wasn't mentioned. What are you
| getting at?
| penjelly wrote:
| parents point is that operating the machines regularly is of
| no interest to mcdonalds (likely bad margins) and its only
| interested in ensuring other niche fast food restos dont
| start to take up market share instead.
|
| ie: if i want icecream i can get it at macdonalds, instead if
| DQ, unless the machines are broken. if DQ gains significant
| market share they "fix" the machines and DQ loses its market
| share.
|
| not saying this is fact. just fleshing out parents
| hammock wrote:
| Where is the evidence of such a strategy though, besides
| the fact that machines are always broken? Even the
| franchisees would rather have a working machine.
| bena wrote:
| There is none, but "broken McDonald's ice cream machine"
| is a whole category of meme.
|
| So people start wondering my McDonald's is so plagued by
| machines that seem to only work on the third Thursday
| following the fifth month after the Lunar eclipse.
|
| But it's likely a combination of disinterested staff and
| machines that require more involved maintenance.
|
| Not to mention, there's several points of failure. Not
| only can various parts of the machine break; the drum
| that spins the mix, the compressor to keep the mix cold,
| leaks in various hoses and lines, but you can simply run
| out of mix.
| cinntaile wrote:
| DQ is Dairy Queen. For anyone else that is confused.
| [deleted]
| adolph wrote:
| I'm thinking how awesome the snicker blizzard is.
|
| I'm also thinking about how McDonald's anticompetitive
| behavior may have an unintended anti-obesity effect.
|
| Again, I'm thinking how awesome the snicker blizzard is.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| THis "theory" doesn't make any sense. It's the Franchisee who
| doesn't get the sales AND pays the huge cost for an official
| repair rep to come out and basically restart the cleaning
| cycle. This doesn't jive with crushing an upstart DQ; they're
| only really competitors in that they both sell "fast food". Ice
| cream @ a McD is a loss-leader (soft serve) or minor line item
| (McFlurrys) while it is the core product of DQ, despite their
| hot food offerrings.
| notreallyserio wrote:
| > Ice cream @ a McD is a loss-leader (soft serve) or minor
| line item (McFlurrys) while it is the core product of DQ,
| despite their hot food offerrings.
|
| IMO this is actually the point being made. There's no need to
| run a loss leader if the competition doesn't exist.
| gruez wrote:
| 1. if it's a loss leader that they don't want to continue,
| why not just... stop offering it? After all, you see
| "participating restaurant" disclaimers everywhere. Why
| can't a particular franchise just choose not to participate
| if it's not in DQ territory?
|
| 2. Regardless of whether it's a loss leader, I doubt the
| marginal cost of the ice cream is more than the $1 or
| whatever the discounted price is. They paid for the
| expensive ice cream machine and the counter space. They
| might as well use it.
| notreallyserio wrote:
| As the theory goes, they want to stop DQ from moving in
| more than they want to recover the counter space used by
| the offline ice cream machine.
| jaywalk wrote:
| And now that car dealer ads have to specify the exact car
| they're referring to (by VIN or stock number), that one car
| will often be the only one the amazing deal applies to and once
| it's gone, so is the deal.
|
| At least somebody can actually get that deal now, so it's
| better I guess.
| mandelbrotwurst wrote:
| It's additionally better because you now have the option to
| call and ask "Is the car from the ad still available and will
| you hold it for me until I arrive?"
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > And now that car dealer ads have to specify the exact car
| they're referring to (by VIN or stock number), that one car
| will often be the only one the amazing deal applies to and
| once it's gone, so is the deal.
|
| Sure, if its just one they have to identify it and say
| something like "1 at this price" but that also tells you up
| front what the deal is.
| raldi wrote:
| I don't understand your opening sentence. Why would they keep
| it unplugged?
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Parent post appears to be alleging that McDonalds - or their
| franchisees - only serve ice cream purely to starve
| competitors out of the fast food market, and then disconnects
| or damages those machines in order to get out of having to
| actually sell that ice cream.
|
| Personally, I don't think that holds water. Everyone involved
| in this drama _wants_ ice cream in the stores. It 's not like
| McDonalds corporate has some Jobsian disgust towards putting
| ice cream and a burger in the same meal or anything. The far
| easier explanation is that McDonalds paid Taylor for a custom
| machine that's extremely temperamental, not that they
| secretly want to ban their own product because it's ice
| cream.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| >Personally, I don't think that holds water.
|
| While not quite as deliberate an action as (great?)
| grandparent was suggesting, I could see the possibility
| existing where fixing the machines is too much hassle until
| a competitor opens and they begin having a noticeable
| impact on customer retention, increasing the expected ROI
| on fixing the machine enough for management/owner to take
| action.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| The machines frequently require technicians to come out and
| work on them, to the tune of several hundred dollars per
| hour, which the franchisee must pay. They are not permitted
| to get a less tempermental machine or use independent
| technicians.
|
| It's a cost problem.
| ansible wrote:
| You would think that the McDonalds franchise owners would
| push back on McDonalds corporate about this issue. They
| would rightly be complaining that they are losing revenue
| because the Taylor ice cream machine has low reliability.
|
| Even one service call per month is a significant cost to
| a low-margin business like a quick-serve restaurant.
|
| It is quite possible there is some hinky corporate
| politics and such within McDonalds corporate that is
| preventing improvement here.
| paulmd wrote:
| McDonald's exerts extremely extremely tight control over
| its franchisees by corporate standards. Every single
| thing about a McDonald's is meticulously specified and
| regulated by corporate, from the equipment installations
| to the number of pickle slices that go on a burger and
| the soap that goes into the bathroom.
|
| Franchisees in general don't wear the pants in this
| relationship. If McD corporate says you use this machine,
| tough shit, you use that machine. I'm sure the feelings
| of franchisees are broadly speaking "taken into
| consideration" but it's not like there's a union here,
| the dynamic here is that franchisees will shut their
| mouths and go make some money for daddy.
|
| It's a weird arms-length model that has run into some
| trouble before, particularly surrounding labor law, as
| McD corporate has some very detailed expectations on how
| franchisees will hire, fire, pay, and operate their
| employees.
|
| Anyway basically if McDonald's says "you will take those
| things out of our machine" yeah, franchisees are
| absolutely going to hop to it. tbh if McDonald's were
| smart they'd just have done it without the "ackshually
| this thing will steal your girlfriend, poison your
| customers, and kill your dog" defamation, because if
| they'd simply said "we're terminating our business
| relationship with Kytch, have it removed in the next 2
| weeks" franchisees absolutely would have done it anyway.
| Now they are fighting a lawsuit about it because they
| just had to get a dig in.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| I have to wonder if Taylor agreed to custom-build
| McDonalds an ice cream machine specifically because they
| figured they had implied license to hose franchisees on
| service costs. Or, in other words, if McDonalds had said
| "make the machine reliable enough to serve ice cream 100%
| of the time with no service calls", then Taylor would
| have charged 10x or something. The fact that McDonalds is
| libeling Kytch sounds like Taylor is speaking through
| McDonalds' mouth.
|
| Even if McDonalds _had_ been more reserved, however;
| Kytch still has some industrial-espionage claims that
| might go somewhere.
|
| Also, for those wondering exactly how controlled
| McDonalds' franchise relations are: McDonalds franchisees
| are required to rent their locations from McDonalds,
| because McDonalds front-runs their business partners and
| buys the most valuable land[0] from under them. Literally
| nothing about the business of being a McDonalds
| franchisee works the way capitalism or business ownership
| is "supposed" to work[1]. It's more like paying to work
| at a somewhat-lucrative job than actually owning a
| business. McDonalds is a richest-of-the-rich company that
| sells business opportunities to the poorest-of-the-rich
| crowd[2], who are looking for a way to park lots of
| wealth[3] in a safe asset.
|
| [0] Typically, land immediately next to US Interstate
| off-ramps or equivalently high-traffic highways
|
| [1] Unless you're a left-winger, in which case the
| McDonalds "strip our business partners of capital
| interest in the store" policy is how capitalism is
| "supposed" to work, and treating your business partners
| as equals is a historical aberration.
|
| For the record I do find the left-wing critique of
| capitalism to be at least somewhat grounded in current
| business reality.
|
| [2] Menial labors of the capitalist class. If you define
| "poor, middle-class, and rich" based on how people make
| their money (poor: unskilled labor, middle-class: skilled
| labor, rich: capitalism), then you can recursively
| subdivide that grouping further, with richest-of-the-rich
| being people whose wealth comes from owning other
| businesses through some means (usually trademark or
| copyright).
|
| [3] McDonalds wants their franchisees to hold at least
| $750,000 of liquid capital and be able to invest between
| $1,000,000 and $2,200,000 into their stores.
| ansible wrote:
| From what I understand, Subway is also very strict with
| the franchisees. At least as far as food suppliers go.
|
| It is all in the name of "quality" or more truthfully
| "consistency".
|
| Even so, unless you're a relatively small regional chain,
| you'd think that having at least two different equipment
| suppliers would help corporate drive down costs for the
| franchisees, and thereby make more profit for themselves.
|
| That's what is so strange about this entire situation.
| McD corporate _historically_ has been laser-focused on
| profit, which they get through scale (volume) and
| efficiency. I don 't see how there aren't some people in
| corporate getting fired for this. If the ice cream
| machines work, they franchisees sell more product. This
| generates more revenue (and profit) selling the
| restaurants more ice cream mixture, as well as increasing
| profits for the restaurants themselves. Which also
| generates more profits for corporate too. Because _of
| course_ corporate double-dips.
|
| Money being left on the table... that doesn't sound like
| McDonalds.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Every restaurant franchise has strict guidelines for
| every detail. If they don't everything will go to shit.
| They'll end up like Denny's.
| gruez wrote:
| >but it's not like there's a union here
|
| https://nationalownersassociation.com/join/
| paulmd wrote:
| Haha, fair, guess I should have checked.
|
| But anyway, corporate wears the pants is the dynamic.
| It's a very very tightly managed and top-down
| "franchise".
| ansible wrote:
| Oh I know that McD is at the top when it comes to
| controlling franchisees.
|
| But if 13% of restaurants have the ice cream machine non-
| functional at any given time, that means half or more of
| them are having the problem at some time in the last
| month.
|
| If you're going to ignore a problem at that scale...
| well, that's just terrible.
| [deleted]
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| The "whoops it's unplugged" was a joke about the root cause,
| but also intended to imply equivalently poor attempts to keep
| the machine working. That is I do not think they literally
| did not plug it in, but I do think they are not trying very
| hard to keep the machine up and running.
| [deleted]
| bena wrote:
| The gist I'm getting is that McDonald's doesn't want to be in
| the ice cream/soft serve business. But it also doesn't want
| more competition than it already has.
|
| So every McDonald's has an ice cream machine as a more sort
| of "break glass in case of emergency" situation. Or in this
| case "in case of DQ". But if there is no DQ in the area, why
| operate the machine? Just have it be "broken". It's not like
| people have an option they didn't have before.
| [deleted]
| jacobr1 wrote:
| I think it is less a matter of intent and more a matter of
| incentives. McDonald's is probably perfectly happy to be
| selling more ice-cream and make money that way. But they
| just don't care about maintenance (franchise reasonability)
| and it isn't impacting the bottom line significantly, so
| nobody really wants to fix the contracts and/or vendor
| performance issues. If there was a better competitor out
| there, McDonalds might use them, but they just don't care
| enough (meaning aren't incentivized enough) at the
| corporate level.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| > But if there is no DQ in the area, why operate the
| machine?
|
| Why operate the grill or fryer? To sell food and make
| money. Instead of selling someone a meal for $7 McDonalds
| can sell them a meal + a mcflurry for $10. Why wouldn't
| they want to do this?
|
| It doesn't make any sense that a bunch of franchise owners
| are all in together on some kind of ice cream conspiracy.
| Surely the truth is less interesting, it's most likely just
| a boring cost/benefit analysis. There seems to be some flaw
| with the machines they use that make them particularly
| prone to breaking down and difficult to maintain. So some
| stores that don't sell a lot of ice cream anyway decide
| it's not worth the cost of keeping them running, while
| other stores that sell more do keep them running.
|
| And surely it's no coincidence that the markets where
| people buy more ice cream are also where Dairy Queen stores
| are more likely to open up.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > a meal for $7 McDonalds can sell them a meal + a
| mcflurry for $10. Why wouldn't they want to do this?
|
| you're assuming the consumer has a marginal $3 to spend
| and wouldnt instead spend $7 on a (burger + mcflurry) vs
| (Burger, fries, soft drink). I would guess that the
| latter has a much higher margin. So for the same $7 spend
| you can make more profit if your icecream machine is
| down.
|
| But, if DQ can do the deal for $7 then foot traffic may
| move to DQ, meaning McD's loses _both_ profitable
| options. So, the game is to dissuade the market from the
| preferred package (burger + icecream) towards the more
| profitable package (burger , fries, softdrink) .
|
| I'd also add that they probably know that the marginal
| cost of driving to 2 locations means they're just gonna
| get what they can at 1 stop. That is few people would buy
| the burger at mcdonald's and then drive to DQ for the
| mcBlizzard.
|
| Kinda feels like playing roller coaster tycoon all over
| again.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The core point is it's not profitable or as profitable as
| other items. So ice cream is offered as a loss leader in
| areas with a DQ and turned off in areas without on but
| advertised nationally.
| [deleted]
| wcfields wrote:
| For the up-thread commenters, It's like people here can't
| fathom that a Fortune 107 corporation wouldn't implement
| policies that follow an ECON 101 supply/demand curve.
| bena wrote:
| I'm not saying it is or isn't the real cause, I'm saying
| that's what I feel the OP was trying to convey. That's
| what I read in his comment.
|
| And I agree with you, it's likely got a way more
| pedestrian and human answer. The machines require some
| amount of maintenance or repair that is simply annoying.
| And eventually, people prefer to not be annoyed. So maybe
| one day, you just let the ice cream machine be broken
| instead of doing the annoying thing. Even _if_ the store
| sells ice cream like gangbusters. The guy slinging cones
| for minimum wage isn 't seeing a single cent difference
| if he sells 1 or 1000.
| tfvlrue wrote:
| I've been following this story for a while. When people say the
| soft serve machine is "broken", they really mean "unavailable to
| serve ice cream to customers". That could mean something as
| innocuous as performing a pasteurization cycle during the day
| (because it failed to run at night for some reason, perhaps the
| machine's clock is set wrong). It could also mean there is a
| physical problem with some part of the machine. The word "broken"
| implies the latter, but I'm pretty sure the former situation is
| far more common.
|
| In other words, the machine has determined it's unsafe to serve
| the contents (because soft serve needs to be pasteurized at
| certain intervals), not that it's physically incapable of doing
| so. Therefore it's "broken".
|
| (Disclaimer: I've never used one of these soft serve machines,
| just read through manuals and stories about them.)
| wronglebowski wrote:
| I've commented on this previously as I worked as a jack of all
| trades for a McDonald's franchisee for years.
|
| The machines tanks and shaving cores must be disassembled and
| cleaned every two weeks. They have a very intelligent series of
| sensors and internal mechanisms that make it impossible to
| defeat or cheat.
|
| This is not a low skilled job. I'd say it would be easier to
| change your cars oil than complete this. There's multiple
| gaskets and seals which need to be rotated quarterly in a tune
| up kit. While we were hiring at minimum wage the shake machine
| trained people were making 15$. I can only imagine what they're
| making now.
|
| I don't find the "cryptic messages" issue to be valid. New
| machines had new systems and codes, it wasn't malicious.
| Everyone had access to the manual and the Taylor provider in my
| region did some phone troubleshooting free of charge to prevent
| service calls. They even did free annual trainings.
|
| Mechanically older machines can have issues, and some
| franchisees can be stubborn about replacing them. However I
| believe the vast majority of the time the issue is the machine
| not being cleaned.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| > This is not a low skilled job. I'd say it would be easier
| to change your cars oil than complete this. There's multiple
| gaskets and seals which need to be rotated quarterly in a
| tune up kit. While we were hiring at minimum wage the shake
| machine trained people were making 15$. I can only imagine
| what they're making now.
|
| Genuine question: Mom-and-pop shops used to somehow keep
| their frozen yogurt machines running with part-time teenager
| labor. What does this particular machine do that makes it so
| complicated?
|
| Is it complicated merely for the sake of "job security" on
| behalf of the ice cream machine vendor?
| SkyBelow wrote:
| Is part-time teenager labor the same as low skilled labor?
| In general but also more specifically to the time period
| you were referencing?
|
| While teenagers generally have low experience, some of them
| are have the ability to perform at a level above low skill
| and are able to follow complex instructions. Look at any of
| them in more advanced classes who are performing academics
| at a level beyond what would qualify as low skill. These
| could've been the teenager running the machines at those
| mom and pop shops of yesteryear.
|
| It does lead me to question where are they working now and
| why not at McDonald's. Given a moment of thought I've
| already generated a number of hypothesis that might explain
| it, but I'm too lacking in relevant data to narrow them
| down.
| [deleted]
| wronglebowski wrote:
| I'm vaguely familiar with the pay by weight frozen yogurt
| shops. I can't speak from first hand experience but I would
| say that if you had 6+ machines and that was all your
| business did it would be a non issue. A few locations,
| rotate your cleaning days, could be handled by one
| individual that services them all.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Why are these machines so complicated? I thought you just
| need a few ingredients to make ice cream?
| tapland wrote:
| It's a pretty clunky machine and anything in the machinery
| making or dispensing the ice cream needs to be cleaned
| thoroughly for food safety reasons.
|
| A lot of people would find the disassembly and correct
| reassembly difficult. And there are huge incentives to just
| not do it.
| wronglebowski wrote:
| It's optimized for high capacity, high throughput, low
| planning, production.
|
| Do you sell 1 milkshake or 100 a day? Doesn't matter, the
| tank holds the mix and freezes it on the fly. Taylor
| machines can output hundreds of units an hour. Or none.
|
| It's always "fresh", there's waste when you clean the
| machine but other than that the ice cream you get has only
| been frozen seconds before being served.
|
| It's highly profitable, when the machine is operating
| correctly the base food cost is much lower than the other
| food categories(sandwiches and chicken) but not as good as
| soda and cookies.
| rascul wrote:
| Broken could also mean that nobody has bothered to refill the
| machine. In my experience working at McDonald's many years ago,
| it was actually incredibly rare for the ice cream machine to be
| down for any reason besides nobody has filled it. When cars are
| wrapped around the building, line is out the door, and you're
| short two people, nobody is going to take the five minutes to
| fill the ice cream machine.
| amelius wrote:
| So "broken" -> "mismanaged".
| runnerup wrote:
| Also it can mean that the first half of the lunch rush used up
| all the frozen ice cream and it can't freeze new ice cream
| instantly. So the later part of a rush period will often have
| unacceptable soft ice cream.
|
| When I ran frozen daiquiri machines it took a lot of finesse to
| make it through a busy night. Have to constantly manage the
| temperatures and levels to a nearly absurd precision while
| doing the rest of your job as well. But the only parameters you
| can manipulate are material input and material output, there's
| no "freeze it faster" button or "store it colder" dial.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Are you sure that's ever an issue with McDonald's? I've been
| under the impression that McDonald's Taylor ice cream
| machines are freeze-on-demand.
| runnerup wrote:
| If that were the case I would never get soggy/wet/melted
| McFlurries, but I do sometimes.
| mod wrote:
| Honestly, in my area they usually say the machine is "down."
|
| It's always down.
| StillBored wrote:
| The one near my house removed it from their menu due to menu
| simplification during the pandemic, and despite bringing the
| menu back, not to long after, the ice cream products never
| returned. Its just missing from the menu, and they tell you
| they don't sell ice cream.
| chongli wrote:
| It also needs to be said that similar machines provided by
| Taylor to McDonalds' competitors do not have anywhere close to
| the amount of downtime that McDonalds' machines have. There's
| also ample evidence that software updates to Taylor's McDonalds
| machines have made the error codes more cryptic and the
| machines more unreliable over time.
|
| I think there's a pretty strong legal case to be made that
| these machines are deliberately designed to break down in order
| to drive repair service revenue for both Taylor and McDonalds
| at the expense of franchisees. Unfortunately, franchisees seem
| to be locked up under binding arbitration clauses in their
| franchise agreements. Luckily for consumers, 3rd party vendors
| aren't subject to these contracts.
| gruez wrote:
| >There's also ample evidence that software updates to
| Taylor's McDonalds machines have made the error codes more
| cryptic and the machines more unreliable over time.
|
| Source?
|
| >It also needs to be said that similar machines provided by
| Taylor to McDonalds' competitors do not have anywhere close
| to the amount of downtime that McDonalds' machines have
|
| >I think there's a pretty strong legal case to be made that
| these machines are deliberately designed to break down in
| order to drive repair service revenue for both Taylor and
| McDonalds at the expense of franchisees.
|
| AFAIK mcdonalds machine are also self-cleaning, which makes
| them more complicated and prone to failure. There's also
| advantages though (ie. you don't have to rely on a minimum
| wage worker to adequately clean the machine to prevent food
| poisoning), so absent some sort of evidence showing intent,
| it's at least plausible that there isn't some sort of
| conspiracy to drive up repair costs.
| nomel wrote:
| Here's a little investigation about it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
| 14 wrote:
| I don't know the source but definitely did read an article
| here on HN last year reporting this. Call me a conspiracy
| theorist but I would bet McDonald's is paying a pr firm to
| get reports like that taken away off the net.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| If you do find the article, please let us know.
| joezydeco wrote:
| _" It also needs to be said that similar machines provided by
| Taylor to McDonalds' competitors do not have anywhere close
| to the amount of downtime that McDonalds' machines have"_
|
| But they're not similar machines. The machines in question
| are models developed for McDonald's that use internal heat
| treatment to pasteurize the machine and clean it on a more
| frequent basis. The intent was to keep the machine running
| _longer_ than previous models, the opposite of your
| assertion.
|
| The other models need to be disassembled and cleaned by hand
| to maintain food safety.
|
| That doesn't dismiss the complexity of the product and the
| likelihood that breakdowns happen, because obviously they do.
|
| Source: I've done engineering work on the C602. I know how it
| works.
| noasaservice wrote:
| > Source: I've done engineering work on the C602. I know
| how it works.
|
| After watching the videos on how these machines work, and
| all the hidden menus within hidden menus with self-
| sabotaging software/hardware....
|
| Admitting you have dev'ed on this is plainly disgusting. As
| a fellow engineer, we need to put our foot down and not
| work for places that institute such unethical and/or
| illegal behaviors. The faster companies are starved out for
| *trying* to institute unethical computing, the better.
| infogulch wrote:
| The fact that the design intent is to reduce downtime does
| not mean it is achieved in practice. McDonald's ice cream
| machines constantly being "broken" is so well known that
| it's a _meme_ among normal people. This is not the case for
| other fast food places that use Taylor machines. I 've seen
| statements from employees confused about why it's such a
| big deal to clean the machine once a day because it's not
| that hard. (Personally, I find it kinda gross that the
| machine is intentionally not cleaned for weeks.)
| jjkaczor wrote:
| It's not just a meme, but trackable enough that someone
| built a website:
|
| https://mcbroken.com/
| vkou wrote:
| In practice, there's a huge difference between someone at
| corporate buying machines that don't work as well as
| expected, and a shadowy deal where someone at corporate
| is getting kickbacks from the vendor for buying a
| deliberately sabotaged machine.
|
| The former is just the normal sort of shit that a
| franchise has to deal with, the latter is what a lot of
| people, myself included thought this issue was... But
| I've turned my thinking around on this.
| gknoy wrote:
| Does this mean that the ice cream machines at other
| places are just happily dispensing unsafe food?
| joezydeco wrote:
| I worked for McDonald's in my teenaged years and saw the
| inspection report on one of the old-style machines. It
| was pretty horrible. The self-cleaning machine was
| created for a _reason_.
|
| Unlike the fryers and grills the soft-serve machine is
| filled with dairy product, loaded by hand via human
| interaction, and just hovering underneath the safe zone
| temperature-wise.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| No. It means that they just open up and clean the machine
| each day, just like every other appliance that touches
| food. The MD machine was designed to run without daily
| cleaning.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| I'm sorry, I'm not quite following:
|
| Employees _do_ clean these machines every day, but
| because of how it 's designed they don't _need_ to do so?
|
| Is this something kind of like: I can change my motor oil
| every 500 miles my car is driven, but according to the
| manufacturer I don't need to do so that often?
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| No, the McDonald's machines heat up any leftover
| milkshake mixture every night to kill all the bacteria in
| it, then cool it all back down before the morning.
|
| If it hasn't been run in the last 24 hours, the machine
| will refuse to dispense ice cream unless you run the
| process (which takes a few hours).
|
| Non-McDonald's machines work how your imagining: you have
| to toss the leftover ice cream once it goes bad,
| disassemble the machine and clean it by hand, then load
| new ice cream into it.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| By "cleaning" I mean opening it up, unscrewing things,
| and cleaning the internal mechanisms of the machine to
| remove any leftover ice cream before it goes bad.
| joezydeco wrote:
| Old machines: The oil is good for 500 miles. It needs to
| be flushed and replaced every 500 miles.
|
| New machines: There's an active oil filter in the car
| that needs to be turned on every 500 miles. The oil and
| filter need to be replaced every 5000.
|
| The filtering can be done overnight in your garage while
| you sleep, but if you don't do it before 500 miles the
| car will shut down until you do.
| Nition wrote:
| This is maybe backed up by the fact that in other countries,
| McDonalds serves the same ice-cream from machines that seem
| to always be working. The "McDonalds ice-cream machine is
| always broken" meme seems to be a uniquely US phenomenon - or
| at least it's not completely worldwide.
| throwaway73838 wrote:
| Definitely true in Australia. You very often can't get ice
| cream after a certain time of night.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They run the machine dry so that it can be cleaned out
| daily without wasting product.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Machine clock being wrong? IDK about the US, but in the UK we
| have at least 2 different radio-clock signals to choose from
| for machine synchronisation (one is domestic, one is based in
| Germany so you can still get it if reception is good). Neither
| requires internet access or any setup, and is cheap enough to
| integrate into sub-$30 electronics.
| s_dev wrote:
| How come these issues aren't existent in McDonald's in Europe?
| grouchomarx wrote:
| there's a more reliable Italian machine that is also
| available to franchisees. most (all) american locations use
| the Taylor. I assume the opposite is true in europe
| kube-system wrote:
| "Broken" is simply the colloquial term used to avoid arguments
| with customers. Clarity is a much higher customer-service
| priority than precision.
| ojosilva wrote:
| > the machine has determined it's unsafe to serve the contents
|
| Wouldn't that mean, though, that the Kytch device could be
| working around the issue in detriment of the patron's, or "end
| user", safety?
|
| The franchisees certainly were very happy with Kytch's
| reduction in their maintenance and downtime cost, caused by
| very temperamental, ill-designed machines. Franchisee's are
| clearly victims of a tightly controlled McD ecosystem (sounds
| so Apple...). But if the machine is operating in a way that
| could harm users, even if harmful workarounds is just 1 or 2
| out of 30 other harmless issues Kytch monitors, fixes or
| clarifies, still, it would absolutely justify the take down!
|
| Imagine a batch of people who suddenly get a bacteria from
| unpasteurized ice cream from a Kytch-hacked McD machine. How
| could McD justify knowing their franchisee's were installing a
| device that could put their patrons in risk of eating a spoiled
| dairy products? It's a backdoor for a health crisis, a PR
| nightmare and endless lawsuits. Even if it doesn't know for
| sure the device can be blamed, the liability is there.
| tfvlrue wrote:
| I don't have any first-hand knowledge of what the Kytch
| device did. But nothing I've read about it ever gave me the
| impression that it was overriding lockouts. It was intended
| as a remote monitoring device and troubleshooting tool. For
| example, instead of an employee having to read a pattern of
| blinking lights on the machine itself, a franchise owner
| might receive an email that says "soft serve machine cleaning
| required" and send somebody to take care of it.
| ojosilva wrote:
| Regardless, like I said, the Kytch box (a Raspberry Pi) is
| overriding the code that accesses the secret menu of the
| ice-cream machines [1]. That's outside the intended
| operation. And that's liability if McD knows about it and
| says nothing.
|
| The machine produces food that goes into people's bodies.
| Ie, if it were to produce a poisonous glycol ice-cream
| (glycol one of the pasteurization ingredients) all of a
| sudden, even if it has nothing to do with what Kytch is
| intended to do, could you really 100% discard in front of a
| judge that a glitch or a hack in the Kytch's linux
| computer, which is btw connected to the internet, didn't
| order the ice-cream machine to do that which, as a
| consequence, killed a hypothetical 5-year old kid from food
| poisoning?
|
| Imagine McD is now Boeing and the Kytch box is something
| airlines found that make 737-MAX fly safer by plugging into
| and overriding the system codes so that it can warn pilots
| of possible 737-MAX issues... Does it make sense for Boeing
| to allow such thing even if it makes planes safer?
|
| [1] https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-
| cream-...
| stickfigure wrote:
| Wow, you are going to be horrified when you find out what
| goes on inside a family-run restaurant or food cart. They
| actually make food using _humans_.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| That is the difference between family business and
| industrial food production. The cleaning products used in
| small restaurants are basically harmless. A little bleach
| residue in someone's food will taste horrible but
| probably won't kill anyone. Glycol tastes like sugar. It
| very much will do harm if it leaks into the food. But
| using glycol allows a food producer to reduce labor costs
| via automation, automation being a bright line between
| mom-and-pop burger bars serving perhaps 10 customers per
| hour and a busy MacDonald's location serving 500.
| stickfigure wrote:
| As a sibling comment mentioned, polypropylene glycol <>
| ethylene glycol. Polypropylene glycol is an FDA approved
| food additive and one of the main ingredients of vape
| fluid.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propylene_glycol
| mbg721 wrote:
| If they like you, they mostly keep humans out of the
| ingredients, though.
| aurizon wrote:
| Chemist here. The use of propylene glycol in the
| clean/sterilize cycle is OK, it is related to 3 carbon
| glycerol and is not toxic and any breakdown
| product(glycerol) is safe and edible. Ethylene glycol, a
| 2 carbon polyol, is metabolized to poisonous oxalic acid
| and 1000's of pets and other animals are killed every
| year. Most states require Bitrex, a very foul tasting
| additive to be added to various products people/animals
| might eat. https://www.bitrex.com/ There is a pet safe
| antifreeze based on Propylene Glycol, which I use, that
| is a good antifreeze and not toxic. So save a pet/animal
| https://safeantifreeze.com/
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Wow, you're really going to hate how people mod their
| cars. At some point we have to ignore hypotheticals
| because they are too divorced from what is actually
| happening.
|
| Case in point, when someone mods their car it is not
| somehow the manufacturer's responsibility for a crash. It
| fails the pre-hearing test of "can we even have a lawsuit
| about this" if someone even tries to bring it up.
| tfvlrue wrote:
| Again, I have no first-hand experience with this device
| so I can only infer things from the articles and
| documents we have available.
|
| I fear I am being overly pedantic here, but to me,
| "override" implies that the device is circumventing
| sensor readings or physical interlocks or something
| similar to manipulate the machine's mechanisms to doing
| something they weren't intended to. However, I've see no
| indication of that. The device is described as,
| essentially, a second control panel. Anything the Kytch
| device can do is something an operator could already do
| by pushing buttons on the factory-installed control
| panel. The difference is that it interprets the data to
| be easier to understand, and provides remote monitoring.
|
| It's really no different than plugging a ScanGauge into a
| car's ODB-II port. The ScanGauge can tell you all sorts
| of things about the state of the engine, but it isn't
| going to stop the brakes from working.
|
| I remember reading that Wired article when it first came
| out. Near the beginning, it says:
|
| > As O'Sullivan says, this menu isn't documented in any
| owner's manual for the Taylor digital ice cream machines
|
| This is demonstrably false. It's clearly documented on
| page 22 of the service manual: https://static-
| pt.com/modelManual/TAF-C602_spm.pdf
|
| Frankly, the manuals Taylor has made for these machines
| are quite thorough and well written. The claims from the
| article about how this is "secret" and "undisclosed" seem
| disingenuous when a simple Google search reveals evidence
| to the contrary. I suppose one could argue that a
| "service manual" is not an "owner's manual", but that
| seems overly pedantic (even to me!).
| everforward wrote:
| > This is demonstrably false. It's clearly documented on
| page 22 of the service manual: https://static-
| pt.com/modelManual/TAF-C602_spm.pdf
|
| I can't find it from Taylor, though. I think the point
| they're making with the "secret" is that the manufacturer
| won't give them to you. The 3rd party copies are likely
| illegal; I would presume the service manual is
| copyrighted.
|
| > Anything the Kytch device can do is something an
| operator could already do by pushing buttons on the
| factory-installed control panel. The difference is that
| it interprets the data to be easier to understand, and
| provides remote monitoring.
|
| It does allow access to things that users weren't meant
| to be able to access, and some of them are dangerous.
| E.g. you can change the temperature of the boil cycle
| down to something too low to kill bacteria.
|
| > It's really no different than plugging a ScanGauge into
| a car's ODB-II port. The ScanGauge can tell you all sorts
| of things about the state of the engine, but it isn't
| going to stop the brakes from working.
|
| The ScanGauge can't actually change any parameters,
| afaik. This is closer to replacing the ECU. It gives you
| more data on what you car is doing, but also gives you
| the option to tune the engine. You can either make it
| more efficient, or you can destroy the engine, depending
| on how you tune the settings. Except in this case,
| "destroy the engine" roughly translates to "give a bunch
| of people listeria infections".
|
| In my opinion, it's unreasonable for McDonald's to block
| off access to the data, but it is reasonable for them to
| not want franchisee's to be able to change parameters
| like the boil temperature, or how frequently cleanings
| need to be done (which is another parameter in that
| secret menu). The whole situation is a mess, because I
| can't see a way to allow access to the data without
| access to the whole secret menu, other than replacing all
| the hardware. I think I saw McDonald's trying to sell
| their own device on that front; likely because then they
| can ensure that the parameters aren't exposed.
|
| The C602 was released in 2003 afaict. I don't think this
| was a malicious decision so much as no one in 2003
| predicting that it would be beneficial (or cost-
| effective) to have a WiFi/Bluetooth remote data port.
| That was 4 years before the iPhone, and interestingly,
| also only 5 years after the first consumer bluetooth
| device was unveiled. I don't find it shocking that a
| behemoth like McDonald's isn't putting nascent technology
| in an ice cream machine they plan to use for decades.
| Kwastie wrote:
| This great (mini) YouTube documentary gives some background what
| lead up to the lawsuit.
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4)
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Despite how fucking shitty YouTube has gotten, it's content
| like this that could never be available anywhere else on the
| Internet today for free.
| atlantas wrote:
| Seconded. That is excellent piece of work; some of the best
| journalism I've seen in years.
| w-m wrote:
| The video makes some good points, but overall it's very
| repetitive. Just count how many times the shot of the manual
| with "call a service technician" is used, always with similar
| narration, or the one of the finances of the company who make
| 25% of their revenue with parts and service.
|
| This could have easily been a 5 minute video. Also, it does
| not offer any explanation why McDonalds is the only customer
| of the Taylor brand machines with this issue. Burger King is
| also "an old company", why doesn't it apply to them?
| ziml77 wrote:
| McDonald's machines are custom manufactured for them by
| Taylor. It's not surprising that other places don't have
| the same issues.
| daenz wrote:
| That gives a huge amount of context, thanks! Here's where Kytch
| is mentioned specifically https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4?t=1379
| m0llusk wrote:
| Macdonald's wants to own the machines and owning maintenance is
| part of that. They do roughly the same thing with McCafe machines
| that arguably compete with Starbucks and others. The most likely
| explanation is that these ice cream machines have turned out to
| have serious reliability problems that have so far not been
| addressed.
| cletus wrote:
| I really don't understand how McDonald's board and leadership has
| let this situation happen and continue.
|
| These ice cream machines are the printer cartridges of
| McDonald's. Pointless DRM and obfuscation designed to maximize
| authorized call outs (with associated costs). Now you can argue
| taht McDonalds gets a cut of that (which may or may not be true;
| I just don't know) but all of this comes at the cost of customer
| experience and brand perception, which are two things McDonald's
| very much does care about. That's why I'm surprised they've let
| this go on for so long.
|
| I really have trouble believing the board is unaware of this
| issue and have chosen not to resolve it.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Yeah I don't get it either, for the same reasons. All I can
| think of is... I worked for McDonalds back in the 1980s. They
| had soft serve and milkshake machines then, but they were
| simpler. They almost never broke down. I do not recall any
| breakdowns in fact. The machines did not have an automatic
| pasturization/sanitize cycle. They had to be taken apart,
| cleaned and sanitized every night after closing, and then put
| back together the next morning. That took an extra person on
| the closing staff just to clean the machines, and another
| person the next morning to set them back up. Roughly two hours
| of labor a day, every day, to do those tasks. An experienced
| person could do it faster, but that's a ballpark.
|
| So McDonald's was betting on the labor savings offsetting the
| costs of the newer, more complicated and less reliable
| machines. Overall that may be working out on paper, but the
| perception of soft-serve being "always broken" is something I
| am surprised that McDonald's tolerates.
| Topgamer7 wrote:
| The pessimist in me says someone who sits on the board has a
| stake in the ice cream machine company, and they make bank on
| the crazy service fees for each tech they send out to "fix" the
| machines.
| tomrod wrote:
| Odd that Dairy Queen never seems to have the same issues that
| McDonalds has.
| paulmd wrote:
| from the sounds of the rest of the discussion - ice cream is a
| core enough part of DQ's business that they just have a normal
| machine that does it, where McDonald's uses a whiz-bang machine
| that can freeze the ice cream on-demand. So the McDonald's
| machine never has waste if they don't sell ice cream all night,
| but it also is a maintenance nightmare.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| The machines at Dairy Queen are (mostly) not Taylor machines.
| They also don't have the pasturization function, they must be
| cleaned and sanitized manually.
| dikaio wrote:
| So in other words, friends of the McDonald Corporations majority
| owners (Taylor) saw a chance to steal a companies IP and use it
| for themselves to better their own products and McDonalds helped
| them do it.
|
| Sounds like business as usually.
| pandama wrote:
| This is a right to repair case and I hope McDonald's looses big
| time.
| [deleted]
| daenz wrote:
| Kytch built a device that gave the ice cream machines remote
| debugging. They sold them to franchises. McDonalds got weird
| about this and told franchises that they weren't safe, and that
| they've got a new ice cream machines that already has that
| feature. Then McDonalds reached out to other companies and said
| not to use the startup's device. The startup wants $900M because
| "that's what we would've been worth" if McDonalds hadn't scared
| everybody off.
|
| It sounds like Kytch wants to be a legal thorn in McDonald's side
| until they are paid off. How can a startup afford this? Do they
| work out some agreement with lawyers to only pay when they win?
| gorkish wrote:
| > How can a startup afford this? Do they work out some
| agreement with lawyers to only pay when they win?
|
| On a case like this it's probably even more sophisticated than
| that; they probably ran a process where many law firms pitched
| to represent them and competed on their contingency fees.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yep, lawyers can take cases on either for a small fee +
| percentage of any settlement, or even just entirely on the
| chance of a win.
|
| The hope is to threaten McDonalds for a _billion_ dollars
| (pinky) and get a settlement for a few million out of court and
| wrap things up quietly.
|
| Happens more often than you'd like.
| malka wrote:
| > Then McDonalds reached out to other companies and said not
| to use the startup's device.
|
| Seems justified to me though. Maybe not legally, but I would
| too be motivated to annoy McDonalds in their situation.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I always assumed the margins on ice cream were very very thin and
| that was why the machines were so often broken: people come for
| the promise of ice cream, they buy a burger and fries anyway, so
| who cares if they actually get the ice cream...
|
| What a messy story...
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| I am actually on McDonalds' side in this.
|
| Many of the startups have made a lot of their money by
| arbitraging regulation and safety (see Uber , AirBnB, Tesla self
| driving).
|
| McDonalds is a company that literally serves billions of people.
| If there is any food borne illness, it can literally kill people
| and it will be front page news all over. As such, McDonalds keeps
| a very tight lid on what franchisees are allowed to do.
|
| Installing an unauthorized addition to a very safety critical
| equipment (soft serve can easily harbor very nasty bacteria)
| which potentially enables people to do unauthorized diagnosis and
| work on machines they may or may not understand is a recipe for
| disaster at McDonalds' scale.
|
| Is this a cool device? Yes. Should you install a hack on
| something that can make thousands of people very sick? Probably
| not.
| StillBored wrote:
| I think the core of the problem was less food safety failures
| and more "user error" reasons. Then instead of saying "there is
| to much milk in the hopper remove some, and restart", or
| providing an error code lookup they just flash "error call your
| technician".
|
| This device just told the user what was actually wrong with the
| machine so they could choose to correct it, or call the
| technician to actually repair it. I don't think there was any
| indication that the franchises were tearing the machines apart
| to replace broken parts.
|
| Simply providing a please manually discard product, clean and
| restart machine due to pasteurization failure code and
| procedure would have probably avoided the whole fiasco.
|
| Which from the sounds of it, is basically what the "improved"
| machines do, they aren't improved in any way except to report
| the failures to the user, and provide appropriate user level
| remedies.
| secabeen wrote:
| Yeah, the other element is that successful operation is
| dependent on a complex process that happens overnight, takes
| multiple hours, and cannot be bypassed (for legitimate safety
| reasons). The hacker device deciphers the error messages and
| also provides notifications to the owner during these
| processes. Thus, if the system runs into a common issue at
| 11pm, early in the cleaning, the issue can be addressed
| immediately, and the cleaning re-started. Without the hacker
| device, the problem is often not discovered until much later,
| by which time it's too late to complete the cleaning process
| by lunch; or, even worse, the extended delay means that a
| technician needs to be called to reset/clean the machine,
| adding more delays.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Huh. I guess I'd be surprised if McDonald's franchise license
| didn't allow them to just say "stop using Kytch, because we said
| so". So, why do anything more than that, as is alleged? Is it
| just that Kytch is mainly suing for discovery and/or settlement
| rather than because they think they'll win?
| daenz wrote:
| >Kytch has argued that Taylor was incentivized to keep its
| machines broken; repair and maintenance contracts across its
| business lines accounted for a quarter of the company's revenue
| stream in 2018, according to a document Taylor published at the
| time. But Kytch cofounders Nelson and O'Sullivan admit that
| doesn't explain why McDonald's would similarly seek to prevent a
| fix for its embarrassing--and expensive--ice cream machine
| failure rates.
|
| This is strange. Another comment mentioned how the existence of
| these broken ice-cream machines is anti-competitive towards
| businesses like Dairy Queen. Does this explain why the machines
| are always broken? Taylor gets repair contracts that are worth
| less than the business McDonalds would lose to Dairy Queen?
| effingwewt wrote:
| What's even more strange is once they started getting bad
| publicity and the lawsuit talks became public, mcflurry
| machines magically all started working in my city. All of them.
| Some had not worked since the store opened.
|
| Another thing companies seem to be doing a lot is false
| advertising. 7-11 is so bad with this. Sales posted everywhere
| but when you try and buy them 'it's not in the system sorry it
| will be regular price.'
|
| Or even worse they list the (sale) price if you buy 2 or more,
| but do not list the regular single price anywhere.
|
| I'm so tired of companies running our country.
| danaris wrote:
| I thought--and this is just a vague offhand recollection--that
| I had heard that Taylor provided some form of kickback to
| McDonald's for the lucrative contract.
| sircastor wrote:
| I think the critical relationship here to understand is that
| it's 3 parties: McDonald's corporation, A McDonald's
| Franchisee, and Taylor. MCD Corp dictates franchisees must use
| this machine, which is very unforgiving in it's offline modes
| the machine may only be fixed by Taylor. McDonald's isn't
| losing the business, the franchisee is, and they are supposedly
| getting a kickback of some sort from Taylor. The party that
| gets the short end of the stick is the Franchisee.
| daenz wrote:
| If a kickback exists, that makes sense. But wouldn't the
| kickback have to be quite high to be worth the risk that
| McDonalds is opening themselves up to? I haven't looked at
| the Taylor financials, but the service contracts are
| supposedly 25% of their business, so a kickback is some % of
| that... but I'm having trouble seeing how it is worth the
| risk to McDonalds.
|
| Which is why I think it has more to do with competition, and
| that there is no kickback. In that scenario, the incentive to
| McDonalds is that they can have more franchises that are
| successful, which means more money flowing back into the
| corporation. I imagine this gain would be higher than any
| kickback they could receive from Taylor.
|
| EDIT>> I just realized that the competition scenario might
| not make any sense. Taylor wants service contracts. McDonalds
| wants the ability to make ice cream, and ideally have the
| machines work. The only way McDonalds is incentivized to not
| have the machines work is if there is either some leverage
| that Taylor has over McDonalds or if there is a kickback.
| sircastor wrote:
| The thing that stands out to me is that apparently a lot of
| these "malfunctions" or "breakdowns" are not that at all,
| but safety features: "You overfilled the bin, so it can't
| automatically pasturize. I'm shutting off". So the fault
| ends up being on the Franchisee for using the machine wrong
| - and therefore the cost is on them.
| ansible wrote:
| It depends on how the kickback is routed.
|
| General franchisee revenue goes in a big bucket allocated
| across the entire corporation. A specific kickback might be
| going into one guy's pocket... If that one guy has
| sufficient political clout within the corporation, it could
| cause the present situation.
| gruez wrote:
| > A specific kickback might be going into one guy's
| pocket
|
| That's also super illegal, eg.
| https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-netflix-
| executiv...
| ansible wrote:
| And yet being illegal doesn't stop people from constantly
| trying it. They _do_ try to be more clever about hiding
| it as time goes on.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _New emails released in the McDonald's ice cream machine
| lawsuit_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29325507 - Nov
| 2021 (138 comments)
|
| _McDonald's unreliable ice cream machines reportedly under FTC
| investigation_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28407525 -
| Sept 2021 (41 comments)
|
| _The Feds Want to Know What the McFuck Is Going on with the
| McFlurry Machines_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28386567 - Sept 2021 (151
| comments)
|
| _The McFlurry Machine Company Just Got Hit with a McRestraining
| Order_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28119447 - Aug 2021
| (3 comments)
|
| _Why the McFlurry machine company just got hit with a
| restraining order_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28117164 - Aug 2021 (67
| comments)
|
| _Investigating why McDonald 's ice cream machines are often
| broken [video]_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26936774 -
| April 2021 (234 comments)
|
| _The Reason McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26932344 - April 2021 (3
| comments)
|
| _ArsTechnica has retracted the story about McDonald 's Icecream_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26918415 - April 2021 (8
| comments)
|
| _They Hacked McDonald's Ice Cream Machines-and Started a Cold
| War_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26874436 - April 2021
| (4 comments)
|
| _I reverse engineered McDonalds' internal API_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24861623 - Oct 2020 (420
| comments)
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